9th december 2008- still in the train

Still in the train, ALONE! Kerala sure is a beautiful sight from the train. Its almost mid December and kerala is still green. And red too. The rock that they use to make those houses in kerala, amazing… there is something in the texture of the rocks that attracts me to it. Those fields with the plastic bags as scare crows. Crows remind me of phoonk. I bet these plastic bags can scare away more things than that movie.

Well now, I have some company. A father and his little daughter must be around 8-9 years old. They didn’t have a seat, don’t think they even have a ticket, but I gave them half of my seat, not that I needed company, I just didn’t care about anything, I just moved and gave them space. But, I kinda started liking the girl. Damn sweet. But, I didn’t care about asking her, her name… was too busy in the whole soul searching business.

Him feeding her home made food with his own hands makes me cry. Why? Was I never fed like that? I was, but not anymore. I lost that relationship with dad the day we moved out of andheri and our old house. His mistakes, mom & I suffered. Still haven’t come to terms with it. I want to forgive him but something within me doesn’t allow me to. May be I may never be such a good father. I sincerely feel so. I could never be a good brother, nor a good son… I’m not a good man anyhow. I sometimes wonder, the people I miss so much in my life, the people who I think about so much, would I have been nice to them, had they been with me, alive? I don’t know. Life doesn’t plan to give me a second chance, don’t think I want one. I want to go through it, shamelessly.

Its funny, the girl holds her breath and keeps looking towards the bathroom till her father comes back, our seat is the first one, form where the bathroom is visible. Where have I lost that kind of innocence? I was like that once in my life, what happened? I don’t know; don’t think I want to know at this stage in my life. Watching the girl do that over and over again just made me cry. The best I could do is gift the girl for all her sweetness and pray that she remains the same always. Life is truly not of the moments you breathe away, its made of the moments that take your breath away.

God knows when ernakulam will come and I will get off this soul searching trip of mine

8th december 2008 - the train journey

Every morning in my life is eventful, this one wasn’t a exception. Almost collided head-on with trucks, a few buses and countless number of cars. All this, just to get to town early so that I could get the calendar printed, which amazingly I got printed at 8 in the morning… Those shops around metro don’t seem to have much to do, all of them open pretty early. Back to the calendar, don’t know why but I did something like that for a girl… literally first time in my life… you may say there is always a first… but in such a case, I hate myself for doing it. Funny, xtremely funny… a self proclaimed heartless prick like me doing something like this for a girl is as funny as it could get. & that too for someone who is ‘just a friend’ plain, pretty plain… still just a friend. God knows! Don’t know who knows!

It’s a funny feeling to be travelling alone and that too a 1600 km journey over 28 hours. The scenery surrounding the konkan railway track do at times stop you from going into that soul searching trip, but not for long… it hits you, and it hits you where it hurts you as bad farah would feel if u cut her tongue off.

& the funny thing here is that a group of college students are travelling in the same compartment as I am going probably to goa or further, may be for their industrial visit. Shit! Looking at them I get a dose of what I will probably miss coz of this decision of mine to go to kochi for sailing. Will I regret it all my life? Sure, I will. I have been regretting not going with my school friends till now & I will regret not going this time too. Shit! I can hear all the scare crows in the farms saying go back! go back! I can’t … sailing is too way important, who says… she says… who she? I don’t know

May be life’s like that & every man in his quest to become great has always something to look back at. It’s a void, I void that makes him ordinary like others. Inside, deep inside!

one kid’s dreams and a young man’s memories

As you all know, ‘I’m old school.’ I have a cellphone, all it does is makes call and sends messages; I still wear those old clothes and straight jeans and savvy the Yezdi and Royal Enfield over a Bajaj Pulsar. I grew up in Mumbai suburbs and the then untouched parts of Pune during a time when ‘Potli wale baba’ & ‘Alif Laila’ was on TV and my friends and I would play ‘sakli’ & ‘chor police’ running through the fields and hills behind my grandparents’ house, which leads me to the tree house.

When I was a kid my playgrounds were the hills and woods near Kothrud in Pune and in 1998, when I reached the age of 11, I was proficient in the swing of an axe and the grip of a saw. That’s when the creation began. We picked a Gulmohur tree which was half way up the hill. You could only get there by those old grassy farmers’ roads that twine through the straw field along the hill, and for the next 6 months, every spare moment I had, a vision emerged about half-a-km in back of our house.

