aLmOsT EvErY yOu

My fist,your face.
You are tired. Frustrated. Fed up of life now. You were thinking college would be so much of fun. Freedom. Now you know about unions,egotistic clashes,fights,love triangles and everything else. Consolidated fuckshit college life.

And then you started writing...

There isn't much you wanted, really, just bundles of money, and respect from the fuckwits who got together and began calling themselves society.

It wasn't your fault - they taught you all your values. That most of them are non-values is something you never stopped to think about, coz, of course, they never taught you how to think. Why think anew when you’ve already been moulded into pre-frozen thoughts?

They sucked your soul dry, and filled it instead with needless greed and ambitions that you adopted only coz they said you were too young to make important decisions about things like your life. You don't know anything, the world is a bad place, and dreams are best ripped apart and tossed into the bin like fast food wrappers.

Love will never get you money, so you never did love anything. And if you did, it was wrapped up in the shroud of your childhood and buried. Art and travel will never bring you bagfuls of money, and do you not want bagfuls of money? Do you not want a big house stuffed with IKEA and gleaming cars and more cell phones than you can hold in both hands? You do.

All your little life, they made you. They hooked up your brain to their own diseased ones and let your spirit die coz of what use is a spirit anyway? All you need is an MBA degree, and connections.

You listened to them and learned. You learned to learn for the money learning leads to, and you learned to love the trash tossed out by people thirsting for money as much as you do.

Now you’re a wasted blessing longing for the happiness they promised you. But happiness comes to the living, and you’re long dead. You never knew when they killed you, coz they snatched your life away before you realized it was yours.

But it’s okay, it’s all okay. All that really matters is displaying the fake happiness of your half life to all the world’s slime, and earning the respect of fuckwits who don’t know what respect means.

Classmates

MY classmates.
My schoolmates.
People with whom I hung around at school.
People with whom I stuck together and got suspended for no fault of mine.
People with whom I shared many a vanilla milkshake and Benson-Hedges at Aqua Java with 'We don't need no ejju-kay-shion' playing in the background'.
People with whom I played Counter Strike at Webworld.
People with whom I bunked practicals and peed at The Park an' did the 'hakka' at fests.
And this.
And that.

You were flashy bracelet, seventeen party bag girlfriends barely aware of anything beyond Abhijeet Sawant or Linkin Park's new video.

You were fun for five minutes, and frustrating for more than that.

You are my friend coz I don't know what else to call you without offending you. Acquaintance is too long a word.

You didn't know who Lenin was. That's okay, but then..
You didn't even want to know who Lenin was, coz you wouldn't be given more marks for that, would you? That. Is why I can't respect you.

On the last day of school, we exchanged email addresses, but you never wrote to me and I never wrote to you.

You mean nothing to me, I mean nothing to you, and we shall live happily ever after.

Classmates. Basically that. There's nothing more to it.

Darkness

Power Cut.
In a dash of surprise and disappointment, the comforting clarity of lights is gone. The whirr of the fan overhead swoons to a slow silence.I leave my desk and feel along the wall for the niche where I know the emergency light is. On the darkened wall, my hand unknowingly creeps into a soft glowing frame. The light drips along the wall onto the floor in front, a footstep away.Ma shouts at me for the emergency light and she's terrified of being attacked by mosquitoes but then I'm totally indifferent. In the patch of mute silver, the shadows of the grilles are on me, and the rest of me is moonlight. I stay for a moment.
Where is the moon?
The verandah.
I walk to the verandah where the faint fingers of a breeze touch me. The moon is in a part of the sky I can see. The dark sky softens around it, and the darkness retreats to gather around the feeble stars. I stand in silence and the silver light from a faraway being.The moon has a grey smear. I wonder who else is looking at the moon at this very moment. I wonder what they are thinking. Maybe they are praying for money, or imagining what love is like, or waiting for the power to return so they can watch TV. Yuva, Star Plus, 9 PM.
Moonlight crawls through the clouds to crouch in homes where nobody notices it, unless there is a power cut. I watch the moon and the clouds, moving painstakingly from my right to my left. If Ma was here right now, she'd say it in terms of north and south. But I'm not sure which is which. I am alone in my room now and Faraway is here with me for a while.Ma's still shouting.
Then the TV beeps on and the fan whooshes awake and the lights glow steadily brighter, and the whole locality screams in celebration for the return of the power supply.God bless CESC.
I can't find the moonlight anymore.

Irony

You are elated. You have finally managed to talk to the girl who you think is the prettiest little princess in college. You take her out for coffee to Park Street.
Cafe Coffee Day, Park Street.
Deepbeat music pounds on the smooth walls and the young moneyed sink into soft couches. Conversation touches upon John Mayer and J.U, and coffees topped by cream and chocolate sprinkles lie idle on the lightwood tables, neglected like the glossy cell phones that gleam and blink from time to time.
Then you step out the glass door and a little girl in a frock with the zipper torn out and hair browned by malnutrition tugs at your shirt. She holds out a dirty little hand for a spare one rupee coin, and you who just paid sixty rupees for a sandwich you ate half of, walk away.
All you can think about is her and nothing else.

In the middle of something…

I’m in the middle of something. I always was from the time I was born. I landed here on 23rd November. A cusp. So I’m in the middle of two zodiacs. Sandwiched in between Scorpio and Saggitarius.
An' now I'm stranded between music and whoever.
I'm being torn apart.
You listening up there?