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

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...

कुछ लफ्ज़, मतलब की तलाश में...

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...

Yun hota to kya hota...?

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...

Anticipatory Bail

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...

2007: An Introspective Odyssey...

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...

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

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...

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...

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...

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?

Half Stub - variously interpreted

redemption

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...

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

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...