It was small but grand! At not more than a height of around 10ft above the ground and had two rooms. Old furniture was cut to size to make the walls, and slab wood came from the construction site nearby. No pictures of it exist.

The first room was our living room and the next room was the bedroom which we called the Taj Suite and the very top opened like a hatch door leading to a nest. At this point I had cleared the treetops and had a clear shot at the Gandhi library nearby; which I think is the last of its kind. I even had a rope which hung the tree that you could use to help yourself climb into the tree house. The nights were lit by a kerosene lantern and water and food came from home.

Very few people knew of its existence, except for some summertime friends who lived nearby. The memories are priceless. Before finishing off the vacations in the summer, I actually lived there the entire 3 months of the holiday.

During the time I was at school in Mumbai someone torched the whole hill— deliberately or by accident, who knows. By the time I returned all that remained was ashes to ashes and dust to dust — it had returned to the earth.

I’m now approaching 22 and sometimes catch myself wondering where the time went, but will never forget my summers in Pune. I return when I can and my grandparents still live in Pune and are planning to move back to Mumbai soon.

Sorry if I rambled — thought this story might be an interesting as one kid’s dreams and a young man’s memories

Somewhere.
And someone who's sold his soul to the game
has just got out of bed.
Propelled by a new way of inflicting pain.
On himself.
We are not talking about a particular game here.
Like cricket. Or soccer. Or sailing.
We're talking sport.
And why, like a restless worm.
it gnaws into a man's soul.
Pushing him to run 0.025 seconds faster.
Or jump 0.5 centimeters higher.
Or shave all his body hair to
gain 0.01 seconds in the pool.
Is this a form of madness?
Hardly.
It's worse.
It's more like a disease.
Undeterminable.
Incurable.
And contagious.

this is what sport actually is

Some Jap wise ass said:
Better never to have met you in my dream than to wake and reach for hands that are not there.

jesus was a sailor

jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said all men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them
But he himself was broken
Long before the sky would open
Forsaken, almost human
He sank beneath your wisdom like a stone
And you want to travel with him
And you want to travel blind
And you think maybe youll trust him
For hes touched your perfect body with his mind.

aleatorio

i want to fly ...

blank empty spaces fill my mind
as I ride high on hopes of transcendence
I question my existence
the answers come through lights of various hues
I still fly...high in the sky...

Narendra Panjwanii quotes II

27/08/2008

"When you use the word realism in non canteen time, keep in mind that there is a horizon of expectation which accompanies the narrative. "

Narendra Panjwanii Quotes

well, nowadays i have not been getting time to transcribe all my stuff onto the pc, so just to keep something happening

you are going to get the Narendra Panjwani quote of the day(i.e. if i attend class)

18/08/2008:-
A film has its integrity in a fictional universe which has its own rules~dont ask me the rules!!!

random thoughts II

I am so happy today. I am smiling from ear to ear. Waking up thinking of you is paradise. I no longer notice the scars on my face because of you. Because you don’t. Who knew that all it takes for a tortured soul to find peace is a loving embrace.

I am happy today. Because if I asked you to love me, you would. And if I kissed you, you would kiss me back.

If you died I would bury you in my garden. If anyone would mind it, I'd steal your coffin. It wouldn't be that difficult compared to crouching in the Iraqi desert watching convoys of steel rolling to their deaths. Hearing the whine of an incoming missile, the brief shrieks of men and the twisting of metal into claws. I would make your grave my temple. I would sit there with your grave in front of me, my sword by my side and meditate.

My death would be a trivial event in my life compared to yours because you are my life. God works in mysterious ways. He tells us to resist temptation and when we give in it is not pain we feel but heavenly pleasure mixed with guilt. I am addicted.

You really don’t know how I feel. You just think I am in love. It is only when you are in love that you will notice how inadequate those three words "I love you" really are.

Plain, simple and very beautiful.

Random thoughts

The forbidden laws of society question my mere existence…I don’t care but may be sometimes I do. I guess I am human too. Unless this is a dream or maybe I am a spirit who wants to be human, yet the man haunts me!

