A Poem Lost in Time

Beyond the norms of

Right and wrong

Redefining the definitions of

Sin, morality and ethics

Without any judgment

I want to hug you tight

Hold you close

Make you mine...

Where the air is pure

Lush green land and deep blue sky

Where nothing is hidden

Everything out in the open

Beyond the limits of reason

Above the land of the lies

I want to hug you tight

Hold you close

Make you mine...

Where the ropes of

Promises, commitment and liability

Falls short

Where everything becomes one

And the one is everything

Right there my baby

I want to hug you tight

Hold you close

Make you mine... 

- Ashish Mishra

Joy to the World?

There is a certain feeling that only comes at this time of the year. Makes you question the value of happiness and your reason to be happy. The festival season in a manner of speaking makes me question mortality, because ironically it is around this time that you kind of realise who is mourning and who isn’t. it reminds you for the year gone by, the joys and the upsets. More than anything it makes me feel a little bereft. See, till three years ago, I used to be living outside Delhi, away from home. Back then, Diwali meant going home for the holidays! Now I AM home.. and that just feels wrong. There is nothing really to look forward to anymore.

This might sound really jaded, but I have started relating the festival season more with what I lost through the year, than anything else. I look for people who have lost, and are mourning, and I realise that sounds very morbid but it is a fact. For some reason it hits the closest to home at this time of the year. Even New Year’s eve isn’t capable of being as depressing as this time.

Which is why, it was such a blessing to live away. Being home for the holidays meant a stress free few weeks, with loads of food, fun, relatives and gifts. Now all that is still there, but there is no inkling of stress free time.

The Song of the Traveller - Jose Rizal

What a beautiful poem, especially for V.

The Song of the Traveler

-Jose Rizal

Like to a leaf that is fallen and withered,

Tossed by the tempest from pole unto pole ;

Thus roams the pilgrim abroad without purpose,

Roams without love, without country or soul.

Following anxiously treacherous fortune,

Fortune which e 'en as he grasps at it flees ;

Vain though the hopes that his yearning is seeking,

Yet does the pilgrim embark on the seas !

Ever impelled by the invisible power,

Destined to roam from the East to the West ;

Oft he remembers the faces of loved ones,

Dreams of the day when he, too, was at rest.

Chance may assign him a tomb on the desert,

Grant him a final asylum of peace ;

Soon by the world and his country forgotten,

God rest his soul when his wanderings cease !

Often the sorrowing pilgrim is envied,

Circling the globe like a sea-gull above ;

Little, ah, little they know what a void

Saddens his soul by the absence of love.

Home may the pilgrim return in the future,

Back to his loved ones his footsteps he bends ;

Naught wìll he find but the snow and the ruins,

Ashes of love and the tomb of his friends,

Pilgrim, begone ! Nor return more hereafter,

Stranger thou art in the land of thy birth ;

Others may sing of their love while rejoicing,

Thou once again must roam o'er the earth.

Pilgrim, begone ! Nor return more hereafter,

Dry are the tears that a while for thee ran ;

Pilgrim, begone ! And forget thine affliction,

Loud laughs the world at the sorrows of man.

Translated by Arthur P.Ferguson

Ramblings..

When you meet people you’ve known for a while, you figure they’d understand what you want. They’d get that you have a need to figure things out with that someone who is so important to you. There is however always that apprehension that you might not be as important to that person. That as always they can turn their back on you and go to sleep.  And no matter how drunk you are, how drunk you want to be, some fantasies do not turn into reality. While life may offer an excuse, it isn’t an excuse valid enough for you to believe. Ever. And no matter how hard you try you simply cannot figure things out. There is a certain restlessness about every thing you do, you think, you try.  And no amount of striving for inner peace helps. I sit here, in a strange room with feet slowly turning cold, and a heart that feels like it beats just because it has to. Not because it wants to. A chronic short fall of emotion, of intelligence, of guts, of everything that makes living worth its while. And try as you might there is nothing that can fill a void caused by a void an emptiness that you have begun to feel has become an inherent part of who you are. Sleep.

Pain

Jim Butcher never ever ceases to stun me. Some of his more profound writing:

"We still hadn't learned, though, that growing up is all about getting hurt. And then getting over it. You hurt. You recover. You move on. Odds are pretty good you're just going to get hurt again. But each time, you learn something.

Each time, you come out of it a little stronger, and at some point you realize that there are more flavors of pain than coffee. There's the little empty pain of leaving something behind - graduating, taking the next step forward, walking out of something familiar and safe into the unknown. There's the big, whirling pain of life upending all of your plans and expectations. There's the sharp little pains of failure, and the more obscure aches of successes that didn't give you what you thought they would. There are the vicious, stabbing pains of hopes being torn up. The sweet little pains of finding others, giving them your love, and taking joy in their life they grow and learn. There's the steady pain of empathy that you shrug off so you can stand beside a wounded friend and help them bear their burdens.

