Chai, Sutta aur Philosophy ki Kitaab...

सफ़ेदपोश

2011-05-18T17:52:00.003+05:30

अजीब चीज़ हैं ये गुलज़ार साहब भी...

न जाने कमरे के कौन से कोने-अतरे

या दरवाज़े की चिंक से निकले चले आते हैं

जैसे कभी गायब हुए ही न थे...

चौंक के देखो तो कहते हैं

"चेहरे के नक्श सब धुल गए"...

कभी तन्हाई ओढ़के

लेटे रहने का मन करता है,

जब आँखों की सीलन

जून की गर्म हवा में

टीस मारने लगती है,

तो पास आकर बैठ जाते हैं...

सर पे हाथ फेरते हुए

पुचकार जाते हैं

कोई नज़्म ज़बां पर लगाकर...

पब्लिक में मिलो तो

हाथ पकड़कर भी अनजान बनते हैं,

कहते हैं "मेरे बचपन में आप कहाँ पैदा हुए होंगे"...

और फिर वही हाथ पकड़कर

वो परछाईं दिखा देते हैं सामने

जो सालों पहले देखी थी,

जब शागिर्द बने थे पहली बार...

धूप में जलाकर साये बनाया करते थे जब आप...

कैसे लाते हैं अपनी बातों में इतना ठहराव?

कभी डायरेक्टर बन जाते हैं तो कभी लिरिसिस्ट,

या स्टोरी/स्क्रीनप्ले/डायलौग राइटर...

कभी जो एक चीज़ में

चित्त लगा लिया हो ढंग से...

लेकिन अकलमंदों के साथ

यही समस्या रहती है...

फुदकने का टैलेंट बहुत होता है...

कवि का जामा पहन कर

तूत की शाख पर जा बैठते हैं

तो कभी फुटपाथ पर लेट जाते हैं

चाँद में रोटी ढूँढने के लिए

बुड्ढे दरिये की मुँह-ही-मुँह बड़बड़ाने की

आदत बयाँ करने लगते हैं...

अजीब चीज़ हैं ये गुलज़ार साहब भी...

सफ़ेदपोश हैं या नक़ाबपोश?

Release

2011-04-12T01:47:00.001+05:30

तंग आ चुके हैं कश्मकश-ए-ज़िन्दगी से हम

ठुकरा न दें कहीं सभी को बेदिली से हम

हम ग़मज़दा हैं, लायें कहाँ से ख़ुशी के गीत

देंगे वही जो पाएंगे इस ज़िन्दगी से हम

उभरेंगे एक बार फिर ये दिल के वलवले

माना के दब गए हैं ग़म-ए-ज़िन्दगी से हम

सहिष्णुता की भी एक सीमा होती है... किसी की छोटी, किसी की बड़ी... मैं अपनी सीमा का माप तो नहीं भांप सकता लेकिन इतना ज़रूर जानता हूँ की सितम्बर २००८ से लेकर आज तक मेरा एक ही लक्ष्य रहा है - अपने परिवार, अपने काम और अपने निजि जीवन में एक बैलेंस लाने का...

और कल ये सिद्ध हो गया की बैलेंस तो दूर, मैं अपने आप ही को बेवक़ूफ़ बना रहा था... आप दोनों महानुभावों से मेरी एक ही विनती है... मुझसे कोई आशाएं मत रखिये, क्योंकि पच्चीस साल में जो ये नालायक, निर्लज्ज व्यक्ति नहीं कर पाया वो अब न तो कर सकता है, न करने का इच्छुक है... मुझे मेरे हाल पे छोड़ दीजिये, मेरे बिना शायद आप लोगों का जीवन अधिक सुखद रहे, क्योंकि मुझमें आप लोगों की आशाओं को निराशा में तब्दील होने से रोकने का टैलेंट भगवान डालना भूल गया था...

Balance is a strange phenomenon

For as the idiot physics maintains

Force has to be equal on all sides

For the poise of the subject to be retained

And yet, look at the funny side of things

In life, the laws of physics cease to matter

You pull from one direction, you from the other

And the subject is torn asunder

Caught in the crossfire

No escape from reality

Except when he shuts its eyes to the pressures

Turns its back on you in order

To keep his mind in check

You remind it every day

Of how it has failed...

In whatever role he might have taken on

Here's one actor who can't do justice

The script goes awry

And it can't seem to ad-lib

You call it its irresponsibility

It calls it the inability

To play a role it is incapable of enacting

A professional requires talent

He has none

You call it its self-absorption

It whispers aloud

'I am trying to juggle with two forces of nature

A losing battle I fight everyday'

And then it gets a brainwave...

Put out the light and then put out the light.

Lazarus

2011-03-14T02:55:00.003+05:30

To borrow a phrase from Iron Maiden, 'maybe one day I'll be an honest man'...

Another year gone past without a post and suddenly, out of nowhere, the past seems to have caught up with this reader again... Gone is much of the vocabulary, having been replaced by the simplicity required by one's profession; and so too is much of the allusive imagery that used to be invoked in order to cloud the issue and shroud the meaning behind a delicate veil...

Instead, the reader stands here today, redemption having been achieved in another form than the one considered to be the sole - purgatory.

And yet, a glimpse through the blog has taken the reader through the infinite ebb and flow of emotions he went through back in the day...

A 21-year-old, taking baby steps into the realm of the unknown, began writing this blog on the basis of a whim, a desire to write, and some goading from a virtual stranger.

Almost five years later, the reader of this blog is bordering on 26, is well established in the profession he loves, the virtual stranger having become the most inseparable part of his life outside of his own body.

And yet he finds inspiration in his younger, inexperienced self... The inspiration to return from the language of thought to the language that the heart spurted forth... The inspiration to put away the humdrum of life, to come back home from work and actually shut down Cricket2007 before completing a match, and to go back to that rather more mature pursuit he had left behind with his 21-year-old self...

Having been enveloped, as the young writer had hoped, in comfortable mists, the reader had perhaps failed to see through those very mists and look at the picture that was painting itself behind the curtain... That with everything looking 'settled', it was time to put the feet up and enjoy retirement... The shortcut to the end, as it were...

But what the ghosts of 21-year-olds past brought flooding past the reader was the realisation that he had lost out on a lot of time in his pursuit of the mists... That the mind of the 21-year-old writer had not got left behind in time, rather it was still attached on the inside of the reader's skull, and was just coated in a thick, greenish-red layer of corrosion...

Time, then, to shake off the rust and be Lazarus, come back from the dead, again...

Or if the reader, for a moment, be allowed to borrow his younger counterpart's image...

The Phoenix rises from the ashes. Again.

If the virtual stranger be reading this post - hello shadows. what goes on here stays here. because redemption-reprise is back to being what it was and always should have been - an outlet for the reader and the writer.

* * * * *

One bears guilt today. Guilt of the order that one had to actually confide in somebody, not something he is wont to do, in order to rest one's mind.

The young writer is not the only ghost of the past that has decided to pay Uncle Scrooge a visit. The old muse has returned to one's mind, for reasons unknown and unfathomable.

Blame it on the stalker/murderer who shot that poor girl. Had that not occurred, the red bricks, the grey sandstone and the green lawns would have remained a distant, unpleasant memory. Instead, all the ink that was blotted out of one's sheet has appeared again on the page, forming distinct words.

Words that reflect old quests - like the old trunk in the attic that still holds the artefacts one stashed away in extraordinarily whimsical moments. Or like my other cupboard, in which one does find a skeleton or two.

The human mind is a strange instrument...

Valentine's Day, 4am... Musings and a cup of hot soup...

2010-02-14T03:58:00.004+05:30

427 days

That's how long it has been since I last wrote... Believe me, let alone this blog, I haven't WRITTEN for that long... Which is why it comes as a bit of a surprise, especially to me, that I am back here, tapping out words at an alarming rate, given the fact that the clock has already struck four.

Maybe Archies Gallery should take out commemorative cards for this too...

Perhaps what did bring me back here was a chance encounter with this blog again last week... When I set about reading those old poems, those old posts, soaking in the old emotions once again... Trying to understand the whys and hows of all those pieces that had poured out of me that long ago... Some things sounded downright funny, others took me back to the events that were detailed therein, or the thoughts that engendered those words...

Today, I stand here, making a living out of those very words that were honed here...

And I look back at the vast expanse that spreads before me, creating a landscape of memories...

If I am honest, I have neither felt the need nor the urge to write anything in these past 14 months... Shit, as I am wont to say, has not been flying... Therefore, nothing to report... After all, no news is good news and good news is no news at all...

But today, I feel a conflict building up inside me for some odd reason... Maybe it is the 1400-odd miles that stand between me and my funny valentine, but the old urge to write for myself seems to want to break its way out of the shell that I have imprisoned it inside...

Yes there is a part of me that resents the failings of the past... How every goal I set for myself at one point of time seemed a horizon too far, how a series of failures and half-baked successes stared at me everytime I looked into a mirror...

Then there is the idiot who still wants to wonder what could have been... What could have been if I had actually worked hard for the engineering entrances? What could have been had I stuck with English literature? Would I be a lecturer somewhere, or would it have been a case of the chaupaal at Bahadur's or under the watchful eyes of Bibekanondo? What if I hadn't trusted the perpetrators of paedogate? Would I have been as bitter and as self-preservingly distrusting of all human kind? What if I wasn't born with the overwhelmingly natural compulsion to lie? What if I had chosen the other path at the most difficult dilemma-fork of my life so far? Would my life have been perfect despite the absence of an instruction manual which, incidentally, I was supposed to be?

Too many questions... But I don't need to answer or speculate on any of them... If you have excess cash, be sure to take a punt, but I do not need to...

For life, in the words of Ian Malcolm, found a way... Or three...

Leave aside the monetary or the beneficial aspects of being a sports guy... I am happy doing what I do, because I love it... I have not had to sacrifice any of my passions - rather, I get rave reviews for living them each day... I nibble on the bread that my words win me, my art lies in my differentiation...

But perhaps, and I use this word guardedly, my biggest success has been MFV... At last count, four people counted me definitively as their best friend -- I count one. She is my goddess, for one paramount reason I do not need to hold back anything... All I need to do is be myself, without any compulsions of physical/mental/sentimental/habitual/verbal alteration, and she will take care of the rest...

For an attention-seeking egomaniac, each wave of attention, followed by a swift kick in the pants, serves as a reminder to soar as high as one can afford, before returning to terra firma when the low-fuel lights begin to flash...

Let Tantin call me what she wanted to, because here is the latest horse this beggar has bought...

This V-day, this post is for you M... Long may it last...

My Funny Valentine

~ By Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart; Vocals by Frank Sinatra

My funny Valentine
Sweet comic Valentine
You make me smile with my heart
Your looks are laughable, unphotographable
Yet you're my favorite work of art

Is your figure less than Greek?
Is your mouth a little weak?
When you open it to speak, are you smart?

But don't change a hair for me
Not if you care for me
Stay little Valentine, stay
Each day is Valentine's Day...

मौत, एक कविता...

2008-12-14T23:31:00.003+05:30

"क्यूँ मुहँ लटकाए खड़े हो भई?"

"कोई अपना गया है... नाचूं उसके जाने की खुशी में?

ज़िन्दगी भर ज़िन्दगी से लड़ते-लड़ते कमज़ोर पड़ गया था वो...
आखिरकार ज़िन्दगी ने क्या नहीं फेंक के मारा उसे?

ऐसा लगा कि कोई एहसान रह गया था ज़िन्दगी का उसके सर
जिसे चुकाने में आना-कानी कर बैठा बेचारा
या फिर ऐसा तो नहीं था, कि किसी का कुछ बिगाडा हो
और ऐन उसी वक्त ख़ुदा उठा हो अपनी लम्बी नींद से
और नज़र आ गया हो उसे वो शख्स

अब ख़ुदा पर तो कोई क्या ऊँगली उठाये
लेकिन नानी हमेशा कहती थीं
कि अगर सच्चे मन से माफ़ी मांग लो, तो ख़ुदा का दिल भी पिघल जाता है
लेकिन कहने को तो वो ये भी कहती थीं कि अच्छा कर्म करो
तो फल बुरा हो ही नहीं सकता

फिर क्यूँ ऐसा हुआ कि दुनिया को खुश करने वाला
कल चिता पर लेटा था
और पूछनहारों कि क़तार में कितने मगरमच्छ खड़े थे
ये भी वो ऊपरवाला ही जानता होगा
अगर उसकी आँख फिर न लग गई हो तो...

ख़ैर, ये सब बातें भूलिए साहब, इनमें रखा क्या है
इंसान की फ़ितरत तो सिर्फ़ इतनी है
कि जो सामने होता है, ध्यान उसपर आ जाता है
जो गया, वो कितने वक़्त तक दिमाग़ में घर बनाये रह सकता है बेचारा?

कुछ आंसू बहेंगे,
उस सोते हुए ख़ुदा को कुछ लोग कोसेंगे...
ज़िन्दगी चलती जायेगी
आखिरकार
साँस लेना एक ऐसी लत है जो छूटे नहीं छूटती
जो छोड़ पाया, उसे क्यूँ न ख़ुदा बुला लें?"

Dirge for the departed...

2008-11-22T05:10:00.007+05:30

They make it so easy in the movies
With the background music, the parting shot
And the walk away
If only you, cinema, could be penned
By the hand of one that is greater than us
How incoherent would you be?

This is the way the world ends
Burns out, doesn't fade away
One moment is frolic, grins and teeth
Another, a flickering candle
To be put out, with a huff of breath
And leave just the faint aroma of burning wax behind

Yet, as you walk away
Light up your cigarette and remember the times
You shared your lives, like those stubs within
Each needs to be put out
But leaves the ashes behind
To be scattered on the drain tomorrow morning

And then, within the losing cause
Comes the phase when its rendezvous again
There is no pain
Really, none at all
"Iron entered his hitherto kindly soul"
It was a long pointy sword

And so the Phoenix falls again
Mortally wounded, and unlikely to return
Yet rebirth is inevitable
Burn brighter, O golden one!
It is you who will turn the diamond-studded blackness grey
This is your chance to shine, shine on!

Burial at sea
Beneath an epitaph
On a tower of silence
Or just a gift to the flames
And time for all the greens
To ignite their fragile selves
And leave the residue behind
Yellow.