I am still & I watch everyone pass by walking at their own pace. Doing good, Doing evil! May be I am an ant…the difference? I don’t have to follow anyone’s footprints. I feel I exist but I am not sure if I do... Is feeling the only criteria for existence? May be the world is forever shedding its feelings!

All this is scary, perhaps more than some of the worst nightmares. Nightmares don’t last long, reality does! I am scared of all the big faces that bring a thunderstorm in my life. These hidden faces haunt me & whistle in my ears with my every breath. Not every face threatens me, but I weep when I remember those enlightened faces turn black with time… I don’t know the sanity of my fears… But I know they can harm me.

May be some times, I like fear too, perhaps that is the only thing that makes me realize that I am not a zephyr of thought that comes without knocking and passes without intimation. I guess I am insane because I’m not able to evacuate myself from the grave of hatred & power! May be this is just not my world. May be my world starts from the horizon where love and feelings coincide.

Let me be

Heartbroken,
standing here with empty hands.
Cant believe this happened,
again?
No, it hurts no more.
But then I know,
I'm never sure.
Why me?
just let me be.

Eyes are the windows to the soul

She looked at me, standing in front of her. She looked into those remarkable eyes now filled with disgrace and humbleness.....once they were filled with love, happiness and laughter. She looked at that mouth once on the verge of a smile or a joke, now it showed just pieces of skin clinging to lips cut with desperation. She looked at that jaw line, once the symbol of determination, now the picture of malnutrition and decline. She looked at that man and sighed..... She didn’t love him anymore; maybe she never did….. And she walked away leaving him alone amidst the sounds of metal monsters roaring loud as they chewed on skeletons after skeletons…. His turn came to enter the hell of the monsters hungry stomach but, he stood his ground, for they could wait… he was waiting for her to turn in that stillness of spring, so he could sing to her a song, a confused cry of his heart…

I don't love you but I think I like you
Think I like you and I think you know
I don't want you but I do desire you
Do desire you and I won't let go…

I wanna be...

It's a long road
When you're on your own
And it hurts when
They tear your dreams apart
And every new town
Just seems to bring you down
Trying to find peace of mind
Can break your heart

It's a real war
Right outside your front door I tell ya
Out where they'll kill ya
You could use a friend
Where the road is
That's the place for me
Where I'm me in my own space
Where I'm free that's the place
I WANNA BE...

sings Dan Hill in Rambo…

The road is long and the sun is bright and I walk and I’m all alone , I don’t fight
my power, my pleasure, my pain and I know that all have grudges against my little left life.
Death remains my fancy and hope remains my sight.

Oh! but I’m too weak, I can’t walk and crawling with my stoic pride I can’t call out. I think that will make me a hero and something will happen. But, there is no sky above, no earth under my feet a sudden thunder captures my heart and a darkness touches me somewhere deep.

It hurts, it hurts but I’m happy because the pain is gleeful and I want to runaway from life with all its miseries and pain. I’m happy I’m dying.

I think I’m not breathing but I’m still alive! When I open my eyes to cherish the bargain and I woke up in hell and the flames of outside burning the flames of inside and a realization that death isn’t a release from misery because I’m not free and there is no more hope, life after death is a prison after prison and I;
I want to be immortal.

Dan Hill goes on ...

Cause the road is long yeah
Each step is only the beginning
No breaks just heartaches
Oh man is anybody winning...

Wisdom is like electricity. There is no permanently wise man, but men capable of wisdom, who, being put into certain company, or other favorable conditions, become wise for a short time, as glasses rubbed acquire electric power for a while.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

things fade away ...

This feeling, this strange feeling was eating me from inside. It was as if something right underneath my skin was vibrating and getting hot, to the point that it would burn my face and melt something in my eyes. I knew what was going on, I was so familiar with this feeling and I had tried so hard for so long to lose it. I couldn’t. I had come a long way: I had made peace with myself and had tried to get rid of all the hate and anger I once had towards all those who had ever made me feel this way. In theory, I was there. But in practice, every time the situation would repeat, the feeling would come back.
This time I am so mad at myself. Why was I feeling this way again? So what?
Sometimes it is so hard to face the reality , when you keep on running and suddenly stop and think it’s your stop but then you realize that it’s not n then again you run ... to find yourself ...your fate... your destiny but still you get nothing but the same routine and same darkness around you ... what you do then ??? I don’t know why sometimes a person doesn’t lose but winning is also seems as a dream ... why???
Sorry Nikhila, Sanika, Richa…

I am Spartacus

At the start of a journey,
I stand thinking of how to go.
May my feet carry me firmly,
May I never swerve from the road.

