Carnival of Rust

D' you breathe the name of your saviour in your hour of need,
And taste the blame if the flavor should remind you of greed?
Of implication, insinuation and ill will, 'til you cannot lie still,
In all this turmoil, before red cape and foil come closing in for a kill

Come feed the rain
'cause I'm thirsty for your love dancing underneath the skies of lust
Yeah, feed the rain
'cause without your love my life ain't nothing but this carnival of rust

It's all a game, avoiding failure, when true colors will bleed
All in the name of misbehavior and the things we don't need
I lust for after no disaster can touch, touch us anymore
And more than ever, I hope to never fall, where enough is not the same it was before

Come feed the rain...
'cause I'm thirsty for your love dancing underneath the skies of lust
Yeah, feed the rain
'cause without your love my life ain't nothing but this carnival of rust
Yeah, feed the rain
'cause I'm thirsty for your love dancing underneath the skies of lust
Yeah, feed the rain
'cause without your love my life ain't nothing but this carnival of rust

Don't walk away, don't walk away, oh, when the world is burning
Don't walk away, don't walk away, oh, when the heart is yearning
Don't walk away, don't walk away, oh, when the world is burning
Don't walk away, don't walk away, oh, when the heart is yearning

A Jaded End to Beautiful Dreams

Since I entered my teens I’ve been an avid reader of romance novels. Tragic heroines, vengeful dashing heroes, and happily ever after endings. The ideal lives, stories that started with mutual hate, progressed to passionate encounters and ended with delightful joining of souls, happily settled lead pairs, and the villains behind bars. And I used to spend hours day dreaming on the storylines of these novels, with my current crush in the role of the dashing hero, me the sweet innocent wronged heroine, and a sorting out of all troubles, eventually leading to us riding off in the beautiful sunset. I’d dream of someday writing such beautiful stories. Growing up, I had my fair share of romances and heart breaks, but the stories were always there to reassure me, remind me that romance is alive, just not here with me. After every break up, every dashed dream, I’d read my favorite novels, and start day dreaming about the next story. Until one day when I woke up jaded. The enchantment of these stories was broken. I realized the futility of love, the reality of love. And these novels sat there lined up on my shelf mocking me with their brutally unrealistic titles: ‘Love Rules’; ‘Burning Desire’ and others just as ridiculous. When had I grown up? When did the magic of these utterly romantic words start leaping up from the pages and trying to eat me? Suddenly, they became poison pen words. And I realized finally that they are stories. Period. They can never be translated to life. The kind of passionate love they promoted existed only in them, in reality love is nothing like the books it is glorified in. love is ugly, love is pain, and love is vengeful. Love is not sweetness and air, it is not all happy spring days, and diamond rings. Love is dark and twisted, love is stormy cold winter nights, grey snowy days, and love is deceitful. It makes you trust, it leads you down a path of thorns that ends in a pit fall. And all these books that paint these pretty pictures with their happy words and beautiful people, are just that. Pictures. Good to look at but stupid to try to bring to life. The words mocked me, made fun of me, and made me look back at those wonderful days of day dreaming and long for them to come back. If I could turn back time and go back to those summer vacations reading these now seemingly mindless novels, I’d turn it back and go back there. I’d stop myself from believing in it. Stop myself from being made a fool of by authors who believed in happy endings. Made myself realize then that happiness of that sorted existed only in these books. Meant to be read and forgotten. It is easier not to believe, than to believe and loose faith. Because that just seems like the worst kind of betrayal.

A PLATFORM WITH NO NUMBER..... DID THE TRAIN REALLY STOP HERE?

The following has not been written by me, so please excuse the grammatical errors and spelling mistakes. But once i read it, i HAD top put it up. For what it's worth, it's a true incident, not a figment of anyone's imagination, for no one i know has such an inexcusably cruel imagination.

Platform With No Number

By :

Gaurav Julka

After , a Great tour of Mumbai , Visiting Most of all Expected places in

Mumbai to be visited , it was time to go back home & Enjoy the Dull & boring life of Baroda ,I had gone to Mumbai ,basically to chill with my friends at the national office of my student organization ,but now it was time to go back to Baroda . Those days were days where It was hard to book an AC Train ticket on the spot , the only option I had was to go via a bus or a Sleeper Class train , so I choose to go to Baroda via sleeper Class train . It was 6:30 Pm when I left my office and took a cab to Banadra Terminus , As soon as I reached there , there were five to seven Kuli’s ready to pull my baggage , up to the platform , where my train supposed to leave from . I confirmed my train number ,time and its platform .It was 7:45 pm in the evening & unfortunately my train was at 10:40 pm at Night , so I knew , I have lots of time to chill on platform , but fate had something else for me .