दीवाली

2008-10-28T03:25:00.003+05:30

आप सबको मेरी ओर से दीपावली की अनेकानेक शुभकामनाएँ...

प्रार्थना करूँगा की लक्ष्मी-गणेश सदा आप पर आशीर्वाद बनाये रखें, आपके जीवन में खुशियों का प्रकाश फैले...

और ये मेरे लिए...

रौशन था जो एक दिया जहाँ में, हवा से बाज़ी हार गया
पटाखों की गड़गड़ाहट के बीच उसे दफ़नाने की बारी है
रात कमरे में घुसकर खुशियों का गला घोट गई
यही अमावस की रात शायद कलयुग की दीवाली है...

Keeping the Faith...

2008-10-10T20:58:00.004+05:30

For a believer to be together with an Agnostic is a pretty tough ask...

Picture this: SOMETHING, ANYTHING goes wrong...

Believer: Have faith in God, my dear, he'll make things right
or
Fate follows a Sine Curve, love. You've hit rock bottom, the only way to go is up...

Agnostic: Yeah right, who created that trouble in the first place? YOUR GOD!
or
Fuck your trigonometry... I hate this GOD who's such a SADIST that he can't get enough of fucking up everyone's happiness...

Now what does the believer do? Agree with him/her and lose her/his own faith in God? Wait till the storm passes over and things return to normalcy?

This is EXACTLY when Gulzar comes in handy... At least, he did for me...

ख़ुदा - ४

पूरे का पूरा आकाश घुमाकर बाज़ी देखी मैंने--

काले घर में सूरज रख के,
तुमने शायद सोचा था, मेरे सब मोहरे पिट जायेंगे,
मैंने एक चिराग़ जला कर,
अपना रस्ता खोल लिया

तुमने एक समन्दर हाथ में लेकर, मुझ पर ढेल दिया
मैंने नूह की कश्ती उसके ऊपर रख दी
काल चला तुमने, और मेरी जानिब देखा
मैंने काल को तोड़ के लम्हा लम्हा जीना सीख लिया

मेरी खुदी को तुमने चन्द चमत्कारों से मारना चाहा
मेरे इक प्यादे ने तेरा चाँद का मोहरा मार लिया--

मौत की शह देकर तुमने समझा था अब तो मात हुई
मैंने जिस्म का खो़ल उतार के सौंप दिया--और रूह बचा ली

पूरे का पूरा आकाश घुमाकर अब तुम देखो बाज़ी

फ़रमान

2008-09-24T02:10:00.001+05:30

चैन तो धरती छोड़कर भी नहीं मिलता ना...
अब किसने ये सोचा था कि परलोक में भी कस्टम अफ़सर मिल जायेंगे?
सूटकेस तो छोड़ के आना था प्लेटफार्म पर, लेकिन आख़िरकार उसे पीछे नहीं छोड़ पाया मैं...
क्या करता, कुछ क़ीमती चीज़ें अब भी बाकी थीं उसमें...
पर इन कमबख्तों ने उन्ही पर आब्जेक्शन लगा दिया!

एक टी-शर्ट मिली, कुछ पसीने से महकी हुई
एक लाल रंग का तौलिया, जिसमें से नमी गायब नहीं हुई थी अब तक
सिगरेट का एक आधा-अधूरा सा पैकेट
बस के दो टिकट
सब माया की निशानियाँ थीं, जो उसे वापस करनी थीं...

एक कलश मिला, मामा की अस्थियों का
माँ के आँसुओं से भीगा एक कुरता मिला
डब्बा भरकर गंगाजल भी था, अपने तर्पण से चुराया हुआ...

ये सब चल जाता...
लेकिन उस सूटकेस में कुछ किरचें भी बरामद हुईं
तेज़, नुकीली किरचें
जो कभी ज़बान पर आकर अटक जाया करती थीं
कभी गले में खरोंचें मारती चलती थीं...
किरचें कुछ अधूरी नज़्मों, कुछ टूटे ख़्वाबों की

इसीलिए शायद मुझे इस 'परगेटरी' में रखा गया है...
खुदा के फैसले के इन्तेज़ार में...
हवलदार मुझे लेकर जा रहा है कोर्टरूम...
और सामने भूरे रंग का शौल लपेटे उस न्यायमूर्ति ने ठोक-बजाकर
फ़ैसला कर ही लिया...

एक महीना हुआ नहीं जन्नत की दहलीज़ पार किए,
और फ़रमान सुना दिया उसने दोज़ख में पहुंचाने का...
क्या उसे भी जीना माया ने ही सिखलाया था?

जानता है वो की माया ने मुझे देख लिया तो उसका पत्ता कट जाएगा
जलता है वो मुझसे...

इजाज़त

2008-09-24T02:06:00.003+05:30

(An ode to my Guru, Gulzar-sahab's eponymous film... written on August 2)

इस इजाज़त पर आकर कहानी ख़त्म नहीं हुई
अभी तो सिर्फ़ सुर्ख़ सूरज दिखाई दिया है पहाड़ पर
सात बजे की गाड़ी फिर कमबख्त लेट है...

सुधा दूर प्लेटफ़ार्म की घड़ी के नीचे सो रही है
अपने पति के काँधे को बालों से ढककर
जहाँ एक तिल होना तो था, मगर हो न सका...
सुधा, जिसने क़ुरबानी दी थी मेरे लिए
आज ख़ुश है, मगर रोई बहुत कल रात
शायद मेरा आना ही उसके लिए ग्रहण बन जाता है

जब दादू ने पहली बार फ़रमान सुनाया था शादी का
फूट-फूट कर रोई थी सुधा, न जाने क्यूँ
क्या उसे मालूम था की उसी दिन छिन रहा था उसका सुकूँ?
जब में शहर गया, तो मन में सुधा थी, हाथ में अंगूठी
जब वापस आया, तो शायद भूख खा गयी थी दोनों
क़ीमती चीज़ें अक़्सर भूख मिटाने में मिट जाया करती हैं...
सुधा भी मिट चुकी थी...

माया से मुलाक़ात हुई, तो लगा ज़िंदगी ने गले लगा लिया...
रात की कालिख़ से लुका-छुपी खेलने का शौक़ तो चाँद को भी होता है
पर माया... माया इशारों पे नचाना जानती थी उन्हें
लफ़्ज़ के मानी पूछती थी, फिर उन्हीं की झड़ी तय्यार हो जाया करती थी...

मैंने जब पहली बार पूछा शादी के लिए, तो सुधा का ख़याल नहीं आया...
आया तो माया का जवाब - की बदसूरत बच्चे मुझे पसंद नहीं
और एक ख़त भेज दिया मेरे नाम...
'हंसाओ मुझे' लिखकर...
खेल खेलने का शौक़ था न तुम्हें माया?
लो, हार मान गया मैं, अब तो आ जाओ!
कहाँ छुपी हो? हाँ, बादलों के बिस्तर पर सो रही हो...
अपनी बचपन की दोस्त, मौत के साथ...
तुम दोनों का प्यार आखिर जन्नत तक पहुँच ही गया

फिर कल रात, वादी जब भीग रही थी बारिश में
सुधा से टकरा गया, उसकी ज़िंदगी में एक और रात बनकर
शायद वो पावर-कट भी यही याद दिलाने को था
ख़ैर अब हाथ में सिगरेट लिए मैं जनरल का
और तुम फ़र्स्ट-क्लास का इन्तेज़ार कर रही हो

तुम्हें इजाज़त देने वाला मैं कौन हूँ सुधा?
इजाज़त तो मुझे तुमसे लेनी चाहिए थी
तुम्हें घोल के पी जाने से पहले...

राहगीर हूँ, मुसाफ़िर हूँ, आज यहाँ तो कल कहाँ
इजाज़त मुझे माया से ले लेनी चाहिए थी
ताकि बिना बताये मिलने जाने का बुरा न लगता उसे
ख़ैर, अब तो मिलने जा ही रहा हूँ

लो! ट्रेन भी आ रही है...
सुधा, इजाज़त?

मैं, महेंद्र, जा रहा हूँ
एक छोटी-सी कहानी, कुछ सामान
कुछ क़तरे आवाज़ के छोड़कर
इस सूटकेस में...
खाली हाथ, माया के पास...

Anger Management

2008-09-08T00:14:00.002+05:30

Why is it that people HAVE TO ruin my good days? All good and sunny from 7am to 11pm then KA-BOOM, and shit flies...

Bubbling with gall
Lava on rise and fall
Drive your head against the wall...
Piece of shit, FUCK IT ALL!

Redemption Requiem

2008-09-04T02:47:00.005+05:30

And so the circle is complete...

There stands Prufrock again
At the bottom of the stairs
Bald, rail-thin
Still fumbling with his peaches and tie-pin

But on his way out the door
The party's over
Michelangelo lives
To be discussed tomorrow...

The suitcase still lies on the platform
Nowhere is he to be found...
The clock strikes 2 A.M.
It's been years since he's gone...

Taking refuge in some corner of a dark alley maybe
Darkness, the old friend, has embraced him again
The lure of the world gave up trying to seduce him
Other willing partners for this mime have been found...

The curtain drops on the show
The public leaves, murmuring about the performance
In a crescendo of engine sounds
Screeching tyres and clouds of dust...

Dust, dust again...
He likes to breathe it, when he can...
Ash, ground in dust
Ms Fire, thou hast done well
The half-lived life
A life well-lived...

Tired of lying in the darkness
He emerges, billowing smoke
Crumples it underfoot
No stub.

Dr. Lecter's Tale...

2008-07-27T18:12:00.004+05:30

Streets lined with puddles of standing rain
Speeding along through the night
Headlights illuminating the gathering vultures
In the middle of monsoon
There sits the Doctor
His feast ready to be devoured
And yet, before the cannibalism
Comes the necrophilia
He kisses the corpse
Becomes a statistic in her book
Number 22, and possibly the last...
He can feel the anguish on her contorted face
He can yet smell the molten gold on her breath
She won't breathe no more...
Dead, Dead, Dead...
The hungry Doctor
Bites into the soft flesh
Devours her at speed...

And then the poison in her veins begins to creep over him...
He clutches at his throat,
Falls back
Dead, Dead, Dead...
The vultures swoop down
The moon is eclipsed...
R.I.P Dr. Hannibal Lecter...

I drive on into the night,
Home, home again...

The Exhaust Tale

2008-07-20T22:08:00.001+05:30

Strange nights, these
Spent in wait
Jitters that travel up and down the spine
The phobia of a dark room
Staring up at the ceiling
A vast expanse of movie screen
The smoke from the projector
Flashing images in grayscale
The cool breeze touching the surface
Fever
The enterprises of great pith and moment
Where the silhouette raises the blade
And spurts Rosso Corsa
Onto the sheets
The eternal wait for the war to end
When slings and arrows
Would cease to matter
The silhouette dares to dream
And yet the flowing red snaps him back to reality
Some say he has no mind, no soul
And that the last time he breathed
Was in King Arthur’s time
Waiting to exhale
Waiting for goodness to embrace him
The goodness of carbon monoxide
To engulf him, envelop him
Global warming.

Devils, Outcasts, Old Men...

2008-06-26T18:39:00.006+05:30

Those amongst us that have read Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" will probably remember how the author alleges that the Roman Catholic Church went on witch-hunts to keep the secret of the Holy Grail... That women were specifically targeted and demonized so that no one would believe the story that Mary Magdalene ("The Prostitute") was, in fact, the Daughter-in-Law of God.... It did come as a shock to the church, and all its believers who protested against the book, since their beliefs were based on the absolute infallibility of their beloved Vatican and the Pope. But then again, one can't really say for sure, since versions of history are more open to interpretation than modern archived fact... Who knows, for example, if the Knights Templar were actually sinners, rather than the heroes they were made out to be by Mr. Brown...

Speaking of fallen heroes, let us spare a moment's thought for the men who, about 25 years ago, defined a nation with their underdog achievements. Knights, like the Templar, who in the last 25 years, have been forgotten, remembered, ostracized and humiliated by the modern version of that all powerful, "hand of God" organization, the BCCI. Of course I refer to that band of 14 merry men, led by the Robin Hood from Haryana.

"Kapil's Devils" fired the imagination of a generation. For a country that has always struggled in sporting arenas across the world, they brought with them the tag of "World Champions". As every news channel in this country has already pointed out, they "Lorded" over the "Mecca of Cricket". This was the team which made cricket what it has become in India, and consequently, the world today. Think of it this way - had June 25, 1983 been another West Indian triumph, there would be no IPL, no ICL, no Champions League, nothing. There would never be enough money in cricket, compared to the millions and billions in Soccer, Basketball and suchlike. That victory was what made the Indian cricket fan buy into the sport, fill up the seats, watch it at 3 am on TV LIVE from the Caribbean and allow every corporate worth their salt to dip their hands into cricket advertising.

On the Silver Jubilee of the cup, the old men, some of them now Granddads, got together again, and everyone in the Indian media was there to interview them, with the same, pedantic questions... How did Ballu Sandhu manage to bowl the perfect inswinger to dismiss Greenidge? What was Kapil thinking of when he took the famous "running backwards" catch off Viv Richards? How did "Mr. Trivia" Sunil Valson feel about getting a winner's medal, despite never playing a game? Even the BCCI hosted a gala event, awarding everyone 25 lakh rupees each for their achievements. But it was a funny sight to see Mr. Pawar standing next to Kapil, about 2 days after insisting that no one with any links to the ICL would be allowed to play in the Champions League, and threatening English counties towards the same. And the irony, it seems, was totally lost on the Indian public...

Kapil Dev Nikhanj, the World Cup winning captain, the centre of all attention, heads the breakaway league, with colleagues Sandhu, Madan Lal and Sandeep Patil as coaches. Each one of them has been mercilessly targetted by the Board for stepping "out of line"... Their pensions have been stopped, and perhaps it was only after Sunny Gavaskar had twisted a few arms in the organization that the Board actually decided to save face and "honour" the players... What we have here, ladies and gentlemen, is another case of "history repeats itself", albeit on a smaller scale... Pope Pawar XIII, along with his cohorts - Bishops Modi, Manohar, Shah and the like, is out to get the old devils...

What the Indian public should understand after this episode, is that the Board, which was just about bankrupt in 1983 and would've remained were it not for the efforts of these men, has become a conniving, hypocritical organisation, driven by profit motive, which has understood how to milk its cash-cows, the players. And like any Yankee farm-owner, it will shoot the cow that strays onto another's pasture.

