Staying sane.

A bespectacled talking doll won't stand short, won't take a fall,

A little squeak of glee, shrouded in a veil of maturity.
Little would you know, whether to stop, or to let go,
Amidst ballrooms and ballet, would you prance about like a doe.
Tap~tap, said the watchman, when I knocked on her little head,
Making faces and acting cute, with a heart full of lead.
Broken shards of glass, would you dare make a pass?
Sheer exuberance, sugar 'n spice, IKEA and bottled-up class.
Principles ingrained, in that little bundle of hair,
You can't imagine how much, 'coz pop is now John Mayer.
One Romeo, two Romeo's, many Romeo's afloat..
The end boils down to the guy with the crown, we've got three romantics in one boat.
You wouldn't feel like taking the wheel, once she begins her wail,
Like gum on a bin, and sipping on gin, please be prone to bail.

Permanence and a perpetration of the layered psyche.

You were a tattooed holographic of all things sensuous and beautiful. A lacerated pamphlet of emotions torn and haywire. Of life, whizzed by a statue of David. In a moment of coupled solitude and of death captured in serene moments of tranquility. You were here right then, and there the next moment.. and all around me in a channelized hierarchy of mind-numbed euphoria. A layered embodiment of psychedelic and Utopian dreams sterilized into a fiery shot of tequila, salt and lime.

Or. I thought you were.

You are now the dismemberment of senses and the paradoxical breakdown of sanity. A scream above the rest. A manifest - indomitable, yet relentless. A vortex of an eternally cliched mind game and of all festoons passe. Of all the senses that we have shared and the souls lying threadbare. You are now the string that binds me to sordid flashbacks of hollow melancholy. The shadow of the person I thought you were.

You are now. The death of me.

I sincerely hope that you will be the limelight of all battles conquered and of all victories won. The right turn in everything righteous. The screaming torso of the Vitruvian woman who never let go. Of all thoughts arcane. Not a tear left to feign.

You were, are and always will be. The other side of me.

As all is fled and all is done, so lift me on the pyre,

The feast is over and the spirits are down and the wedding lamps expire.

When I am dead and over me, bright April shakes out her rain drenched hair,

Though you shall lean above me, broken hearted,

I really shall not care.

For I shall have peace and bliss, as leafy trees are peaceful,

And when the rain bends down the bough,

I shall be more silent and cold-hearted,

Than you are now.

Thank you for everything.

P.S. Guess what? :)

Yours truly, o2.

Looking back at me,

I see..
That I never really got it right..

I never stopped to think of you..

I'm always wrapped up in,
Things I cannnot win..

You were the antidote that got me by,
Something so strong..

Like a drug that got me high..

What I really meant to say..

Is I'm sorry for the way,

I am..

I never meant to be so cold to you..

To you,

I'm sorry about all the lies,

Maybe in a different light..

You could see me stand on my own again..

'Cause now I can see.

You were the antidote that got me by..
Something so strong,

Like a drug that got me high..

I never meant to be so cold..

I never really wanted you to see..

The screwed up side of me..

That I keep..
Locked inside of me so deep..

It always seems to get to me,
I never really wanted you to go..

So many things you should have known,
I guess for me there's just no hope..

I never meant to be so cold,

Never meant to be so cold to you..

P as in ' Pain '

An ephemeral outburst of the senses.Throngs of an untamed animal instinct, inbound by the shackles of an brute force. A venetian vicissitude of voluptous women and voracious vampires with a vehement vendetta of vengeance. A fountain coupled with a vantage point and a bucolic belief of all things pure and chaste.

A nostalgic need for an outburst of all things hormonal and frenzied. A flimsy layer bubbling everyone around you, me and us and a desperate desire for posing as a poser. The cover of G.Q. Magazine. Fake profiles and dormant lifestyles. Layers of emotional abundance which percolate into one another and help in the study of psychoanalytical mesmerization procedures at the Carnegie Mellon University.

A microphone and a practice pad.

Chester Bennington screaming his lungs out to the words of ' From The Inside '

Take everything from the inside and throw it all away. 'Coz I donno who to trust.

Six strings and a drum pedal.

I'm broken, yet neverburnt.

Whatever, Nevermind.

Bool's Ai.

Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
which is Latin and it means
No more things should be presumed to exist than are absolutely necessary.
Which means that a murder victim is usually killed by someone known to them and fairies are made out of paper and you can't talk to someone who is dead.
-The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night Time.
Mark Haddon.
Oh, how I love this book!

Spot On.

Bucolic emotions are overpowered by hauntings of a glorious and depleted past, embellished as it was, nearly two decades ago. Blasphemy is contortedly linked up to puerile atheism and agnostic thoughts run deep through the chasms of the heart, unexplored and unscathed, a pure inner realm of senses, almost as if a virgin bound to chastity. An omnipotent desire for the need of companionship condenses into a miniscule globule of existence, frozen and preserved to be kept till time immemorial. I could do with some resonance in my life right now.

My barque is worse than my bight.

I surrender to a plethora of psychedelic lights,
Blinded by a host of reasons insane.
Reclining into a world of sheer delight,
Harbouring fantasmic dreams of a really long mane.

The virus spreads all over my pretentious soul,
Like red acrylic on the surface of a lake.
I'm tired of all the want-to-be's on a screwy roll,
With rudiments unanswered and dynamics at stake.

I have lots to learn, I agree my friend,
Yet I humbly wait before I start to preach.
I'm aeons away from rounding the bend,
There is a lot to achieve before I start to teach.

I hammer away on skins with feigned fucking hope,
Hoping to make it big one day.
I'd really dig a confidante as Alexander Pope,
Intermittent fantasies of romping in the hay.