And if you're very, very lucky, there are a very few blazing hot little pains you feel when you realized that you are standing in a moment of utter perfection, an instant of triumph, or happiness, or mirth which at the same time cannot possibly last - and yet will remain with you for life.

Everyone is down on pain, because they forget something important about it: Pain is for the living. Only the dead don't feel it.

Pain is a part of life. Sometimes it's a big part, and sometimes it isn't, but either way, it's a part of the big puzzle, the deep music, the great game. Pain does two things: It teaches you, tells you that you're alive. Then it passes away and leaves you changed. It leaves you wiser, sometimes. Sometimes it leaves you stronger. Either way, pain leaves its mark, and everything important that will ever happen to you in life is going to involve it in one degree or another"

Somebody that I used to know

Ever since I heard this song, its been rotating in my head. I love it. The words are so perfect. They fit. Here goes:

Now and then I think of when we were together
Like when you said you felt so happy you could die
I told myself that you were right for me
But felt so lonely in your company
But that was love and it's an ache I still remember

You can get addicted to a certain kinda sadness
Like resignation to the end, always the end
So when we found that we could not make sense
Well you said that we would still be friends
But I'll admit that I was glad that it was over

But you didn't have to cut me off
Make it like it never happened and that we were nothing
I don't even need your love, but you treat me like a stranger
And that feels so rough

No, you didn't have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records
And then change your number
Guess that I don't need that though
Now you're just somebody that I used to know

Now you're just somebody that I used to know
Now you're just somebody that I used to know

Now and then I think of all the times you screwed me over
But had me believin' it was always something that I'd done

But I don't wanna live that way
Reading into every word you say
You said that you could let it go
And I wouldn't catch you hung up on somebody that you used to know-oh-oh

But you didn't have cut me off
Make it like it never happened and that we were nothing (oh)
I don't even need your love, but you treat me like a stranger
and that feels so rough

(oh)

No, you didn't have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect you records
And then change your number (oh)
Guess that I don't need that though
Now you're just somebody that I used to know

Somebody that I used to know
Somebody (now your just somebody that I used to know)
That I used to know
Somebody that I used to know
Somebody (somebody) (now your just somebody that I used to know)
That I used to know

I used to know
That I used to know
I used to know
Somebody

Vanish

How can you believe someone who doesn’t exist online or in any virtual capacity? It is fishy as well as extremely mysterious. What kind of a person would have no virtual presence at all? I’ve got my theories about this theory. I mean there are several types of people who have no virtual presence. If I someday decided to go AWOL the first thing I’d do is vanish my digital signature. Google may be the God of search, but someone is determined not to be found will not be found. Ever. It is very possible to create a virtual black hole around your presence. To begin with get rid of that Facebook page. Get rid of email, and any other sites you may ever have signed up on. And viola, you do not exist.

However the bigger question here is not how to vanish, but why? What life event would be so scary, so traumatic that you'd wanna vanish? Alright there are quite a few reasons for someone to not have a virtual existence. For instance, a friend of mine was telling me sometime time back about such a thing. Apparently someone she knew met a guy on the party circuit. Said guy and girl became friends and eventually the girl decided, let me check this guy out. I mean why not, right? He didn't have a Facebook page, didn't have a Twitter page, and Google actually showed no results upon searching his name. Eventually they found out he was some kinda psycho, with a rap sheet a mile long and history of rape. Wow, huh?

It made me wonder, how much we have come to depend on the digital world. Even a decade back, the internet did not exist. Or at least a dependence on it wasn't there. Today, if you don't exist on the internet, you're probably a serial killer. Or just vary of the net, like my father, though he has email and a Facebook page and Linkedin! Law Enforcement has Cyber Crime Units for crying out aloud! Okay, i digress with this..

Coming back to the reasons for vanishing online. I believe, if I ever wanted complete peace and isolation, I would vanish my digital life. Go offline everywhere, Facebook, Twitter, Blogspot, Scribed, BM, Whatsapp, and the whole lot of them. I realize life would probably be a lot simpler and a lot easier if these things did not exist. Of course, today, life would be a lot lonelier if some form of presence wasn't maintained on these platforms. But, I also know, that would take a huge amount emotional distress to take this step. That or maybe I'll just stop caring about the world in general.