But at least for a few days, people like Gavaskar and Shastri, the morally-correct lay preachers, were reunited with the Devils, and thank goodness that after the media glare, the BCCI and everything else thrown at them, they got their old boys' reunion in the long-room at Lord's, far from the madding crowd. And ofcourse, justice was delivered...

The Holy Grail of World Cricket once again found its way into the hands of our own Mary Magdalene/Satan, one Mr. Kapildev Ramlal Nikhanj.

The Obituary...

2008-04-25T01:27:00.003+05:30

It was fun when it all began
Fresh-faced teens on a red-brick background
He spotted her wearing a green pince-nez
And thought to himself 'what a snob!'

A month was all it took for pride and prejudice to deconstruct
As he decided to play Antony; she Cleopatra
Through the initial rough and tumble he survived
But the seeds of his hamartia had already been sown...

She came to him soon enough
And there were two hearts beating as one
She was his first love
And the world was full of Dutch tulips...

Iagos abound in this world, so he found out soon
But who was to blame but himself?
Like the old ram, he had dug his own grave
And, Peripeteia occured...

She left him for another, he wrote
And engulfed himself in love of the Red
She had indeed moved on, hated him
And there was no contact...

It was histriomania that landed them back in a room
He apologised, she forgave him
But reserved judgment on his past
The quest for redemption had begun...

He tried to bide his time
He tried to be her friend
He tried to pry her loose
But knew, it was a losing battle...

A sudden swing in fortunes
And he was back in the running
Maybe the Old Man had something to do with it
But he would never know...

They drifted apart and floated together
Grew up into the twenties
His heart still had a reservation for one
She was destined for bigger things...

One day, the break came
The least he could do was say goodbye
'Be cheerful sir, our revels now are ended'
And that was the end...

Or maybe not, for she still cared for him
Called him up one fine morning
Reestablished the connection that should've been left broken
And up went his hopes again...

But she had moved on again
And that left his journey for redemption unfinished
Till the next break happened
Which took another bit of him away...

He was finally the man she would've wanted him to be
But alas! She wasn't there to see
The knight was riding in shining armour
To hide, perchance, or put up a front...

And yet again, that primitive form of communication popped up
Telepathy, destiny, fate - it has many names
But this time he was firm in resolve
And managed to put it across to her...

" I want you to know it's a little fucked up,
That I'm stuck here waitin', no longer debatin',
Tired of sittin' and hatin' and makin' these excuses,
For why you're not around, and feeling so useless,

It seems one thing has been true all along,
You don't really know what you've got 'til it's gone,
I guess I've had it with you and your career,
When you come back I won't be here and you can sing...

Where'd you go?
I miss you so,
Seems like it's been forever,
That you've been gone. "

That was when he breathed his last, that man
It was as if a debt had been paid
He could finally breathe easy
Easy come, easy go...

He had forgotten that he was Faustus
The man who had sold his soul to Lucifer
Mephisto came to him and said
'Its time, my friend...'

Wander the depths, Faustus
Find solace, if not redemption...
For thou hast left and gone to hell
And I wish thee a warmer Farewell...

They say Beelzebub is a benefactor
Not the Fair Lord up above
May the fire not singe thy coat of fur
But even if it does,
'habit is a great deadener...'

Let the Madness Begin!

2008-04-04T13:05:00.005+05:30

And so after all the hype, the hoopla, the drama, the gazillion dollars, and everything else that spells P-O-M-P under the sun, the Indian Premier League will finally get underway on April 18. Now, call me a traditionalist, but I tend to think that Test Cricket is being violated, nay, slow-poisoned by all these upstart T20 tournaments. Be it the OFFICIAL one or the REBEL ICL, what with the high-bass music, the dancing babes, or the handsome hits to- and over-the-fence, the traditional straight bat has been chucked out of the window overlooking the ocean... (Read: 'has been left to sink')

Come to think of it, THIS, my dear reader, is the evolution that Darwin talked about... How an old species has to adapt to changing conditions or else, face extinction... It remains to be seen whether Test cricket, the true test of strength and character, turns out to be a Dinosaur...

* * * * * *

But then again, the show must go on... And the show, undoubtedly, is Twenty20 cricket... Blessed be the Englishman who invented the game of cricket, and blessed be the other one who thought of this ridiculous idea to shorten the game to 20-overs-a-side. Doesn't seem too ridiculous, does it now, especially with Lalit Modi at the helm? Here's some food for thought for those who call the IPL a waste of time/money/talent... Would Vijay Mallya invest his millions in a doomed project? Uh-huh, sonny boy, I DONT THINK SO!

The best part about the ICL/IPL concept is actually borrowed from the Americans - the concept of city-centered franchises and the rivalry between them... This is a concept that actually polarizes the urban audience as per their geographic allegiance, which, if my reading of human history is correct, has been the reason for the 2nd highest number of wars in history (the 1st being ofcourse, religion). This helps generate more interest, brings out the performer in every player, and also makes an outsider playing for the team more selfless - since he plays for the AUDIENCE and their energy... THE FAN IS KING!

And what the teams have realized is that sports are for young people... Their marketing strategies are centered around colloquial usages, and packages that would attract the youth. SRK's proclamation of KORBO, LORBO, JEETBO for his Kolkata Knightriders franchise was the seminal moment, when the IPL brigade went under-25. Its all about the Passion, it really is...

Passion is, ofcourse, where DADA is... Mr. Sourav Chandidas Ganguly, the man who wore his heart on his sleeve as captain, the one who defined a generation of Indian cricket... Add to that, the passion of Shah Rukh Khan, the Mark Cuban of IPL, throw in the glut of talent, and what you have is a team worthy of a fan-following, even before a ball has been bowled...

KORBO LORBO JEETBO RE!!! GO KNIGHT-RIDERS!!! :-D

Ramblings in the Interior...

2008-03-22T23:26:00.002+05:30

Frustration is cruel to the subject's mind
Cruelty is inbuilt into mankind
Mankind's favourite pastime is chatter
Chatter is what monkeys do, it don't really matter...

Matter is used in physical science
Science is used to clearly demarcate philosophical lines
Lines are drawn on maps to separate countries
Countries are threatened by global warming, save trees...

Trees are useless unless its Spring
Spring up to the top with a zing
Xing is a variant of the Hyundai Santro
Santoro is also the name of a Tennis Pro...

Pro or positive feelings are not things with whom I associate
Associates are the ones who you call when you're late
Lately though, they never reported it to the boss, something i hated
And now I am frustrated...

Moral of the story: When you're mindfucked, life is circular...

A Quarterly Report, The Usual Musings, and A Tribute to The Wonder Years...

2008-03-20T04:12:00.002+05:30

And so I'm back after a long, long hiatus, come back from the dead to tell you all... I shall tell you all...
Not that you'll be interested, but if you are in the habit of reading other people's blogs, read on...

* * * * * *

Anyway, so here I am, two days short of 3 months into my first job... And its been so far, so good... I'm doing what I love most, SPORTS, and may the revelry continue... Albeit in a different medium... Nothing against mobile phones, nothing at all, but I would much rather be in front of a camera, covering sports for television... But if wishes were horses etc etc...
So the quarterly report would be rather profitable... Coz I feel it is broadening my horizons as far as progress ahead and upwards is concerned... Enough about the workplace...

* * * * * *

And so, it has been six months... Diwali is now a distant, bitter memory, and Holi is around the corner... But in here (pointing at the fuckin brain), nothing much has changed... Its weird, its funny, but I cant really find a reason for this constant fixation... I mean FINE, I loved her, SOMETIMES she loved me too, for cryin' out loud as the Americans would say... But shouldn't there be an inbuilt mechanism somewhere within the grey matter that can flush out these unwanted memories???

A couple of days ago, I had a weird dream... Dunno what Freud would've interpreted it as, but it was freaky... I saw her, and I saw her offspring, say 10 years hence... And for no rhyme or reason, there was a reunion - a flashback to those moments which still linger in the vicinity of this bloody brain... That too, just as I thought I was actually beginning to turn my thoughts towards someone else...

Bottom line - I still miss you Meiya... U r, and perhaps will remain the only one... The only one in front of whom there were no masks - the only one who ever knew Shreyas Sharma, not Big Daddy...

Or, in the words of the legendary Pablo Neruda...

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.

Write, for example,'The night is shattered
and the blue stars shiver in the distance.'

The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

Through nights like this one I held her in my arms
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.

She loved me sometimes, and I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.

This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

My sight searches for her as though to go to her.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.

The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.

Another's. She will be another's. Like my kisses before.
Her voice. Her bright body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.

Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.

Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.

* * * * * *

But then again, all is not dark and thorny... Nothing ever is, actually... Nothing lasts forever... Even my relentless pessimism... No, really... Although I've had a bit of outside help, over the past 3 months of my Mobile ESPN sojourn... After the fiasco(s) @ IIMC, its been great to find Rocket/Raju/GK2Junkie, Khyali, Wrik and Shreeja... What with Raju's aversion to tickling, the stupid/smart Khyalisms, which often lead to paroxysms of laughter, Wrik's smart-ass observations (Chelsea fan, after all!) and Shreeja's gang-leader act, LIFE'S GOOD, FOLKS!

Thanks for all the booze and the good times, guys... I can just appreciate it by humming something from my fave TV Show of all time, The Wonder Years...

What would you do if I sang out of tune,
Would you stand up and walk out on me?
Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a song
And I'll try not to sing out of key.

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends
Mm, I get high with a little help from my friends
Mm, gonna try with a little help from my friends

What do I do when my love is away
(Does it worry you to be alone?)
How do I feel by the end of the day,
(Are you sad because you're on your own?)

No, I get by with a little help from my friends
Mm, I get high with a little help from my friends
Mm, gonna try with a little help from my friends...

Gentlemen, the game is dead!

2008-01-08T20:47:00.000+05:30

Happy New Year to anyone who might've lost their cyber-way and landed up here... Doesn't seem a very happy one where I am - a wannabe sports journalist in a cold, foggy city, 15 days into his first job, covering the biggest controversy to have befallen Cricket since the time when Mike Denness' mama couldn't keep her legs together! So, Messrs Bucknor and Benson had a horrendous test match... And Bucknor can't stand at Perth... So, Harbhajan Singh was banned for three test matches, for calling Andrew Symonds a monkey... So, Ricardo Ponting and his team won a record equalling 16th-consecutive test...

Does that mean the passionate Indian cricket fan should participate in his neighbourhood protest rally and burn effigies? Should the BCCI cancel the tour altogether, since 'unfair treatment has been meted out to our team, and the Indian national pride has been hurt'? Should Ponting be pressured to relinquish captaincy owing to his team's growing behaviour issues? Was Kumble right in saying that only one team played the game in the right spirit? Was he wallowing in self-pity? Are Indians crybabies - as seen in the South Africa series in 2001 under similar circumstances?

Too many questions, too few answers available... But we maybe ignoring the most important question of them all...

Is this what the Gentlemen's Game is coming to? Racism, Sledging, Intimidation, Mind-Games, Allegations, Counter-Allegations, HEARINGS and suchlike?

* * * * * *

Before I begin with the crux of the article, let me issue a small disclaimer... If you think that I am an Anglophile or a Traditionalist, well so be it... I am none of those... All I am is a cricket fan, and this is my vision of cricketing utopia, and dystopia...

* * * * * *

Okay so Australia are a dominant side in World Cricket and no one comes close to challenging them nowadays... But what has given rise to this muck is their attitude towards their opponents... They treat the defeated as beneath contempt, and do not even seem keen to interact with them... Australia have been dominant for a long time now, but this is a more recent phenomenon, perhaps as recent as the last 3-4 years. It is not as though they were saints before that - on the field, there was no team who played mind-games like the Aussies or their captain Steve Waugh... But no series ever got to the level of being called off, 'JUST' because of 7 bad decisions in a test match and two players taunting each other in, shall we say, 'unparliamentary terms'...

The problem with the Aussies, and in particular with their captain Punter, is that they are perfect examples of the saying - 'power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely'... Now consider this, Punter and his cohorts all came into the team AFTER the era of Aussie dominance had begun... And they went on getting hungrier, since nothing succeeds like success itself... But with the control they had over everyone on the field, they inadvertently started thinking of themselves as lords and masters off the field as well... Gavaskar hit the nail on the head, when he asked what right Ponting had of claiming to be an honest fielder, when he stood his ground upon nicking the ball in the first innings? How is a fielder's word trustworthy but not a batsman's, when both are the SAME INDIVIDUAL! But Ponting asserts that this is a TRIVIAL MATTER BLOWN OUT OF PROPORTION! Is this guy sleeping?

Symonds, on the other hand, is that bully you knew at school... He has been known to verbally assault his opponents, and has never, in my memory, shook the hand or even acknowledged an opponent's 100, unlike most other cricketers in the world... There is not a courteous muscle in the man's body... And yet, every time someone stands up to his bullying, be it the opposition or the crowd, he takes advantage of being of West Indian descent and cries 'RACISM'... There are various forms of racial abuse in the world, all equally contemptible, but taking advantage of your ethnicity to get another person/group reprimanded for returning your on-field abuse ranks perhaps second lowest on the scale, to bonded labour...

The West Indies dominated world cricket right from the 60s under Frank Worrell, to Viv Richards in the 80s... Most players of that era were descended from either Afro-Carribean or Asian ethnicity... They had the most fearsome bowlers in history, and perhaps till eternity, in Wes Hall, Andy Roberts, Malcolm Marshall, Michael Holding, Joel Garner, Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose... How many of them ever uttered a word to the batsman, let alone question their parentage? You may argue that there was no way to find out, since there were no rules and no policing/refereeing at the time... Yet there is a way to find out - ask the batsmen - Sunil Gavaskar, Geoffrey Boycott, Graham Gooch, Zaheer Abbas, Glenn Turner - they are all alive and can vouch for it...

All I'm trying to say is, when the Brits invented this game, they called it the Gentlemen's game... A languid, elegant 5-day affair that was played at the empire's outposts by servants of the crown, more than in the home country... But its devolution over the last 10 years has been drastic... Cricket has become more akin to Pro Wrestling than the game of personal or team brilliance... And Punter, has led the way...

Much like George W. Bush has led the world...