Well it was time to select a kuli , during the completion between the kuli’s there was a voice ,which attracted me a lot this voice was of a boy of maybe age 13 to 14 ,saying that he would lift my baggage in half the price the kuli’s would do , living in Gujarat I have always learnt to save money , so I decided to go with him . he took me to the last platform ,through those small tunnels & spaces . As I reached the platform I saw it was totally deserted & there were no hot chicks around .he dropped me somewhere in the middle of the platform & just charged me Rs. 30,I was really cool with that , but who knew , this platform would change the way I look at life .

As I reached the platform , sat on a cement seat ,I realized my cell phone battery was dead, forget chilling now it was really getting bored. Like other humans ,even I had the same tendency of accepting things. Looking around I saw a group of small kids may be 10 to 16 years of age playing cards, they were playing some odd game out of my knowledge . It was really shocking to see these people to play cards . It instantly touched my heart , they being so poor , not even food to eat , forget clothes some of them were half naked . I just tried to ignore all that & look around , the only things I could see were an old boogie of a train in front of me , a water tap and A tea stall, so I opted to have a cup of tea , but still I could not distract my mind from the group , these guys were playing as if , the winner gets Mumbai .

Suddenly I noticed that a person came out of that abandoned boogie , he was a fat guy of an age may be forty , he was closing the zip of his trousers which indeed amused me , but the next thing was shocking , after two minutes he left , there came a small girl ,came out of the same boogie , she must be 15 years of age , she was indeed sweet. She was talking as if she was alcoholic and then I realized she was a prostitute . I questioned myself , was it true what I saw , was it just a usual misconception of mine , she walk towards the platform and sat amongst the group of those children playing cards .

Till I could get back from my senses , a boy amongst the group suddenly shouted with excitement that he had won the game ,the boy instantly banged his hand on the girls breast , I knew the girl was in pain , I could see it on her face , Actually the girl was the reward of winning that game . His hands were still on the girls breasts until other boys forced him to remove his hand , there was an argument in the group because the boy was a junior he cannot take away his reward , after that second just in front of me the boys started asking the girl for sex , and the words they used were unimaginable , even the girl . During this the girl shouted , that she just had sex and she was tired , these words that she used took me out of my senses , the girl even looked at me and said she had just done...

I Seriously got nerves, that what was happening , where were the cops , where was the culture , where was I , was I in some kind of misconception about this world or was it just a dream that I was dreaming. The boys just wanted to touch her all around , I was high time that I realized that I needed to do something , But What ?? suddenly I don’t know I just randomly shouted , that what was going on , the boys suddenly scattered and the girl moved towards the tea stall , she sat on the platform , and was drinking the left over tea of someone there at the stall . one of those boys comes near to that girl and puts his hand across her neck and very politely asks her again

to have sex, he promises to pay her for that .He throws his hand into his pocket, grabs a five rupee coin and gifts it to the girl , she turns around with an angry smile and asks him for the other fifteen rupee’s , the boys says , he would arrange by tonight , I mean I was shocked , that what the hell was wrong , was the cost of the girl just twenty rupee’s , is she so poor , is her life like this ? after that the girl said that as soon he would bring the money , she will open up all her clothes for him , she allowed him to move her hand on her breast until the tea stall person shouted at them , then apparently she disappeared towards the main platform, as a train had arrived on the adjacent platform , the kids walked towards the train to carry luggage’s , but the girls face was still on my mind , I didn’t knew what to do

, what to look for , whom to go to , but still had a thing called faith and hope in my mind , I went to the Tea stall , gathered guts and Asked the person at the tea stall ,that what was this all about , he gave me a shocking reply he said it was her job indeed he said she was really good when she came from her home town , Surat, he said in blunt words that there was no more fun in having sex with her ….

What was it , where was I after this reply I could not even imagine the girls state at this station , but still I had that girl in my mind so asked him again that what was the girls name , he replied in his same blunt words , he said some name “ which in English meant Fucking , I was in one of the worst situations of my life , I sat down on my seat near the pillar and was thinking about her daily life that If she needs to earn hundred rupees she needs to have sex with at least five people , this kept creeping in my mind , Enough was Enough I stood up , went to the police person on the adjacent platform and told him about all this , his reply also shocked me he said why was I concerned about it , he said why did I wanted to get into trouble , he told me to stay away and she would take care of herself , but I knew she wont and she cant .i found myself in the same dilemma . I guess it was a day which God had Specially selected for me ,to prove myself in the test of life as all this passed on it was 9:50 pm on my watch I was still thinking on it , apparently there was an announcement made that my train was 1 hour and 20 minutes late , it meant that the train would actually leave at 12:00 midnight from Borivalli (Mumbai).