A thought comes to me as I write this. I met someone who did not exist online. He isn't a serial killer, just a normal guy who gave the wrong name. But, and that is a huge but (pun unintended), there was some sort of an attraction about someone who had no virtual presence. A mysteriousness that is almost magnetic in nature. It was this that got me thinking. Without doubt, I now know, that the allure of someone who is non-existent is far larger than the hottest, most charming and amazing guy you will ever meet. Someone who does not exist will ALWAYS be on your thoughts, it's like fuel for the fire that is your imagination. You will think and analyze and discuss it to death with your friends, they will warn you to stay away, and it will just get harder and harder to stay away. I am not the sort of person who can ever ignore a challenge, or a mystery. And that pretty much explains this monologue, and postmorten of events, feeling, reasons... 

All This Time

They say time heals every hurt. What they forget is that every hurt leaves a scar. It can be a tiny little abrasion on the skin, and it can be an ugly puckered pink angry lil fella. The point is that there is a scar. A scar that you can look at and remember the hurt it came from. Like the one on the side of my wrist. Slim long white line from over a decade ago. I still remember how I got it. I remember being chased around all over the school canteen, and then doing some chasing of my own. I remember my friend catching me, I remember said friend's obscenely huge watch scratching against my wrist, I remember going to the clinic, and I remember getting bandaged up by HIM. I didn't change that bandage for two whole days! (yikes right?) And I remember spending three years pining over him. I remember looking at the scar and sighing.. I remember looking at the scar and cringing. I still see that scar and get taken back to that August day in 1999...
And then there are scars that are entirely internal... Scars that no one can see, but you know are there. Scars that make their presence felt every now and then. Scars of wounds from long ago, wounds that were accidental, deliberate and stupid. Yes they can be all three at the same time. And it is these scars that keep from healing. That time can not change, that time cannot heal, that never fade away, no matter how long it has been since they were created. And yes, these are scars that are created... They are after all deliberate in nature.

The Bartender

I have this obsessive need to document my life from time to time. Sometimes it finds its way to my blog, at others it remains in the relative anonymity of my various diaries. Anyway, this brings me to this moment, Saturday, September 22, 2012. A friend of mine convinced me to go to some party for something, the details are a little fuzzy there. Well fuzzy in the face of what actually happened at the place. See now, I had fever that night, mild but enough to make me slightly cranky about a party, and enough to make me wanna say fuck it. I didn't. And thank the lord I didn't. We entered the place, and the first person I saw was the bartender (yes this note IS about him). You know, how in movies and TV shows you see these bartenders that every one talks to? Kinda like Ted Danson from Cheers? Well there was MY Ted Danson standing right in front of us. We sauntered up to the bar, and ordered our drinks, and there it was, that twinkle of mischief in naughty dark brown eyes. An open face, and a smile that was maybe otherworldly? Salt and Pepper hair, and I pegged him at someone closer to my father's age than mine.  My friend and I both agreed he was the hottest man we had ever seen. I for one couldn't take my eyes of this man, who had such an amazingly open face. A face that beckoned confidences, that literally willed you confess all your sins.

We moved off, sat down with our drinks, and eventually the party was in full swing. I lost track of how many times I volunteered to re-fill the drinks of my friends, just so that I could go up to the bar! Pathetic, I know, but such an irresistible person! When we stepped out for a smoke, I was looking in, when we were inside, I was looking THERE.. It was unbelievable how absolutely smitten I felt about this person. Forget the fact that he is drop dead gorgeous, there is something slightly feral about the way he surveyed the crowd, about the look he gave me, a few times. Animalistic vitality and a wild streak a mile long. He had the appearance of someone who has a devil-may-care attitude to match the feral look. Maybe it was the hair, the maturity, or maybe, just maybe it was the tiny sliver of vulnerability that I glimpsed just once in the night, whatever it was, I had found my cocaine.

Before I knew it, he was standing next to me, and just like that, we were talking like old friends. Investment banker, who had given up everything three years ago to travel the world, or at least, South America and Africa. In that moment, not only was I drawn to him, I was also unbelievably envious of this person. Here he was, standing next to me telling me about things I wanted to do. Sigh.. As if being good looking, dangerous, and charming wasn't enough, he HAD to have travelled to the EXACT places I wanted to go. We talk, it is a blur, I could only hear my heart pounding, and was only aware of his proximity. I don't think I can recall what we spoke about, even if I tried. I only remember, the warmth of his body next to mine, and the brush of his skin against mine when our arms touched. Sounds juvenile and all, but that was an electric touch. And before I could catch my breath, he was back at the bar.

More time flies, more drinks are downed, refilled, more inane conversation.. I touch the leather cuff on his wrist, "You know, this is very fifty shades" "Sweetheart, what you read is not a patch on what I know, have done" My breath catches in my throat. I look at him, he turns away to serve someone. And I think, there is no way I am ever forgetting that. And then it is time to leave, "I have to go" "Stay" He didn't need to repeat it. This man fascinated me, had my full attention. There was no way I could leave now, knowing I had the chance to see where this would go.