...to Apocalypse... Now...

Encompassing November in One Post...

2007-11-30T00:28:00.000+05:30

We've been through this such a long long time
Just tryin' to kill the pain
But lovers always come and lovers always go
An no one's really sure who's lettin' go today
Walking away
If we could take the time to lay it on the line
I could rest my head
Just knowin' that you were mine
All mine
So if you want to love me
then darlin' don't refrain
Or I'll just end up walkin'
In the cold November rain...

- Guns N Roses, 'November Rain'

And so, yet another November has gone past... Another December is upon us... And here I am, after a month long hiatus, 'come back from the dead to tell you all'... That, as you might have guessed, is another line from Prufrock... I've begun to sound like Bertie Wooster now, harping on his Scripture Knowledge Prize from private school...

The last few days have been spent coughing my insides out... I think the viruses that live rent-free inside me finally decided to stage a revolt against my constant efforts to fumigate them out... And their mutiny seems to have succeeded, with the doctor having advised me to quit smoking with immediate effect... BREAKING NEWS: Shreyas Sharma quits smoking... (Falsified information is not something journalists should convey, but who cares on a blog!)

So anyway, here are three posts I have written during the course of this month, but not actually happened to publish them...

* * * * * *

The following poem was written sitting in a hotel room in Goa with a hangover... Perhaps you didn't know that I went to Goa for 3 days with my cousin Richa and our friend Aditya earier this month... The first night, we visited a little beach-shack called 'Island View'... This poem talks about the experience, and the lunatic's ramblings inside the head...

NIGHT AT THE BEACHFRONT

A beach
A dirty moat with tadpoles around it
Chicken Xacutti at the opposite end of the table
And the old, faithful Red with the Monk and the Coke

There we are
Sitting around a table with a palm tree growing through it
Old Santan making incredulous faces
At the requests we heap on him
'Treble large for everyone'
Feelin’ groovy is the Old Monk

The sound of the approaching tide
Louder and louder
Does it want a piece of the liquid action too?

They leave for the hotel
Its just me and you now, Red
Like it always is
Your comforting touch
As I slip further and further into Euphoria and beyond
La Vita E Bella

The urge fills me
To walk into the dark horizon
To feel the salt all over me
Encrusting my matted hair
Burial at sea
La Vita E Bella

No end in sight
To this resolved crisis
Godot is in the house.

(03/11/2007)

* * * * * *

After the enjoyable Goa experience, and a diwali celebrated with family and Chandru in Jaipur, one came back to the grind of the capital... And as is to be expected in this season, very soon thereafter, there happened to be a wedding one had to attend... It was a fourth cousin's wedding, a supremely boring affair, and doubly frustrating, since one had to drive 2 hours in a maddening traffic jam, all the way to Vikaspuri, then another hour n 15 mins back home... And no chicks to look at even... Damn! So the frustration poured out of my heart the next day in class in this form...

How The Great Indian Wedding is a Farce

Hundreds of people, the best clothes, jewellery, expensive gifts for the groom and the bride, tons of food gulped down greedily and the usual bandwallahs-ghodiwallah-tentwallah nexus. Welcome to the spectacle known as the Great Indian Wedding.

What, though, is the purpose of this ceremony? If you live in Delhi, and have done so all your life as I have, you might be inclined to think that pomp and show was the real purpose behind the whole shebang. Others may lead you to believe that it is a way for all the scattered branches of the old joint family system to come together and celebrate a grand event in the life of the family. Quite acceptable. Then there is the ‘official’ reason – ‘please grace us with your presence and bless the newlyweds’. All three possibilities are equally acceptable or unacceptable, depending on your point of view.

Personally, I question the very basic of this ‘solemnization of vows’ or whatever horse-shit we’ve been fed in our lives. A ‘wedding’, to me, is supposed to be a ceremonial walk around the fire seven times in order to grant a public-license to the man to have sex with the woman. And the gharaatis and baraatis, the family and friends on either side, are just there as witnesses to this official license, so that the woman cannot turn around and scream ‘RAPE’ later. The food, of course, is the bribe that needs to be given to them in order to make them swear the oath. After all, unhone aapka namak khaya hai!

And what of the bride? She is, in most cases, supposed to give herself to a man whom she has never seen. On top of it, her parents were (are) supposed to pay the groom to screw her all his life. Then, she has to bow down and touch the feet of every damn chacha-chachi-mama-mami-phupha-phuphi-padosi-and-padosi-ka-kutta that have come to witness her subjection. Most of whom aren’t even worthy of being greeted when you see them in the street. And then they pass judgement – ‘iss behtar bahu nahin mili aapko’?

Maybe I am too biased against marriages, or maybe I’m over-reading into the situation… But the next time you go to a wedding, which will be quite often in the next few months, dressed in all your finery and carrying an expensive gift for the newlyweds, think – what will they gain out of it and what will you?

* * * * * *

And then, there was the December-syndrome-come-early this time... As early as November 6, the night I returned to Jaipur from Goa, in fact... Life comes full circle every year for me... It has done so once again... Only this time, as I wrote in my old poem 'Another Phoenix', there are no ashes for me to rise from again... Only a little bullet lodged in my head, shot from the lip that I was once attached to...

Why is existence such an absurd series of unanswered questions? Why doesn't the comfortable embrace of death envelope you when you most need it? Why didn't life ever give me a second chance?

Maybe this is what life is about... Its like the cruise on the Mandovi, where I made friends with Troy... Two glowing cigarettes and a discussion on Bill Gates' driver... And then, the show's over folks...

But as I always keep telling myself,
The Show Must Go On...
And so I promise,
I'll face it with a grin,
I'm never giving in...
On with the show...

Coz nothing lasts forever,
Even cold November Rain...

A Vision, A Beautiful Dream...

2007-10-23T22:20:00.000+05:30

Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

Brown dust covering the horizon
Yellow leaves embedded deep in their dry graves
The rocks and the solitary cactus
The beautiful landscape of this painting
Everyday is a little death
'Fear no more the heat of the sun' wrote the Stratfordian
There is no fear, no pain

The red torrents of howling storms
A vision, a beautiful dream
The blue corpses strewn about over the plains
Fate, thy bounties abound
While thou smil'st upon us

When I look into your eyes, Princess
I see my life, played
A million times in an infinite loop
A circus act, jumping through the ring of fire
Earning applause for burning the flesh
For acting the part you have assigned to me

Barren, fallow, waste
Lies the earth under my feet
And rocky contours inside the skull
They talk of Spirituality
And the Art of Living
Its very complicated you see
Breathing in the brown dust with one nostril
And exhaling the plumes of gray with the other
Global (heart)warming

Was this what Cassandra envisaged?
A Nietzscheian God
An Eliotesque land
A weeping Satan
An incarnate of Lucifer
A minstrel Mephistopheles
A sadist
A masochist
A pessimist
And Humble Polonius

Congratulations, fellow lunatics
The beautiful mind
Is now sterile
At last, a worthy existence...

कुछ लफ्ज़, मतलब की तलाश में...

2007-10-01T00:04:00.000+05:30

उसके दुश्मन हैं बहुत
आदमी अच्छा होगा

वो भी मेरी ही तरह
शहर में तन्हा होगा...

लोग कहते हैं कि मैं बहुत बोलता हूँ... सब के सब ऐसा कहते हैं, इसलिये सही ही कहते होंगे... कुछ मुझे extrovert कहते हैं, कुछ बड़-बोला... पर कितने लोग शान से ये कह सकते हैं कि वो मुझे सच-मुच जानते हैं? मैं असल में कौन हूँ?

यह ऐसा सवाल है, जिसका जवाब आज तक मुझे खुद नहीं मिला... जब waiting for godot पढा था, तब इस phenomenon के लिए एक नाम मिल गया - existentialism... बस तब से इसी existentialist crisis का बहाना, और साथ ही Prufrock के मुखौटों का वास्ता देकर अपनी सच्चाई से लगता है खुद भाग रहा हूँ... क्या इसका कोई अंत है?

अगर कोई अंत नज़र आता है तो वो है आत्म-चेतना यानी self-realization... लेकिन वो मेरे बस का टंटा नहीं... मैं तो रहूंगा वही escapist/extrovert...

* * * * * *

रफ़ी साहब जैसा फनकार सैंकड़ों सालों में एक बार आता है... पिछले दो घंटे से उनके गानो की playlist बना के चलाता जा रहा था... एक गाने पर आकर रूक गया... गीतकार कैफी आजमी का लिखा, सचिन देव बर्मन का संगीत-बद्ध किया ये गाना उस महान फिल्मकार गुरुदत्त की ज़िन्दगी की सच्चाई है... और शायद मेरी भी...

देखी ज़माने की यारी

बिछडे सभी बारी-बारी...

क्या लेके मिलें अब दुनिया से

आंसू के सिवा कुछ पास नहीं

या फूल ही फूल थे दामन में

या काँटों की भी आस नहीं

मतलब की दुनिया है सारी

बिछडे सभी बारी-बारी...

वक़्त है मेहेरबां

आरजू है जवान

कल की फिक्र करें

इतनी फुर्सत कहाँ

रात भर मेहमान

हैं बहारें यहाँ

रात गर ढल गयी

फिर ये खुशियाँ कहाँ...

पल भर की खुशियाँ हैं सारी

बढने लगी बेकरारी...

उड़ जा उड़ जा प्यासे भँवरे

रस न मिलेगा धारों में

कागज के फूल जहाँ खिलते हैं

बैठ न उन गुल्ज़ारों में

एक हाथ से देती है दुनिया

सौ हाथों से ले लेती है

ये खेल है कब से जारी

हाय

बिछडे सभी बारी-बारी

मतलब की दुनिया है सारी

बिछडे सभी बारी-बारी...

The standing ovation and the aftermath... O-14 rules!

2007-09-22T18:36:00.000+05:30

Saturday morning, 0345 hrs… Sitting and typing at Karma’s place… You wouldn’t know of him, he’s from IIMC… English Journalism to be precise… And I can see the aftermath of an Ocean’s Fourteen (ORIGINAL, isn’t it?) meeting all around the room… Bodies strewn all over the place, sleeping of course…

Alcohol does funny things to people… Take our Abhishek Mukherjee for example… Another IIMCian, normally the voice of reason among the motley crew… 3 pegs of McDowell’s Number One later, he was at stage five… Which, for the uninitiated, means he was DEAD DRUNK… Unfortunately for the rest of us semi-sober ones, that meant four hours of non-stop rambling and ‘I’m not drunk man!’… That too without puking, which could’ve helped him… And us… But alas! It wasn’t to be… He kept on and on and on and on… About everything under the sun… Of course, bastard that I am, I kept asking him pointed questions whose answers I knew would provoke genuine mass hysteria…

Then there was Chhoto (name changed even without the request)… How he drove to Ganga Dhaba shall remain one of those unsolved mysteries… Coz as we were to find out, whisky + vodka + weed had made him ride a mental horse… He was better than Mukherjee, for sure, but then, if one were to choose between the devil and the deep-blue-sea, you would be Faustus, wouldn’t you? Tottering along nicely was he, though thankfully, better sense prevailed and Nishant drove everyone back…

And then there was Father Teresa aka Big Daddy aka yours truly… 3 large Old Monk shots and the patented ‘Daaru humesha sach bolti hai’… Trying to impose his opinion on the party regardless of the topic – be it the age old Rafi or Kishore debate or why Tendulkar is still the greatest… With the odd ‘Nain ladd jayihain’ thrown in to emphasize whatever it was he was trying to emphasize… The only ingredient missing was the usual hyperventilation of the ego with an ‘I’m the Best’… But taking on responsibility is his forte, as he would have you believe… With two drunks already among the party, somehow he managed to sober himself down, and take care of them… Hence the name, Father Teresa, in the words of the other ‘Not Drunk’ Mukherjee, Soubhik Dada…

The occasion for the party was two-fold – it was the one month anniversary (or thereabouts) of O-14, and secondly, WE BROUGHT THE HOUSE DOWN at the Hindi Pakhwara function… 10 of us singing the immortal Pyaar Humein Kis Mod Pe Le Aaya… And the crowd rocked… Especially Arnab with his power-packed rendition of Panchamda’s high notes in the song… They say the best judge of a performance is the artist him/herself, and honestly speaking, a) we enjoyed it, b) we rocked!

So at the end of this eventful day, as O-14 sleeps peacefully in this 10’x10’ cubbyhole, this is Big D signing off, with a little advice – know your limitations while drinking, and stick to them… Otherwise the next morning shall carry a double headache – the hangover and the embarrassment of listening to rantings recorded by someone… Goodnight…

Chai, Sutta aur Philosophy ki Kitaab - The Anniversary Edition

2007-09-10T22:46:00.000+05:30

One year of struggling for readership on the blogosphere... One year of Bhaval and other regulars’ insightful comments... One year of trying to exercise diplomacy, in order not to be flagged and kicked out of the realm... One year that began with a nightlong conversation, and ended with the annihilation of a few dreams, and the onset of a lot more new ones... “redemption-reprise”, or “Chai, Sutta aur Philosophy ki Kitaab” is ONE year old today...

This is the first post I’m writing on my new laptop... Struggling somewhat with the new keyboard and all... (Waah Shreyas Babu! Naya Laptop! Nayi Gaadi! Aur Naya Profession! Badhiya Hai!!!) Undertook a whirlwind trip to Jaipur the last couple of days, to hang out with the Brother... Eventful doesn’t begin to describe the trip... What with a bus that broke down at 430am on NH8, rains flooding the capital of the desert state and what not... Enjoyment can be measured in two ways, I believe – either by how quickly the time went by; or how slowly, in which case you remember every detail... This trip was the latter... Effectively, I stayed in Jaipur for 36 hours, sleeping time included... And cherished every moment of it...

A year, twelve months, 365 days... How life changes in the seemingly short span of time... From English Literature to Television Journalism, from a Tata Indica chauffeur (Mom’s car, that’s why) to a Maruti 800 owner, from S to no-S and back somewhat... New friends, gone away, yet more new ones now found... Old friends still in the head, somewhere around... A birthday party to remember, with gallons of alcohol and kilometres galore on the car's odometer... Drives to North Campus at night, Marlboro regulars in the rain at the Arts Fac... And the rum, of course... Neat, or on the rocks... Life, they say, comes full-circle... I dunno about that...