I tried to Distract myself but it was impossible, I could not forget the girls face ,after few minutes of thinking and Brainstorming I decided the only solution was that I go and talk with that girl & somehow or anyhow convince her that this was spoiling her life ,somehow sitting there I decided yes I would look through it , I decided to talk to her , but what ? I want clear on that also I hadn’t realized when and Where ? this was again a big question for me , my eyes kept looking around other platforms for her sight. The only thing that came into my mind was she would must be having sex , in some corner of the station and earning twenty rupees for her night meal !

It was 11:10 pm and my search was completely of no use , again the

platform became deserted & you could hardly see people . Suddenly the same voice entered my ears , she was coming towards the tea stall , while she was calling off and running after the stray street dogs . We both had an Eye contact with each other then none of us had the guts to look at each other , I figured there was no way that I could next to her and talk , the only way was the next step that I took , a step which would re-define my culture ,a step which could get me into troubles , I took one of the most courageous steps in my life again after few minutes of thinking and brain storming , I called her by a random name , she bluntly replied that it wasn’t her name , I knew that for a fact , I called her and told to sit next to me , she replied in a accent which is rarely used by people that what would she get out of it , the next thing I did was ultimate shocking step of mine , I took a fifty rupees note from my pocket and asked her to come and sit next to me , she stood up , Ran and sat next to me at a blink of a second her hand was over my jeans moving towards the centre of my legs , I stopped her and told her to listen to me first . I told her , that I would pay her fifty rupees if she would not have sex with that boy tonight and I also told her to return his money , she quietly took the money and then returned it back , saying that she never begged from anyone ever & that’s why she choose to live such a life .I explained her a lot about her life ,the people around her , I told her that all of them were just greedy of her body , I told her that she could be currently suffering from Sexual Diseases , I told her that she could keep that money as I was satisfied sitting next to her . she took the money and said “thanks “ this word was not in Hindi , I was shocked she spoke in English , also she little English also , I asked her that where she had learned all this and where was she from ? first she did not reply , but then when I forced her she said she was from Surat , her parents died during Earthquake’s , she had studied in an English medium school till class 6th , after the riots in Surat she run away to Mumbai with her other friends but they all left her alone , and she started living on the station & slowly she move into prostitution , after this there was no such exchange of words I just gave her 200 rupees more to go back to

Surat , she said she cant and she won’t and she does not need this money !

I forced her a lot and finally she took the money , but she would not go back to Surat .Then I asked her to leave the station and look for some kind of job ..she told that she was a house maid , and she usually earns much that she can sustain , this was a small point of satisfaction in my mind… After this she quietly stood up , without saying anything she went away towards the adjacent station , she had those eyes which were hiding a lot more , I wanted to know , but I guess it was too late . Few minutes later I was sitting on the window seat of my train , trying to look for her all around but failed . I had a level of satisfaction but those questions still arouse in my mind that would she leave all this , had she realized what she was doing , have I really changed a person with just 250 rupees , is the world just about money ?? if yes Why are we not changing it , we call our self youth do we even know its meaning , are we applying what we learn ? are we being change agents .

The only thing next thing happened with me was I called few of my friends and told them about this ,and I was thinking about all this all night instead of sleeping & it is during this time I am writing the story , I have just crossed Surat station with a hope that she would leave Mumbai for this station soon , also another thing that again questioned me on my foolishness was that why didn’t I asked her name , anyways its 4:00 am and its getting late I need to sleep , anyways lets see what’s next in life .

(Please understand few words were directly converted into English , because their hindi meaning was

too controversial , thank you for reading this hope you got what I wanted to convey, please make it

point to forward it too all your friends so that a story of a forgotten Girl ,is know to everyone .)

Requiem for a Dream

Summer, Fall, Winter – three seasons of the year. Three phases of life. Three stages of deterioration. Start afresh, a tree with green leaves, that gradually dry, turn brown and finally fall off, leaving the tree bare and defenseless. Naked. All of us born with such dreams, such hope, so sure of ourselves, of our success. Walk around on cloud #9, making happy plans for an unforeseen future. And one small detail overlooked, one step taken wrong, one act of desperate misplaced faith, and slowly and steadily everything starts slipping away till all you are left with in your hands is dry leaves. Memories of happy times. Memories of a past better best forgotten by the present. Memories that torture you, torment you, tease you, mock you, till you reach a point when all you want is to be left alone. Like a bad horror movie, all your dreams, now nightmares, taunt you, in Technicolor.
And how you want to curl up in your bed, and just wish yourself back to your mother’s womb. Escape all the pain, misery and hurt that came out of your oh-so-perfect plans that you were so sure would be your ticket to the GOOD LIFE.
Watch Requiem for a Dream. Say NO to DRUGS.