I know there are paths that lead
To a cozy little hell,
Where vipers nest and breed,
Where creeping creatures dwell.

Such paths are not for me
That into the darkness runs.

For, I am Spartacus;
May my feet carry me firmly;
To where victories are yet to be won.

i am spartacus

I led you here, sir,
For I am Spartacus

Alone, all alone nobody, but nobody
can make it out here alone.

Maya Angelou

one of my fav authors

The stars are favorable...

8^th May 2008, Kochi

If only suicide was an option. An easy way out. I could not bring myself to exchanging the agony of living this finite and mortal existence for an eternity in limbo. Neither alive nor dead. Only endless regret with images of my loved ones weeping in my memory and then forgetting me all together as if I never existed. Then, perhaps, remember once in ages. Their tears are too precious. Perhaps, a part of them would die with me. That tiny part of the human soul that makes one smile on a sunny day. And as brightly, too. Their smiles and laughter are more precious. Perhaps, too valuable. But, it was my own doing that put me on the bridge that I dared not cross. Even for my own salvation. Or damnation. Seems relative. Seems the same, almost. Damnation, perhaps to those alive at heart. Mine was shattered. It hurt when I smiled. It has been ages since I smiled as brightly as the sun beams warming up this cold, cold existence. Or felt warm when I smiled.

Perhaps, damned I was the day I saw her and told her, her destiny. The day I said something frivolously that changed someone’s life for the better. And mine for worse. Her tears and her smiles are most precious to me. Those I can not dream to put out. But like all those folk tales of the lovers of yore, my love was damned. Perhaps, I damned it the day I told her to go with someone other than me. Because color of my skin was not as fair as hers. Because her nose was not as crooked as mine. Because her hair were darker. Black as the night without a moon. Because the honor of her 'noble' family would be tarnished to accept me. Because I did not have the courage. I had no courage. I had only dreams in my eyes and words as homage to her beauty.

Silence was all that was between us I drove her back to her house. Proud of the sacrifice I was making for her. Proud that I thought of only what was best for her. A little more proud because she was to become just a number like many others that once I enjoyed. A little coaxing, a little teasing, a little sweet-conversations, a little lust appeased. A little comforting in preparation for the grand finale. And curtains. The act over and ushered in is the new prima donna of the ballet. Then another after another in a senselessly maniacal orgiastic way. Milestones by the road to be read, acknowledged & then forgotten; Perhaps, forgotten until in the company of friends and for the sake of healthy banter. Senselessly. Endlessly.

She was a milestone, then. I thought I could walk away. Or drive away like an errant motorist after hitting a stray dog or a pedestrian or a bicyclist on the roadside. Late in the night. No eye-witnesses. No law to judge. No one to carry the victim to the hospital. Or the morgue.

Dragged through the mud and grime and the gutters, she is still pure. Purer than the purest. Purer than I can ever be. Than I ever was. With a smile so preciously warm; vivifying. And tears that made her the biggest tragedy that could befall any man that ever lived. That could rip his heart out of his still heaving chest as he watches it gasping for more blood and then tremble and stop. There was something sadistically enjoyable in making a woman weep. It was not the first instance when I experienced this desire. But, I could not. I relented. I cursed myself and my pride in damnation. I relented by telling her that, perhaps, we ought to go about it slowly. Gradually recede like the waves from the sands at ebb tide. To make it easier, I told her that her suitor was far richer than I could ever possibly be. "Will he love me? Will he hold me in your arms? Will he caress my hair with your fingers? Will your lips kiss me when he kisses my lips? Will your eyes look at me when he does? When you are a thousand miles away?" Sobs and sighs were between us. Time rescued me for a few moments. A kiss could seal her lips. A man never goes back on his word. Sobs and sighs were between us. Then between peace and me.

She was a milestone. I could have taken that road. Could have fought the world with her at my side. For her honor, for my honor. As I had before. A man never goes back on his word. He never asks for directions. He fights through mud and mire and fire, hail, snow, ice, and deluge. And he comes out unconquered. Unconquered! I felt NOT, sir. Have not felt in eons, it seems.