All I know is that it has been a pleasure writing this blog thus far... If nothing else, it is my little space in the web universe... A place where I can vent out, criticize, make caricatures, and generally be myself... Whatever you, the reader, may interpret me to be... Asshole, perhaps... This blog is me, inversely personified...

So anyway, time to uncork the champagne and let your hair down... Its a party here tonight!

Arranged Marriage...

2007-09-04T11:59:00.000+05:30

My mother bought me a car on Sunday 02/09/07... Its a pretty-metallic-blue Maruti 800, Jan 2000 model... And don't scoff at me for calling it pretty coz its my car, just see it to believe it... Anyway , before you start accusing me of digressing, this post is called 'Arranged Marriage' for a reason...

Now this car didn't come easy... The whole soap opera lasted almost a month, from the time I casually mentioned to my mother that a car for me would be a practicable option, since commuting to and from IIMC is a difficult/expensive task... And in many ways, the soap opera played out like a Big Fat Indian Wedding, rather than the comparatively simple task of buying a used car... Think about it: -

Step 1 - WANTED: You inform your contacts that you are looking for a suitable companion

Step 2 - INFORMATION AVAILABLE: The contacts get back to you in a while, giving you the addresses and telephone numbers of a few prospective candidates

Step 3 - TEST DRIVE: You make a list and go to the various addresses with the respective contact, meet the families, and have individual rendezvouses with the candidates, ticking or crossing out the names on your list

Step 4 - SHORTLIST/TEST DRIVE-2: You like one or two of the candidates more than anyone else and decide to talk further so you invite them for coffee

Step 5 - HEART-A-FLUTTER: You decide that you are falling in love with one candidate and want an early consummation, so your folks meet the candidate's folks again and decide that you both will be married asap

Step 6 - PRICE NEGOTIATIONS: This is the only step that is reversed in the Indian tradition, but lets follow the African Igbo tradition, shall we? The 'dowry' the groom has to pay for the bride is negotiated, both parties trying to drive a hard bargain

Step 7 - DELIVERY & REGISTRATION CHANGE: The wedding itself, with all those complicated mantras and rituals that echo bureaucratic red-tapism found at the Transport Department

Step 8 - GOING FOR THE FIRST DRIVE IN POURING RAIN AND ROADS THAT RESEMBLE SEAS: The honeymoon - 'how wonderful is life with you, darling'

Step 9 - THE CAR REFUSES TO START THE NEXT MORNING: And they lived (happily?) ever after...

* * * * * *

Moral of the story: Whenever your folks tell you that they feel you should get married, buy a used car... Tell them, ATLEAST it can be repaired by the neighbourhood mechanic...

Being Shreyas Sharma...

2007-08-20T22:37:00.000+05:30

'Without contraries is no progress'

- William Blake, 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell'

The man without a face
Wearing layers upon layers of masks, to hide,
To insulate the vacuum inside...

The tub of lard
Moving day in and day out with his girth
To prove to himself his own worth...

The guy with the 'golden voice'
No one but him his fan
His ego a splotch on one that remotely resembles a man...

The overrated underachiever
Undertaking the eternal quest to become a man self-made
Trying desperately to burn-out, not to fade...

The silhouette whose shadow has left his side
Getting drenched in the warm showers of winter rain
Putting on another facade, getting etherized again...

The lunatic inside his head
Still making others around him smile
While the one inside the heart pukes out bile...

"The joker in the pack
Useless for this perfect hand
That you call life, yes you with your merry band...

Its rather convenient for you
'A friend' when you want help. 'a bastard' later
My purpose wasn't your needs to fulfill, your wants to cater...

Ego Ego Ego! That is the label you gave me
So what if I believed I was the best?
There are people who market themselves more, them you never detest...

My life was my own, and so was my gasping breath
And I wanted to live it on my own terms
And now, you leave me to the mercy of the worms...

Fine, all of you can come and visit me in hell
Fuck this life, fuck the world say I
Sometimes I wish I was stillborn, sometimes I wish I could just die..."

Thus on and on continues the fat man
A study in binary oppositions, his story
At times an outlet to his ego; at others, self-deprecatory

Maybe one day you, dear reader, will realize
What he had been screaming all his life had been right
Alone he came, alone he lived, and no fair company he got in his flight...

(20/08/2007)

The Gestation of the New Grub Street Hack...

2007-08-08T18:06:00.000+05:30

There was a movie in the early 80s called 'Woh Saat Din' - yes the one which launched Anil Kapoor... Bloody impactful movie, with a concept that was repeated successfully in Sanjay Leela Bhansali's 'Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam' - that of the husband reuniting the wife with her lover - in the case, the obnoxious, ubiquitous Prem Pratap Patialewale... Anyway, I digress (as usual)...

A week at IIMC proves the old adage that 'a week is a long time...' - albeit in a more abstract instance rather than the polity-specific one... Activity is the name of the game... 9-to-6 flat out - hell! even Schumi didn't have to go that hard for that long!!! Add to that the amount of cynicism one encounters from one's professors/senior colleagues and all one can see is a bleak, almost-Dickensian outlook. Without the 'humour'. Wherever that was... I mean, seriously, when the first thing one gets to hear when starting out is that 'a journalist always finds a bottle half-empty', what can you think of except - 'yahaan kyun aa gaye yaar!'

But all is not lost. In fact, nothing is. Good bunch of folks around, and the music sessions have started strong. Good weather thus far too - 'the rain it raineth everyday' - or every other day thus far (Trees, folks - the JNU forest gives us the magical spells of rain while the rest of South Delhi is comparatively drier)... The workload is hardly an insight into the Venus Flytraps (Dionaea muscipula) that await us, but I'm not complaining. Yet.

Lets see how things pan out... As long as I get a 2+ package, I'll keep my mouth shut and not trash (bite) the industry (hand) that feeds me... You see, its called OPPORTUNISM...

* * * * * *

Doodling in the Depths of Despondency

The hare and the tortoise
Fused into an egg-head
With yellow bunny chompers
And whiskers of Sylvester the Cat
A bald spot the size of Chhatisgarh
Ears spread wide like an elephant in heat
Twiddling thumbs and fingers
With a voice as if in the dark
That whimpers
And makes the goose pimples prickle your neck
Picking his nose and rolling the raw gold
The financial expert is in the house
ORDER! ALL RISE!

(09/08/07, my first poem in IIMC, about Mr. S)

Redemption Revived...

2007-07-27T19:02:00.000+05:30

And so it is...
A journey here ends
Another for to begin
The fat man then prepares to die regretfully
The dirges resound in his wake
Of farewell
Of good riddance
The presence shall no longer be present
'I shall not hear the nightingale...'

Remember him, if you will
Not for what he was
Not for what he said
Nothing
Late of the Faculty
Here lies a man who spent his time
Creating diversions of sound

'Be cheerful sir,
Our revels now are ended...
Our lives are but a dream and a forgetting...'
He doesn't know if and when he'll be back
Waves to you, invisible
A late goodbye
'Fare thee well, my friends'
Redemption at last?
Half stub.

(27/07/2007, the last day at the Arts Faculty)

Into the sunset...

2007-07-25T15:06:00.000+05:30

And so, the World's largest democracy gets its first female President today... Just saw the swearing in ceremony of Ms. Pratibha Patil, who, though an active politician for close to fifty years, has never been a figure of national significance before now... One hardly needs to comment on the run-up to her election as the Head of State, for anyone aware that the sun rises in the East would know the kind of contest that occured between her and Mr. Bhairon Singh Shekhawat... Anyway, one certainly hopes that contrary to popular expectation (at least in the M.A. English classroom), Ms. Patil turns out to be an exemplary President... Less likely things have happened before...

However, this post is not intended to be an introduction to the incoming President... It is, rather, a prose ode to her predecessor...

* * * * * *

Today, the sun sets on the tenure of the most popular President in the 57-year history of the Indian Republic... The man who, in a break from tradition, was the only non-political President (apart from Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishan) that India has chosen, that too unanimously...

My grandmother, who played an active part in the Quit India Movement in 1942 as a 17-year old, has witnessed the coming and going of every Prime Minister and President in our independent history... I asked her today, as to where she would rate the incumbent President among his predecessors - she said without a moment's hesitation - right at the top. Her reasons were simple enough - 'we Indians tend to look back a lot more than we look forward - and here was a man who kept looking at 2020 rather than 1947; who preferred Ignited Minds over heated debates; who realised the potential of the 60% population under the age of thirty and targeted them in his vision etc... Add to that the fact that he acted independently and strongly over some controversial parliamentary legislations and you have the best of the lot that I've seen, and that means everyone...'

Yes, there has been the odd Afzal Guru matter (which is possibly still at the Home Office), coupled with the fact that in the early part of his tenure, he struggled a bit to learn the ropes of politics, but which President, or for that matter ANY PUBLIC FIGURE in this country, could've possibly galvanised the public behind him this way and made them subscribe to his vision?

Which President thus far has fulfilled his billing as the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces to the letter? The lasting memories from his tenure, to my mind, would be his Supersonic flight, his visit to frozen Siachen, and his submarine-sojourn... That, and the estimated 500,000 children whom he PERSONALLY met during his tenure...

And now, as he heads out of Rashtrapati Bhawan and on to his stated desire of returning to teaching science, here's to the man who sits on the floor at a journalistic debate and shakes some sense into the wider public consciousness... Fare thee well, Dr. Avul Pakir Jainulabedin Abdul Kalam.

Yun hota to kya hota...?

2007-07-10T04:25:00.000+05:30

Introspection is a funny thing... Ever since Chandru's dad told me - 'Son, u need introspection and self-recognition in order to progress in life' - nearly 2 years ago, I have often felt the need to understand the very concept of introspection...

What is it, effectively? Reminiscing on events past? Analysing, in hindsight, one's behaviour in various situations? Meditating upon previous mistakes and trying not to make them again? All of the above and more?

Why does introspection lead, more often than not, to a bout of depression? Is it because we human beings are so fundamentally flawed that any kind of anagnorisis or recognition can only lead to negativity? Is it just me, or have u experienced it too, this depression?

* * * * *

Its 4:34 am and I am, what else, introspecting... Reflecting, rather... Reflecting on life thus far... Considering the 'what ifs' and 'if onlys'... Remembering the negatives - most of them self-induced, others incidental; trying to remember the positives but suffering, apparently, from a bout of selective amnesia...

Na tha kuch to Khuda tha, kuch na hota to Khuda hota
Duboya mujhko hone ne, na hota main to kya hota

Hua jab gham se yun behis, to gham kya sar ke katne ka
Na hota gar juda tan se, to zaanun par dhara hota

Hui muddat ke Ghalib mar gaya, par yaad aata hai
Wo har ek baat pe kehna, ke yun hota to kya hota...

* * * * *

Someone used to tell me that if you sit/lie in a darkened room and just let the thoughts flow, there will come a time when your mind runs out of topics and there will just be a blank... The ancient method of meditation in the Himalayas (tapasya), u see... Well, either my brain's threshold is too far away or the technique is flawed, because all that happened is that this blog post got engendered... Or maybe this is my meditation...

Gold Rush...

2007-06-17T04:39:00.000+05:30

The glass is on the table
Frosted from the outside
Ice cubes swirling inside
Floating on molten gold...

The parched throat burns
With desire, with the passage
The mind begins to whirl;
A consequence of molten gold...

History narrates the stories
Of towns littered across the globe
Founded to rape the land, and by evening
Enjoy the molten gold...

What provides the touch
Of desired numbness
Of enforced amnesia
What, but the molten gold...

Iron Maiden playing on Winamp
Screaming out with but a hint of melody
Hits my ears like a freight train
Hallowed be thy name, molten gold...

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done
Neat bottoms up or on the rocks
Give us today our daily blur
Forgive us our sins, molten gold...

The lunatic in the cold cell pleads
His last wish, the saviour's blood
Or, as five o' clock approaches
Mankind's most desired drink - molten gold...

P.S. - Forgive me, reader, for I am drunk
Poetry is not the enemy of molten gold...

(17/06/2007)

I dream of rain...

2007-06-16T12:15:00.000+05:30

Its a sin to be sleeping this morning...

Or, as the advocates of individual morality would prefer - its a crime to be sleeping this morning...

June 16, 2007 dawned with a heavy atmosphere... Then, it started getting sunnier, and one felt - 'here we go again, yet another false promise'... And then it poured... Its been 75 mins, and its still pouring (writing at 0815 hrs)...

Meanwhile Big Baby decided to wander out... Big Daddy wanted a smoke... So they walked to the second nearest panwallah, wondering about the light drizzle in the air... Big Daddy lit up, and it started pouring... They spent about 35 mins wandering about in the rain, sitting at the local bus-stop with the rag-picker and the factory-worker, the driving instructor and the old man returning from the market, conversing with the two autorickshaw-drivers - Big Daddy talking about the job situation in the country and Big Baby about how enjoyable it was to have rain in June...

They returned, thoroughly drenched, to the curious gaze of the watchman and the neighbours who were scurrying about under their umbrellas, eager to avoid any wet splotches on their freshly ironed clothes while they headed to the safety of their cars... Madness is desirable, sometimes...

I have often dreamt of summer rain... I have often thought how wonderful it would be to wake up early one morning and get drenched... And as Doc and I agreed - sapne dekhne ke liye tax nahin lagta...

Par tax ke bina bhi sapne sach ho sakte hain... Some dreams do materialise...

For everything else, there's MASTERCARD!

Dream on...

Self-inflicted Birthday Bumps...

2007-06-11T01:12:00.000+05:30

'The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.'

- Samuel Johnson

So, here we are. Big Daddy turns 22. Presumably, another step closer to maturity, a job, emotional stability, a job, a fat-like-me salary, a job, success, a job, death, a job.

Are there any potential employers willing to hire a halfway-there (hopefully) postgraduate in English Literature reading this blog? Is the IIMC listening?

* * * * *

Eventful year, the one gone past... But then again, was it any different from the ones before that? Since leaving school, its like the 70s masala movies formula - repeating over and over and over again... The only thing that changed this year was the setting, a few of the actors...

Mehfilein aayi aur gayi
Log aaye aur gaye...