Last drinks are served, he is adept at this bar-tending business even if it isn't really his scene. I watch mesmerized, as this man charms everyone he talks to, men and women alike. We step into the theatre to watch the last trailer. He is standing next to me, his shoulder against mine, his hand on the small of my back. He leans in to say something, I don't hear it. I turn "If you want to say something say it to the other ear, I'm deaf in this one" and as I turn to present my other ear, "Who said I wanted to say  something?" And his lips are on mine. It is incredible that I could stand. His hand is on my arm, he leans in, deepens the kiss, and before I can react in a slightly embarrassing manner, he pulls away. A look passes between us, that I have never exchanged with anyone. "Lets get out soon as this is over" I had forgotten we were surrounded by thirty people.

We walk down the stairs, and we sit outside, and that is when the talking starts. He manages to get me to talk about things I never do. I don't even realize what I have told him, till I look at him, and I see in his eyes a vague reflection of what I was feeling.

I haven't been able to figure out what it was about this Bartender from HKV, but I was incredibly attracted to him. It was the attraction of moth to a fire, just before it bursts into flames. A dangerous man, he is. Maybe I should stay away, maybe I should take the plunge into the deep end. I don't really know. I have to figure it out. What I do know is that it's going to be one helluva ride, and if don't get my bearing right, it's gonna be crash and burn for me. After years I feel this way about someone. And I suppose I am right to hesitate. He will be the final undoing of who I am. And that is a feeling I have had in my gut since that first brush against my arm when my breath hitched in my throat.

Family

There are are days when I really, truly, hate my family. I once read somewhere that families are biological. A how true that is. No matter the person you are, no matter your temperament, no matter what, you can not chose the house you are born into. A few of us are lucky enough to have carved a place for ourselves in the lives of others, making a family of our own.
The rest of us are stuck with what we have. And it really frustrates and pisses me off to say, this, but my family is annoying. You know how you have friends/acquaintances who only call when they want/need something? I am related to people like that. Makes me wonder what exactly it is about the institution of family that is so worthy? If family and the rest of the world behave in the exact same way, where does the sense lie in exonerating family? What is so amazing about it? 

Zsa Zsa Zsu

As I sat there watching Sex and the City, I thought to myself, is this true? This zsa zsa zsu that Carrie was talking about? Possible?
That's when the phone rang, and there it was! The zsa zsa zsu! It's really incredible how your heart skips a beat and then runs into overdrive at the sight of a name on a call. You pick up the phone slowly, look at it ringing, and as you answer it, there are butterflies in your stomach.
I look at the phone ringing, and before I realize it I pick it up. And the sound of his voice makes me feel so jittery. After years, it still feels like I'm in high school talking to him. I love how he makes me feel so tiny and fragile! I think everyone at some point likes to be made to feel special. What is so amazing here is that I am not even that special for him (yet?) but I still feel like the most gifted retard in the house when he calls!
It is a long story that has gone on for years. A kind of mating dance, a ritual that I have now mastered simply because I have grown up with it! For years, I have danced on this tune where he is concerned, and it makes me wonder, what if? It makes me wonder what now.
I still love how tiny you make me feel, how special you make me feel, how absolutely beautiful you make me feel. And just for the sake of feeling like this, I am willing to dance this tune for the next decade. Yes, it might've been a decade since we started out, but it feels like it was just yesterday, the memories fresh in my mind, seeing you that first time at school, gangly and awkward. I thank the stars it was my class you were in, and not someone else's. I remember coming to school early just to see you play basket ball. I remember the long telephone conversations we used to have.. I remember getting back home from school and eagerly looking for an excuse just so that I could call you up!
And I remember not talking to you for twelve long years. Yes, danced to that tune as well. I remember that I remembered you all through the years. Its been a bumpy and thrilling ride, my dear. And I can't wait to go round the next turn.
This zsa zsa zsu has gone on for a very long time, and trust me it still feels amazing to be in love with you.

The Perfect Song

There are some songs that simply take your breath away. Even at 2 am on a Tuesday morning. Even when you think that good songs stopped existing. And then there it is. That one perfect song. A transporter of a song, that takes you back in time to an age you'd forgotten. A age of innocence. A song that makes you believe, that it is possible. That it is possible to believe again, to love again. A song that makes you want to be in love. A song that makes you believe in naivety. 

You sit there are 2 am, and listen and re-listen to that song. Wondering about the loss of innocence, the conversion to the jaded side of life. Wondering exactly when it was that you stopped believing. Wondering exactly what it was that you stopped believing in.