A man never goes back on his word. But, the terms I relaxed. I called on her again, to see if she was surviving the landmine that I exploded beneath her feet. Something sadistic and venal and vulgar made me do it. Or was it something venial and human and unmanly. She was pleased as always to see me. She had almost forgotten the night before. A bad joke; "A boyish sort of thing!" she told herself and slept peacefully. Unlike I. I jolted her, awoke her to my reality. And tears. Her precious tears began to be wasted on me. My arms brought her no peace. I would not seal those trembling lips. I felt cruel. The most loathsome being that ever lived. Then she stopped. I told her that it was destiny. Our fate was to walk away before it is too late. Not a matter of choice. She threatened me with disgrace. I told her that the world would call her mad, a fool for uttering my foul name. To love me. A friend. A monster. A demon that would not do good unintentionally even. And the vacuous would brand her as the impure. Stained by me. The mask of nobility and humanity, I tore of my hideous face for her. Told her to never even dream or think about me. Told her to erase my memory, my existence from her mind. A nightmare. I told her to think of me as a nightmare. She stared only. And I left her there. Confused, dazed in shock. Bludgeoned with the mace of a reality that seemed to be veiled from her eyes, only. Yet, still breathing. Bleeding but alive. Like a doe gored by the tiger’s sharp fangs but left alone for her young one seemed a much, much more appetizing.

She called the restless, sleepless me after two days. The white flag was waved. A compromise was offered. I accepted it. A man never goes back on his word. She promised to marry the man her parents had chosen for her. I was to be a friend. A confidante. The brotherly sort whose warm hug and shoulder would be there when need be. The kind that takes the sting out of life for free. She giggled before she ended the call. Left me wishing. A man never goes back on his word.

Peaceful. Calm. Happy. I did not feel then, sir. Neither do I now. Perhaps, never may. I have felt a huge gaping chasm in my chest since then. The empty and vacuous sort that seems to never go away. No matter what or how much one eats. Everything goes in but it does not fill up. Perhaps, I was told once by someone that my soul was very deep. Perhaps, all the sorrow, that I have espoused, embraced and adopted, swallows up all that joy, the warm rays of sun in the cold winter days. Like a massive black hole at the centre of a hugely expansive galaxy. Gobbling up worlds and stars. Senselessly. Endlessly. Infinitely. Perhaps, that is why I cannot smile. I laugh at the poorest excuses of a joke from my mates. I find nothing funny in them anymore. Yet, I fake a hearty laugh. I do not want them realizing that I am a humorously anesthetized, sensation less, insensate creature akin to a zombie. I am cold and heartless. Forgive me for being dramatic. In reality, I do have a heart. It beats as many times a minute as any one's does, give or takes a few. It does not feel any more the joy that I used to feel. Blind and dislikeable Cynicism. Mistrust. Suspicion. Faithless Despondence. Callous and calculated words for all. And remorse, sadistic and ceaseless, infinitely haunting, perpetually taunting, like a know-it-all school-mate saying "I told you so! I told you so! I told you so! I told you so! I told you so! I told you so! I told you so! I told you so! I told you so! I told you so! I told you so! I told you so!"

She was a milestone that plunged me in deep and thoughtful remorse. Drowned me in regret. Yet, pulled me out again before the angel came as a savior. Only too, plunge me. Drown me again. And then take me out. And then drown me again. And now she is to wed a man who loves her not. Can love her not. Shall love her not. Will and shall love the wealth of metal-dust and paper she carries in her dowry.

I damned her. She is damned for me. I damned us. Perhaps, suicide is the way out. Waiting for salvation or further horrendous and unforeseeable degrees of damnation, I poison my breath. I poison my food. I poison my water. Poison my mind. With what my mates create for me. Perhaps, my gradual passing from health to sickness to eventual liberation will make it less hard on them. Sort of prep them. This slow wasting death is far more painful than a quick and sudden coup de grâce. All said and done in one go. No time to look back. No time to think ahead. No undoing the done. Just a classical rebel-without-a-cause ending. Perhaps suicide is the only way out. A man never goes back on his word. I gave my word that I would not explode or spontaneously combust. Perhaps, I can slowly let myself turn inward. Then let my personality implode upon myself. And go out forever.

The stars are favorable.