* * * * *

And so, here I sit reflecting on the past year, with a head thats hungover... Thanks to the Bhailog who could make it to the 'party' yesterday... And sorry for thwarting your plans to give me birthday bumps - the advantage of having a birthday in the middle of summer (the only advantage, perhaps) is that while at school, I never received any... And I intend to keep it that way... In the words of Godzilla, SIZE DOES MATTER! Or whoever it was who said that, - I just remembered, Godzilla couldnt speak... Not in English anyway... Maybe what he said was GRRRRRRRRRR ROAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRR GRRRRRRRRRRRR, which means the same...

I'm quibbling again... I know... Blame it on the hangover...

* * * * *

And finally, here's to the men and women of the Department of English - MA batch of '07 and '08... It was a really positive change in atmosphere after the negativity of three years with my batch in RLA (M)... I dedicate this to all of you -

Making your way in the world today
Takes everything you've got;
Taking a break from all your worries
Sure would help a lot.
Wouldn't you like to get away?

All those night when you've got no lights,
The check is in the mail;
And your little angel
Hung the cat up by it's tail;
And your third fiance didn't show;

Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came;
You want to be where you can see,
Our troubles are all the same;
You want to be where everybody knows your name.

Roll out of bed, Mr. Coffee's dead;
The morning's looking bright;
And your shrink ran off to Europe,
And didn't even write;
And your husband wants to be a girl;

Be glad there's one place in the world
Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came;
You want to go where people know,
People are all the same;
You want to go where everybody knows your name.

Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came;
Where everybody knows your name,
And they're always glad you came...

- Gary Portnoy and Judy Hart Angelo,
'Where Everybody Knows Your Name'
(theme song for the TV series, 'CHEERS')

Cheers, everyone!

Ode to the Best Pal and his new job...

2007-05-31T00:30:00.000+05:30

And so the King, he takes his leave
Off to a distant kingdom to pursue his dream
Rooms to clean, food to serve
Bags to carry and hear the guests scream

As usual there was a choice to make
Between the confusing horns of dilemma
A small new resort he chose over the might of the Oberois
And the wishes of his Papa and Amma

Managing a hotel could never be easy
But who could've predicted such precarious predicament?
Before the King began his sojourn
His plans suffered not an aberration, but a heavy dent...

A message arrived from the other kingdom
Putting his future into serious doubt
'Your training is postponed for two months due to unavoidable circumstances'
His ambition jolted, his smile turned into a frowning pout...

The brave King decided he would yet take the plunge
And fight the odds, after assessing the situation on the ground
Later at a royal dinner in his departing honour
He sat grumpily, still he frowned...

To you, brave King, I offer my best wishes
For success in putting the foot in the closing door
I'm sure your previous experience will prove your friend
If anything goes wrong, move on to pastures greener and opportunities galore

This from a friend who has known you for summers ten
May you attain the successes you desire to achieve
When in doubt, look within yourself
And remember the old Bosconian mindset - WE BELIEVE!

Heaven - too easy!
Hell - taken over!
BOSCONIANS - WANTED!

* * * * *

Suppi, mere bhai, ye tere liye... Go make us all proud... And dont forget the 25% discount you'll give me when I come as a guest to ur hotel... Nahin to fayda kya hua tere GM banne ke khwaab ka???

'Hideous progeny... Go forth and prosper!'

Over-eating and other random thoughts...

2007-05-26T01:25:00.000+05:30

And so The Phoenix is back in blog-action after a month-long hiatus. Well, almost...

In this month, one has seen Ms Mayawati come to power in U.P. with a simple majority (I repeat, U.P. - SIMPLE MAJORITY), violent clashes between the Akal Takht and the Dera Sacha Sauda, bomb blasts in Hyderabad and Gorakhpur, Gordon Brown's impending succession to Jeeves' house, the Phoenix (no relation to the author) Suns crashing out of the NBA playoffs, Felipe Massa and Scuderia Ferrari winning two dominant F1 races, the Indian public rejoicing at the cricket team's successful tour of Bangladesh (that isn't a typo) etc...

On a personal note, the M.A. Part I exams finally got over after an ordeal lasting over a month (see the correlation?), the I.I.M.C. entrances were dealt with and efforts were made to beat the heat (about which Doc Vebhuti will argue).

And now, boredom (which is not the assumed name for a person) is back into my life, in full force... Yawn...

* * * * *

Imagine.

You have a stack of bills in your pocket. Money-bills, silly, not your electricity/telephone ones. You decide to go to the most famous restaurant in the city (I dont frequently eat-out in Delhi, so those familiar with Jaipur - well, think NIROS or SHARMA DHABA). You order the best stuff. It arrives. You start eating. Yummmm. It is better than you expected. You eat some more. And then some. And then, when you've almost licked the pots and pans clean and are busy licking your fingers, savouring the last bits of the melt-in-your-mouth curry and the enchanting aroma it carried, you realise that you've eaten too much. Way too much...

R. Balakrishna, or Balki's 'CHEENI KUM' is that curry. Quite simply put, 90% of it is MAGNIFICENT. The other 10% is over-eating, caused by the sheer delight of the first 90%, that'll give you a hard time come morning. Everyone knows the story - 64 year old Chef-cum-Restaurateur Amitabh Bachchan falls in love with 34 year old Tabu, whose father, Paresh Rawal, is 58. Complications, anyone?

The idea is marvellous. The dialogues are uproariously funny and touchingly sensitive, sometimes even at the same time. And that isn't a bad thing.

What does one say about the actors? This is Tabu's best performance I've seen. Maqbool included. Haven't seen The Namesake yet, so I'll reserve judgment on this matter. Paresh Rawal as the modern-day 'anything goes' Gandhian is his usual, brilliant self, though his role constitutes most of the latter 10%. Zohra Sehgal as AB's mother is, well, Zohra Sehgal. A typically 'oh why isn't she my grandmom' role, and she's as delightful as ever.

Now on to the Emperor himself. I wonder where was Amitabh Bachchan the actor during the 1970s and 80s. The Angry Young Man was alright, the Superstar was acceptable, but WHERE was THE ACTOR??? Thank heavens that the modern movie revolution came in his lifetime, and in some part DUE to him. In Cheeni Kum, he is ego-maniacal, a perfectionist, a Prufrockian procrastinator and a hopeless romantic, seamlessly progressing from one essentialised figure to the next. Another acknowledgment is to the little girl who plays 'Sexy', a 6-yr old Leukemia patient whose relationship with the angry old man reminded me more than once of 'Anand'. She teaches the old man how to live, period.

The USP of the movie is undoubtedly the silences. Tabu does not speak for the first 10 minutes of the movie, and yet, her eyes, her expressions speak. Ditto for AB. The humour in the movie is very ironical and spontaneous, and doesn't sound forced.

Oh what could this movie have been were it not for the predictable melodrama of the latter 10%! The length could've been atleast 20-30 mins shorter, without compromising on the splendid first half (at the risk of sounding REPETITIVE). First, a long scene where only AB speaks, reminiscent to my mind of the terrible last scene in 'Guru'. Then, a predictably superstitious resolution of the crisis - what Aristotle would've scoffed at as an example of a Deus Ex Machina.

My opinion - i would say the movie is a 'should-watch'. Watch it for the intelligent humour in this age of Masti, No Entry, Bhagam Bhag and the 2006 Golmaal slapstick, watch it for AB, Tabu and the little girl. And do take intelligent company for the experience; it is not a movie every Delhiite can enjoy, as evidenced by my neighbours at the theatre. 'Cheeni Kum' needs zyada brains...

The Nice Guy who didn't finish last...

2007-04-29T00:15:00.000+05:30

Let the record show - I hate the Australian cricket team. Not because they've beaten everyone black and blue over the last 11 years. Not because they've pummeled every comer who has tried to steal their crown. That's their job. There's just one reason for the hatred - they've started reflecting their ancestors too much, the original settlers on the island of Australia. Especially that upstart-turned-mafia-boss captain of theirs, Ricardo Ponting. Yes, he's been Bradmanesque over the last 6 years or so with his batting... Yes, he's the undisputed leader of a team of champions, but to call his off the field demeanour 'loathsome' would be a compliment.

Quite the contrary is the man who, while Ponting was figuring out his off-stump from his leg, was drafted into the national side to take the place of Ian Healy, the then leading wicketkeeper of all time. Not only did he surpass his predecessor, he set the benchmark for wicketkeeper-batsmen for posterity. And he didn't have to open his mouth to do so...

149 off 104 balls in the ongoing World Cup Final in Barbados bears testimony to the man who, in this Ponting-Graeme Smith generation of cricketers, is one of the few 'gentlemen' still around - one who threatened to stage a coup by 'walking' when HE felt he was out, in a world where batsman with clear edges stand their ground and shake their heads. The man who at 35 years of age flies about trying to pouch catches which people 10 years his juniors would be proud to take.

Sometimes, he gets overshadowed by the 'flair' guys in his team - Warnie being a case in point. Thats because he keeps his mouth shut. In modern cricket thats a rarity. Then he comes out to bat and scores test cricket's fastest double hundred. Talk about flair...

Tonight's Final is looking like another Aussie triumph - 281/4 at the end of their innings; whether Jayasuriya fires or not will be the key for Sri Lanka.

But regardless of the outcome, ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner already. Raise a toast to him - his name is Adam Craig Gilchrist.

Anticipatory Bail

2007-04-25T01:17:00.000+05:30

The Story: Two women (A and B), close friends, known each other for 7+ years. Spent moments of laughter and grief together. Mostly grief. A introduces B to a male friend of hers, with whom she shares an unspoken affection. A and the guy have a fallout because of certain circumstantial decisions, around the same time as she falls in love with C. A and C are deeply, madly and, some would suggest, platonically in love. B, meanwhile, develops a very strong (and unromantic) bond with the guy, while A and the guy have severed all communication links. A, for some reason, does not converse with B for extended periods. B feels left out, since she introduced A to C, and now neither pays much attention to her, having once been her closest friends. Then, one day, B decides that enough is enough, calls up A and tells her that she has had enough of being ignored, and will not endure it any longer, despite A's repeated pleas for a chance at an explanation. B gets the feeling that A is going to blame the guy for everything that has occurred and hangs up.

The Question: Is A right in blaming the guy?

If yes, then I plead anticipatory bail in the matter. A further defence shall be prepared in case charges are brought forward...

Antic dispositions and feigned benignity...

2007-04-17T01:49:00.000+05:30

All the year I spent catching up with jetlag
'Study, or else...' whispered the wrinkled old hag
My poetry is worse than the neighbour's cat
I gave up on the paper, 18 minutes flat!

- Anonymous

And so it is... The examinations are in full swing, nicotine and caffeine consumption is at an all time high, and the figure of insomniac Delhiites has increased twenty-fold. Not that it makes a difference to me, my mother calls me a cockroach anyway...

I asked a friend the other day if she could reveal to me the identity of that figure of greatness, to whom we owe this long tradition of examinations. Of course, she had no clue. Anonymity has certainly come to the rescue of this great creature from the past, or else all the cursing he receives from across the globe would make even the most tolerant and benevolent God question his place in heaven/purgatory and send him straight to Dante's 'Inferno' - for the uninitiated, that means - SEND THE BASTARD TO HELL!

And now, with two exams done and six more to go, lasting till the 14th of May, I see the figure of King Lear enter my brain, enabling me to assume a REAL antic disposition, unlike Hamlet's feigned one, while Puck flies around me waiting to do some mischief upon Oberon's orders, and there in the distance, stands Prospero calling out to me - 'Abhorred slave! A pox on you! Get thee to work, misery!'

Does anyone know a psychiatrist? I need a discount...

Aawaargi...

2007-04-02T04:12:00.000+05:30

Was just listening to my favourite ghazal collection, rendered ofcourse by Ghulam Ali sahab... First song my Winamp starts playing - 'Aawaargi...'

Ye dil, ye paagal dil mera
Kyun bujh gaya?
Aawaargi...
Is dasht mein ik sheher tha
Wo kya hua?
Aawaargi...

Kal shab mujhe be-shakl ki aawaaz ne chaunka diya...
Maine kaha, tu kaun hai?
Usne kaha
Aawaargi...

Ik tum ke sadiyon se mere humraah bhi, humraaz bhi...
Ik main ke tere naam se
Na-aashna
Aawaargi...

Ik ajnabi jhonke ne jab poochha mere gham ka sabab
Sehra ki bheegi reit par
Maine likha
Aawaargi...

Ye dard ki tanhaiyan, ye dasht ka veeran safar
Hum log to ukta gaye
Apni suna
Aawaargi...

Kal raat tanha chaand ko dekha tha maine khwaab mein
Mohsin, mujhe raas aayegi
Shaayad sada
Aawaargi...

And then i wrote one of my own, continuing the same tarz...

Humne the dekhe khwaab jo, boseeda ho kar reh gaye
Kirchon ke bikhre farsh par
Aansoo gira
Aawaargi...

[For those who do not know urdu, Im not really in a mood to translate, so do forgive me...]

A 'decent' photograph?

2007-03-28T03:39:00.000+05:30

Well, the theory of relativity certainly applies to the 'decency' of this photograph, taken by a self-aimed, timed mobile phone camera, and then hashed... This photograph is brought to you courtesy Sony Ericsson K300i and Adobe Photoshop 7.0...

Taken on the day of the Don Bosco Alumni Association's inaugural meeting and dinner (17th December 2006), after returning home... That is my room in the background, and the light coming from the right is no 'light of divine enlightenment' as someone commented upon seeing this photograph, but just a regular 40 watt Philips slim tubelight... It is the only 'slim' thing to be found in my room...

Khwahishon ke kuch alfaaz...

2007-03-22T21:29:00.000+05:30

Sun in the earth
Sunflower
Bird in the air
Rain
Eye within eye
Daybreak

Streets we have never walked on
Windows we have never opened
Hands we have never held
Dreams we shall never, never see again…

Lives we have never lived
Hopes we have never realised
Fires we have never lit
Loves we shall never, never make again

Sun in the earth
Sunflower
Bird in the air
Rain
Eye within eye
Daybreak

I hear those strange whispers again…

A thousand desires such as these
A thousand moments to set this night on fire
Reach out and you can touch them
You can touch them with your silences
You can reach them with your lust

Rivers, mountains, rain
Rain against a torrid hillscape
A thousand
A thousand desires such as these...

I loved rain as a child
As a lost young man
Empty landscapes bleached by a tired sun

And then
And then the southern wind came like a dark, unknown woman
Her eyes scorched my silences
Her body wrapped itself around me like a summer without end

Force me
Hold me
Reach me where no man has gone
Crossing the seven seas
On the wings of fire
I fly towards nowhere

And you
Rivers, mountains, rain
Rain against a scorched landscape of pain
A thousand desires such as these…

* * * * *

I didnt write this stuff... I chanced upon it while listening to the OST of the movie Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi... Very similar flow of thoughts to my own, i thought, what with the pessimism, the rain and all that... maybe our streams of consciousness, pritish nandy's and mine, are distributaries of the same mother river...

Journey On...

2007-03-05T00:59:00.000+05:30

Baawra mann dekhne chala
Ek sapna...

Stretching beyond the horizon
The long, lonesome highway
Two feet in battered brown shoes
Fall arrhythmically...

A mind recalls the image of you
Jumping with joy - the best day of your life
The day it was decided, perhaps
That our paths forked thenceforth...

The luncheon where mouths chomped away happily
On bread and cheese and words and smiles
The unspoken barricaded within
The invisible drops swallowed

Shoulders that bend forward with the load of the heavy backpack
Containing pages torn from a diary
A small red velvet jewellery box
A few old ticket stubs

Pitter-pattering feet on the gravel
Recall the long walks and drives among grasses green and setting sun
Eyeing the darkening skies
Evening, or another storm?

Journey On...

(27/2/2007)

Meeting THE Parent, &c.

2007-02-24T23:13:00.000+05:30

Remember Ben Stiller in 'Meet the Parents'? How, when he goes with his girlfriend to meet her parents, the father - the AWESOME Robert deNiro - subjects him to various CIA/FBI methods of obtaining confessions? And how, in a stupor caused by a truth-serum deNiro slips into his drink, he confesses to have a huge crush on his soon-to-be Mother-in-Law? Good movie, and one feels sorry for poor Gaylord Focker (Stiller's screen persona)...

* * * * *

Went to watch the eagerly-anticipated movie Honeymoon Travels Pvt. Ltd. today... It is lame, at best... At worst, it tends to approach the nether-regions of creative bankruptcy... Wasted talent in the movie include the usually excellent Kay Kay Menon and the brilliant Boman Irani... A must-avoid movie at any cost, or even for free...

* * * * *

Met Meiya's mom today... Strong-willed lady, wonderful human-being and the perfect hostess (is this the day of the superlative or what?!)... And the pasta and the singing - all part of a memorable few hours spent with the ladies... Ma'am (as i called her all day) had the following comments about me after i had left (as overheard by roving raju reporter) - 'calibre hai, intelligent hai, aur bahut talented hai. apni capacity se kam success mila hai. Par BOLTA BAHUT HAI!'

i thank you for the generosity of your praise, madame... and everyone says the same about the talking too much bit... kya karein, programming error hai... ;-)

Parsley, sage, rosemary and My Funny Valentine...

2007-02-13T23:10:00.000+05:30

So Feb. 14 and all the brouhaha surrounding it hits us in the face again... Wonder if St. Valentine (God Bless his Soul) ever thought while he lived that his MARTYRDOM would be CELEBRATED with such warm feelings in a country he might never have heard of, thanks to the massive efforts of M/s Archies Gallery, Inc. and their kind...

And so, speaking strictly of Delhi, RED is the colour of the season, despite the grey clouds that have irritated us for the last week... Red roses, if you can find any, cost anywhere between Rs. 25 and 50 per piece, LOVE seems to be the flavour on everyone's lips (apart from their partners' saliva), and the saffron-brigade is lying low, perhaps waiting to strike on the appointed day... And maybe Mr. Thackeray now thinks that everyone in the country has followed the President's lead (as they should) and turned a blind eye (as he believes) on our heritage/customs/Afzal Guru and anything else his senile mind can think up...

Anyway coming back to St. Valentine... He was a martyr of love, it is said... Not his own love, but someone else's... So why dont we celebrate other people's love on this day and martyr our own feelings? Perhaps one can 'sacrifice' for one's own love and/or loved one... (a la Laila-Majnu, Sheerin-Farhad, Romeo-Juliet, Jai-Veeru... or was Jai actually NOT gay? :-s) Perhaps only an idiot can sacrifice for a third person... So was St. Valentine an idiot? If yes, then why do we celebrate the day an idiot went and got himself killed?

Appalling cynicism, you say... I agree... But why, pray WHY, should one celebrate Valentine's Day???

* * * * *

(Alternately)

If one were to examine human history closely, over the last 10,000 years, almost all major (and minor) events have been caused by either of three major reasons - quest for establishment of Supremacy, quest for Knowledge, and... Love. Being a student of literature, I can vouch for the fact that with the possible exception of Homer (depending on one's interpretation), almost all other poets and authors of note, starting with Sappho and proceeding till the present-day, have dipped their pens in this latter emotion and tried to find their muse, more often than not with success...

It is overwhelming, this 'Love' thing... The Romans used to think (or at least my lecturer said so) that EROS (love) and THANATOS (death) are twins - two sides of the same coin... Which is to say that only these two things can overpower human existence to such an extent, that everything else ceases to exist... Love isnt easy, no matter what the Americans would have us believe - it is a bed of nails, a crown of thorns, a booby trap, and all those other things that the 'i-have-loved-and-lost' kinds would say it is... As Ghalib put it,

Ye ishq nahin aasaan, itna to samajh leejiye
Ik aag ka dariyaa hai, aur doob ke jaana hai...

(Love is not easy, just understand this
It is a sea of fire, and one has to drown and go through it...)

But while it lasts, there can be no stronger, more beatific emotion than Love... Anyone who has loved, whether lost or not, will vouch for that...

Unke dekhe se jo aa jaati hai munh par raunaq
Woh samajhte hain ki bimaar ka haal achha hai...

(The glow that comes onto the face the moment one sees her {the beloved}
Makes her believe that the sick have recovered sufficiently...)

And so, here's wishing everyone a very Happy Valentine's Day, the day we celebrate this emotion, called Love...

What I dream I had:
Pressed in organdy;
Clothed in crinoline of smoky Burgundy;
Softer than the rain.
I wandered empty streets
Down past the shop displays.
I heard cathedral bells
Tripping down the alley ways,
As I walked on.

And when you ran to me
Your cheeks flushed with the night.
We walked on frosted fields of juniper and lamplight,
I held your hand.
And when I awoke and felt you warm and near,
I kissed your honey hair with my grateful tears.
Oh I love you, girl...
Oh, I love you...

(Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, 'For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her')

* * * * *

Comments invited...

Guru-Shishya Parampara and other random thoughts...

2007-01-28T01:32:00.000+05:30

For those who (after Anglicising/Americanising themselves and developing a superiority complex) believe that our Indian traditions and customs are only worth rubbishing, here's something for u...

Now it is no secret that I'm a big Gulzar fan... It is also indisputable that he is one of the great poet/lyricists of recent times... And yet, the man who wrote Kajraare and Beedi Jalayile that u gyrate ur collective butts to in every 'disc', also created an epic-proportioned ode to his philosophical guru, Mirza Ghalib... And not just the TV serial, the stamp of Ghalib is present everywhere in his works... At the very start of the serial (Ibteda), Gulzar narrates his Ode to his Guru, also published elsewhere as 'Portrait of Ghalib' -

Ballimaaraan ke mahalle ki wo pecheeda daleelon ki see galiyaan...
Saamne taal ke nukkad pe bateron ke kaseede...
Gurgurati hui paan ki peekon mein wo daad, wo waah-waah...
Chand darwaaze par latke hue boseeda-se kuch taat ke parde...
Ek bakri ke mamiyaane ki aawaaz...
Aur dhundhlayi hui shaam ke be-noor andhere
Aise deewaron se munh jod-ke chalte hain yahan
Chudiwaalan ke katre ki badi-bee jaise
Apni bujhti hui aankhon se darwaaze tatole...
Isee be-noor andheri-see Gali Quasim se
Ek tarteeb charaaghon ki shuru hoti hai...
Ek Quran-e-sukhan ka safaa khulta hai...
Asadallah Khan Ghalib ka pata milta hai...

Almost impossible to translate, though i shall try, for anyone who doesnt know urdu... imagine the fade-in scene at the beginning of the serial showing the activity in a late-evening Old Delhi alleyway -

The lanes of the area called Ballimaaraan, shaped like twisty arguments in Court...
At the street-corner housing the wood-shop ahead, the burial of birds dead in a bird-fight...
Praise for the poet emanating from mouths splattered with betel-stains...
A few ramshackle straw-thatched curtains hanging from the doors...
The sound of a bleating goat...
And the lusterless blackness of the diminishing evening
Moves with its face attached to the walls for support
Much like the Matriarch of the Chudiwallan Lane
Who, almost sightless, looks for doorways with her touch...
It is from this lusterless, dark Gali Quasim
That the little rays from a lamp emanate...
The first page of the Holy Quran is opened...
And one finds the address of one Asadallah Khan Ghalib...

Conclusion of this didactic section of the blog : u lose nothing by acknowledging what you gain from an elder or a guru... give them some respect and recognition...

* * * * *

Had a great time with the bhailog from school today, its always a lot of fun hanging out with u guys... Special thanks to Karan Gangwani for organising this impromptu get together... Lets hold something like this more often man, and do invite Happy Sardar everytime!

* * * * *

For Mirage: u can still comment on my blog if u read it, I'd still appreciate the odd comment if anything moves u...

* * * * *

Dinner should be had at least 2 hrs before bed... Otherwise u wake up with stomach-cramps and end up translating Gulzar into English and writing ur longest blog entry ever...

* * * * *

I think i dont have anything else to ramble about...

* * * * *

Or do I?

* * * * *

Zzzzz...

The Eyes Have It...

2007-01-25T20:36:00.000+05:30

Gathering clouds
Infest the blue canvas
The argentous border
Invisible to the eye
For here, the eyes disappear
Leaving hollow sockets behind
Dust settling into them

Yet the gaze is still directed upward
As if staring at the dark gray painting
And then it begins to drip
Droplets pregnant with colour
Dripping into the hollows
Delivering mud
The eyes reappear
Sightless.

(28/9/2006)

The Separation...

2007-01-19T01:58:00.000+05:30

The light has gone out of our lives...

- Jawaharlal Nehru, on Mahatma Gandhi's death (1948)

And so it is...
My muse you have been
Turned me into a poet
Made me popular among my peers
Your presence, synonymous with mine
I have often take refuge in your comforting embrace
Ran from the world, adversity
You have been the eternal companion
But like all good things, this, I feel, must come to an end...
We have been together too long
I do not get the enchanting sensations anymore...
And so, I bid you goodbye
You will find another
More deserving of your company than I
I shall be better off without you...
'Put out the light, and then put out the light'
Fare thee well, my perforated friend...

(31/12/2006)

{P.S. - for those who think my wits have failed me and i have written an ode and a farewell poem to a cigarette, think again...}

Ode to my Muse (The Advertisement)...

2007-01-19T01:51:00.000+05:30

She laughs
She laughs at my folly
She mocks my innumerable defeats
She stops
Sees my crestfallen face
She kisses me
Envelopes me in her embrace
Her aroma drowns out my sorrows
I am engulfed by her flames,
My perforated friend...

(23/7/2005)

2007: An Introspective Odyssey...

2007-01-18T20:06:00.000+05:30

They say New Year Resolutions are meant to be broken... They say promises are meant to be broken... They say hearts are meant to be broken... They say glass is meant to be broken...

And I dont want the world to see me
Coz I dont think that they'd understand
When everything's meant to be broken
I just want you to know who i am...

- Goo Goo Dolls, 'Iris'

Quite an uneventful 31st December is what sets the beginning of 2007 apart from the rest of them, for me. No party, no alcohol, no chicks; just the family sitting at home in Jaipur and shivering... And of course, the eternal companion had left my side by the time the New Year rang in...

2007 has begun on a very retrospective/introspective note... A lot of inexplicable binaries have sprung into existence... Thats what inactivity can do, u know... Take this for example - Bhai was leaving on the night of the 11th... When i wished him goodbye with a fist-punch and a pat on the back, what images should pop into my head but those that we spent up in the attic room in Jaipur, laughing away to glory... He would suspend me inverted from his bed, Richu holding my feet firmly while he would tickle the soles... Pure torture... And now, he is an American citizen, got a job with the federal govt, everyone in his age-group is getting married, etc... Can those days of innocence ever return, Mr. Blake?

Life in 2006 has seemingly been through the twisty alleys of Ballimaran... Moving out of college to a place where no one belongs, the ups n downs of life with Meiya, the 'INCIDENT', the new love gone sour, the loneliness among a class of 120, and the parting with the companion. Lets see what the 'year of Bond' (borrowed from Times of India) brings...

At last, humour on this blog...

2006-12-23T01:55:00.000+05:30

WARNING: Harebrained piece of prose follows… Proceed at your own peril…

I am being held at gunpoint and forced to write this. At the trigger (or is it a rifle loaded with buckshot?) stands the exalted royal heir to the Dept. of English throne, ordering me to type faster and meet the deadline for the wall magazine, ready to blow my brains (if any) out. I have been asked to provide a piece of prose that should be ‘cynical, funny,’ and ‘will be appreciated’. Déjà vu. Reminds me of the last St. Valentine’s Day when my then-girlfriend asked me to gift something that could serve as a cellphone and a PC, and which ‘wouldn’t be too heavy’ on my pocket. I handed in my resignation…

Allow me a moment of self-pity, dear reader, as I wipe away the last remnant of those sentimental times, meandering down my cratered face. But then again, I digress… Am I not supposed to be writing something fulfilling the above criteria?

Right, so here we go. Cynical… umm… A rhetorical question stems from my dull, earlier heat-oppressed and now chill-numbed brain… (hooray it exists!) Can one be cynical when faced with such a predicament? Reminds me of the clichéd phrase ‘Catch-22 situation’, which is often used for such a circumstance, and yet, inexplicably, its etymology is never elucidated upon. My captor is giving me a pretty mean stare right now, which means I better get back to the point… Err… Which was?

Oh yes the promised prose-piece… Now lets see… Funny… Oh yeah I’ve got something to write for that category… Ever wondered why obscure, sometimes unknown people scrap you on that maniacal, addictive, waste-of-time website called Orkut, just to pass their time of day? Sometimes I feel that Orkut is a wonderful advertisement, post-mortem, for Mr. Samuel Beckett and his Waiting for Godot… At the very least, it seems to be a more ‘constructive’ way to pass the time than those poor existential-double-bound tramps… Err… You didn’t find that funny, did you? Well, what do you expect! I’ve got a (insert swear-word here) GUN pointing at my forehead!

I seem to have reached the end of my wits (and the end of my tether too). Exhausted by the effort of trying to cook up a piece as commissioned by my captor, I now resign myself to fate, hoping the eternal hope that at least the third criterion, which lies in your response to this, shall provide me with an epitaph… Goodbye everybody… {GUNSHOT}

On with the show...

2006-12-21T04:55:00.000+05:30

The spotlight gazes its gazely stare
He stands at its focal point
The deer caught in the headlights
Nowhere to run or hide
As the curtain rises
To a warm applause from the audience
The semicircle of humanity
Staring fixedly at the object of focus
Here he goes, playing star again...
Chief antagonist of this well scripted tragedy,
Titled 'LIFE'...
No Shakespeare could pen a play as perfect
No Aristotle dare comment
'I am not what I am'...
Motiveless malign? or
Hapless victim of circumstance?
Quit complaining and act!
The show must go on...

(21/12/2006)

the show must go on...

2006-12-04T01:15:00.000+05:30

a friend of mine once said to me, 'shit happens. and when it rains, it pours...' a bad example of a mixed metaphor, but a good example of sound advice...

so here i am at 1am writing out a new entry, having found a new belief in my friend's observation... had a terrible day that led me to remark, 'here's december, all over again...' meaning basically that december more often than not turns out to be the beginning of my new year of troubles... but then, who am i kidding? everyone has troubles... everyone goes thru a lot of tumult; i atleast get a few days' respite between its phases... im not complaining, but sometimes i think my life is no different from others' - it is majorly fucked up too...

troubles come and go like the women in my favourite poem, TS Eliot's 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'... on a tangent, there's some anonymous chap who's troubled enough it seems to keep posting comments on my blog, and yet is careful enough not to reveal his identity. to u dude, if ur reading this post, here's a surprise... i know who u are. if u think ur 'God' and no one else has brains enough to figure out ur 'elementary' hints, uh-huh! here's a reality check...

anyway back to the troubles... or rather, let them be... let them come n go, for life wouldnt be life without them... in the words of Queen, immortalised by the dying Freddie Mercury -

Whatever happens I'll leave it all to chance
Another heartache, another failed romance
On and on, does anybody know what we are living for
I guess I'm learning
I must be warmer now
I'll soon be turning round the corner now
Outside the dawn is breaking
But inside in the dark I'm aching to be free

The show must go on, the show must go on
Inside my heart is breaking
My make-up may be flaking, but my smile... still stays on...

2006-11-23T21:16:00.000+05:30

Ramblings... some straight, some not so...

2006-11-23T15:06:00.000+05:30

the other day i decided to put 'committed' as my status on orkut... no particular reason, just put it on... and guess what, people actually EMAILED me to ask what was going on... who was the 'unlucky' female etc...

two observations: -

a) people expect me to be in ZERO demand as far as relationships are concerned. if i say im committed, the first question most people ask is "how did that happen?" so im not the prettiest picture in the world by a long shot (though some consider elephants to be the most beautiful animal after lions/tigers esp while on african safaris)... but is the situation so hopeless in the public eye for me that i can only get some dehati 'ROUND MOUND OF REBOUND' and no one else on my own?

b) (and this is the good part...) no one assumed i was committed to a guy... atleast they got something right...

* * * * *

homosexuality is something thats being discussed on TV, on the streets, everywhere, despite the archaic laws of our land that outlaw it... people are now less afraid than before to declare their sexual orientation... but the questions remains, are we ready to accept the truth of homosexuality? are we ready to allow it to exist as a 'normal' form of sexuality in our society? will we stop giggling and making jokes about someone who declares that he/she is a homosexual? will our parents or grandparents accept that their child is gay? or that he/she even knows someone who is gay? will it ever be considered a natural form of sexuality and not be construed as an unnatural, criminal act of sodomy?

perhaps the answer to all these questions is no... or maybe... but the fact remains, we need to open our eyes to this truth and accept it... elton john or george michael or vikram seth or lisa leslie (WNBA player) are no less talented n successful than their straight counterparts...

and as to the myth that its unnatural... well i was out on my walk last weekend at around 1130pm and i saw two male dogs trying to climb over and sodomise each other... unnatural, did we say?

Time to Close the Window...

2006-11-19T20:08:00.000+05:30

And indeed there will be time
To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"
Time to turn back and descend the stair...

Do I dare
Disturb the universe?

- Thomas Stearns Eliot, 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock'

Jab rula lete hain jee bhar ke humein
Jab sataa lete hain jee bhar ke humein
Tab kahin khush woh zaraa hote hain...
Aur kya ehad-e-wafa hote hain
Log milte hain juda hote hain...

- from the 1980s Hindi movie 'Sunny'

'Life is pain' is one of the chief existentialist mottos. Physical pain, emotional pain... the list of types of pains can be endless, upto and including the figurative 'pain in the ass', which is how we refer to most people around us. These various kinds of pain never desert us, and yet the optimists among us will continue their quest for 'eternal happiness'. face facts people, life IS pain... the turmoil that confronts us is the only comfort zone one can find in life. accepting that shit will happen is a real POSITIVE outlook to life. coz just when u think things are beginning to go right, KABOOM! and here we go again...

* * * * *

the relationships i have forged in my life keep nose-diving and correcting their paths often enough, much like an Indian Air Force air-show or something... but this time i sense that its the end of the road for atleast one of them.

she and I met 4 months ago, grew closer n closer to each other, first as friends, then as two people who shared affection but knew that there could be nothing more to us... i guess our relationship was like matter collapsing in a black-hole. now it has imploded. peripeteia has happened, and now its time for the anagnorisis of this particular ragnarok...

life, again, has turned out to be pain... winter has set in... i feel its time to close the window through which grew this small creeper...

2006-10-31T14:10:00.000+05:30

just the other day someone who read this blog pointed out that there were a surprisingly few number of posts on it... arre bhai when i started bloggin only in september, how do u expect me to write a blog equivalent of the ramayana so soon?

anyway it has been a long time, almost a month, since i blogged. for those in the know, the reason might be easy to figure out. for those not in the know, go figure...

tuesday afternoon 1407 hrs... im sitting n listening to an MP3 CD of gulzar-saab's songs... currently playing :

Naam gum jayega
Chehra ye badal jayega
Meri aawaaz hi pehchaan hai
Gar yaad rahe...

(The name will disappear
The face will have changed
My voice is the only recognisable aspect
If u can remember it...)

i asked my sister richa (who lives in the USA) to go thru my blog one day. she asked me, 'is it any funny stuff or something broody n melancholic?'

i couldnt answer immediately, then replied, 'well technically speaking it is melancholic to a degree...'

she asked me why... why couldnt i write any funny stuff?

im still waiting for the answer... trying to analyse what goes into my writings... i have often been told that i possess a good sense of humour... if that be true then why is it ever-absent in whatever i write? is it, like most other things in my life, a mask i put on? maybe not...

i go to college, crack funny comments, entertain the class; go hang out with friends, am supposed to be (along with dantu) the funny one; come online, am expected to be sarcastic, cynical and crack a few jokes along the way whether on messengers or on the DU MA community...

thats the reply i gave to my sister... dont u think everyone gets too much of humour out of me all the time? where is it that my non-humourous side finds an outlet...

in my writings, and now in this blog...

Crossroad...

2006-10-04T10:57:00.000+05:30

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them.

- William Shakespeare, 'Hamlet', Act III Scene I

sometimes one stands at the crossroads. when every road that stretches out in front of the eyes to the horizon seems strewn with nails, waiting to bite into the bare feet. and yet one has to make a choice... a choice that can change lives, not just one's own...

i find myself at one such crossroad today... did my poetry pre-empt such a confusion? prufrock's procrastination, that stems out of hamlet's hallucinatory habits?

what i wanted to happen has happened... ive made the choice, albeit a very selfish one. and yet there exists the confusion, the crossroad beckons me again...

will someone please put my hamlet/prufrockian instincts to rest?

2006-09-27T19:44:00.000+05:30

Half Stub - variously interpreted

the early poems - pre-sutta phase...

2006-09-24T23:47:00.000+05:30

THE SILHOUETTE

The dark path under a moonless sky
A silhouette walks along, shadowless
The rain hasn't lost its bite with the journey
It stings the flesh but the silhouette is unperturbed

It has lost its mind
Lost its heart
Lost its face
It moves without a sound
It is but a silhouette

Onlookers stay faraway
For though it maybe a friend
It might even be a foe
Or a robber who'll strip them off their possessions

It walks on, head hung down
Lost in thought, or can it even think?
No one knows, and no one dare find
For the silhouette carries a cloud of misery

All of a sudden it disappears
A sigh of relief is emitted
But curious voices ask... where has it gone?
A splash in the lake gives them the answer...

(12/02/2004)

ANOTHER PHOENIX

All around me

The world is a burnt-out ruin

A memoir of man’s seduction

By the seven deadly sins

I come across death, destruction

This land, irrigated with blood

Now gives a rich harvest

Guns, bombs, arsonists alike

I now lie mortally wounded

A new addition to the growing list

I have been left alone in death

This is the only place I find peace

The eerie silence is music to my ears

I have been know to destroy

And to self destruct

Yet I always return

Never my lesson do I learn

Burn myself in one hell or another

No one seems to mind

For that is my designated job

Only this time

I shall not rise

For there are no ashes

Only a little bullet in my head

But the supreme confidence I have in my kind

Someone shall take my place

Someone from the burnt-out ruin

Shall rise from the ashes, again

Another Phoenix…

(21/04/2004)

redemption reprise

2006-09-24T23:29:00.000+05:30

Half stub
The reprise
Torn in the confusion
Pacing the distance between the horns of dilemma
Burning in the cathartic fire
Waiting for redemption
Prufrock's procrastination
Is a natural way for me
Not by choice, but chance
Approaching a fork in the road
No clue where to go
The foreknowledge haunts
For this is purgatory
All roads lead the same way
Humble Polonius
Pictured at the fork
Waiting...
Reignition...
Half stub

(21/09/2006)

reflecting on my past life...

2006-09-17T21:17:00.000+05:30

yet another boring sunday has almost passed. but there's something about this inactivity that makes my brain work, atleast blog-wise. was just sitting n browsing thru a few profiles on orkut and hit upon gautam's, which contained a few photos from school.

ah don bosco! my alma-mater... i miss those days. not a care in the world, no emotional complications whatsoever... just going everyday, enjoying life with the bhailogs, talking trash about "hot" teachers... not doing any kind of serious work, getting 43% marks in Class XI 1st term... never once was there any blot (except the marks probably) on the mind...

and now, not a day goes by without thinking about various career matters, emotional matters (read: women-created troubles) etc... how i hope one day i could go back to those days...

BOSCONIAN FOREVER...

something i wrote last year

2006-09-11T21:42:00.000+05:30

two poems written three days apart -

(I)

The half stub sticks out of the box

Sticks out even though it is the smallest

Humbled I stand today

The flight is over

Was good while it lasted

Recognition

Over-recognition

Familiarity

Contempt

Who wants to sit next to me?

Reflection

The past blurs by

The future flies past

Violent enmity

Scoots beneath the surface

Absurd

Totally absurd

What are we doing?

Waiting

One of the thieves was saved

Fifty percent redemption

Half stub.

(II)

Caught in the inferno

The hypochondriac stands

Oblivious to the fire

That envelops his existence

The charred remains; and

The charring, remains

Yet the realization

Fails to appear

Trapped he stands

Procrastinating the inevitable

Till the flame

Burns his inflammable self

The half lived life

Half stub.

redemption

2006-09-11T21:17:00.000+05:30

picked up my guitar again today after almost a 1 1/2 month hiatus. played lonely nights by scorpions, at the behest of shadow, then tried to cover possibly the greatest self-tribute ever - the show must go on. freddie mercury, dying of aids, sang the toughest song in queen's difficult-to-sing repertoire, and then died a few months later.

what is life but a long, painful wait for death (or redemption for the optimistic-minded)? we're all waiting for something or the other in life... D's waiting for deliverance from her emotional tumult, shadows is waiting for the 2 years to get over and im waiting for... what?

the answer wouldve been simple 3 weeks ago, but now, im not so sure. maybe one thing or maybe the other. or maybe im just making excuses for extending this half-lived life...

Der Weltmeister Verborgen.. Auf Wiedersen!

2006-09-10T20:30:00.000+05:30

(German for 'The World Champion has Retired... Goodbye!')

just saw on tv that Michael Schumacher announced his retirement from F1. the greatest (statistical) champion of all time in F1 has decided to hang up his helmet. and throughout the world (well, orkut communities anyway...) there's a great wave of depression n sadness.

come on guys, he is 37, has been racing at the top for 16 years. give him a break. and lets celebrate his success, not mourn his retirement. he has broken every record there is to break in the sport, and the new records will be virtually unchallenged. let us, his fans, cheer him all the way to his 8th title this season and celebrate his unrivalled success...

2006-09-10T16:15:00.000+05:30

just thought i wud show u folks what i look like...
this is me, holding a silver glass full of beer on christmas eve in 2004...
so much for the holy sacrament...

2006-09-10T15:57:00.000+05:30

ennui /on-wee/ n. extreme boredom

sunday afternoon and i write this post while reeling under the effect of the above noun. it has inspired poetry in the past, and i am waiting for a similar kind of poetic inspiration to hit me. or maybe im just hoping to be the next thomas stearns eliot -

And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet...

In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse...

or maybe its just one of those things that crop up in a dull, heat-oppressed brain on a boring sunday afternoon, waiting for redemption, which shall come in the form of an F1 race at 1630 hrs.

Ennui was keeping me exiled. Ennui that came from everything.
So...

the first post

2006-09-10T06:07:00.000+05:30

some days leave an indelible mark on one's existence. today was the first time i believed that one can make a difference, albeit at a personal level, to other people's lives. seventeen hours is all it took for me to realise the (cliche alert) power of human expression...

thanks D for giving my number to shadows. And thanks shadows, for finally forcing me to start my own blog, late though it might be...