Voluntary retirement.

I wander on the brink of extinction,
She flails on my heels.
Giving me solitary company on a full-moon night.
A cool windy contour on a gritty beach,
Frothy foam smashing on buxom boulders.
'n I think my poems are all 'fvckt'.

The Big Bang.

What is it that haunts us always?
Translucent imagery on bespeckled walls.
Shining hearts etched on fading linen,
And a chain that binds us to ancestry?
A parrot that speaks of a plunder, two voyages,
And three or so wenches,
That sail on the high seas.
An omnipotent forecast of a horrible storm,
Coupled with a terrible sense of foreboding.
Photogenic snaps of the city sky line,
Caught on gleaming cell phone cameras.
They perturb us, gnaw at our innermost desires,
An unending wish to be infamous.

Yet we stay as we were,
Chained to where it all started, the womb.

Sitt.

I never meant to say all that you presumed I would say, yet you said, that I said, all that you conceived I did say. It was a terrible misunderstanding, an innate pathological lie, a truly grave loss, a deprivation of the senses.
If you had not, but trusted me blindly, would you not have confided in me, my pretty? Had I, never a reason to complain for all that was wronged unto me? Yet I did not, was that the dishevelled mistake?
Life is a gift, they say, for we must cherish everything we do, savour every taste, every smell, each and every sip of bland water that is given unto us must be acknowledged with sincere appreciation.
For I say, never take things for granted. Else, they shall warp and metamorphose and bite back at you. You shall be smouldered by pirate coins and frozen blood, and then shall be made to scoop out a key which would unlock you from your present state of frustrated solitary existence, out of your very own eyeball.
It is a pity, but things must be put to the test and matters must be put to rest. Hatchets must be buried, yet vengeance must not be hurried.
Life goes on and always will, for that's what people say.

Oblivion.

Of morning mist and stormy night,
The holy smoke beckons.
Of Satanic verses and gothic plight,
The faceless wrathchild reckons.
The viscous red hath made it's way,
Through murmuring streams and sunlight hay.
Would you, not, savour a drop to drink,
Of slaughtered komodo and roasted mink?
An exuberant void of passionate perfection,
Boons on the wings of poesy.
With sweltering racoons and demonic resurrection,
Flustered bouts of frozen fantasy.

Pink Porpoise.

Without, the frost,
the blinding snow,
The storm~wind's moody madness;
Within, the fire~light's ruddy glow,
And childhood's nest of gladness.
Here's to me, and here's to you and here's to love and laughter,
I'll be true as long as you,
Not a single minute after.
I'd oblige my botched up weakness with nerves as strong as steel,
I'd obliterate the nauseous numbness on a giant ferris wheel.
Let us go and smoke a joint 'n hereby lose our cool,
Let us drown out all our woes in a massive spirit pool.

Age.

Ostracized octagenarians with dismal dentures,
Neglected jumbo disks and all that jazz.
Woeful college~years and stoned back~benchers,
Sordid renditions of Erik Truffaz.
Lilacs, lilies and a handful of roses,
Occult olfactory nerves with blotches of grime,
Formidable free~willies with bohemian noses,
Poignant paschendales with a history of crime.
Distanced debonairs and a melange of colours,
Solitary confinement from boisterous banter.
Erroneous asymmetry and mortified sailors,
Jauntily jaded jacksparrows and a harrowing hunter.
Archaic aspects of ardent articulation,
Cosmic corrugations of lucrative lobbying.
Iridescent implications of a destroyed destination,
Varicose vaporizers and numismatic hobbying.

Coil~cuttah.

Rotund redemptions of docile dexterity,
Fastidious foyeurs and luscious lament.
Holistic holocausts in the heart of the city,
The strains of philanthropy grow ever so faint.
Metrosexual materialism and precursory power~games,
Divine intervention at godforsaken ghettoes.
Overtly obese demigods with raunchy and rancid names,
Bejewelled better halves with putrid and pedicured toes.
Nocturnal nuptials of a marauded marriage,
Unblemished flashbacks of nostalgic novocaine.
Exorcized poltergeists on a rollicking rampage,
Ethereal electrocutions coupled with a dance in the rain.
An overbearing sense of ignorant emptiness,
Tachycardic Tomlinsons with a tousled sense of time.
Exemplary executions expended with frollicking finesse,
Pasteurized punches of tequila, salt and lime.

Unnamed.

Sensational shenanigans on a sordid show of sleaze and vampire vignettes on the loose,
Pariahs on a roll with leatherette cigars and smoked salmon on a holiday cruise.
A flushdown of epinephrine and heartfelt condolences coupled with another smashed sleep session to cater to,
Supressed eruptions of suicidal symposia and a sarcophagus humming up tunes in the loo.
Overboding folklores of Rip~Van~Winkle and digital throbbings of canine depression,
Rheological throngings of chaste conoisseurs and opressed emotions which leave an indelible impression.
A carelessly caressed photogenic snapshot of indigo garments and a broken smile,
Unspoken ramblings and silent regressions prompt an untamed enquiry with a lot of guile.

Unnamed.

Cautiously connived comedies showcasing deliberately debauched debaters,
Arcane planchets with Sauron and possessed Louvre curators.
Excavated artifacts dwindling towards drudgery and volatile Odonil sculptures,
Eccentric designers on the run with greasy and stainglassed sutures.
Intensely insane shopping sprees and anniversary reminders on the snooze,
Unannounced expressions on barbwire and souls on a tizzy in a session of booze.
Unpredictable ramifications of a praetorian mindset and careless whispers over pansied coffee,
Cliched accusations and carcinogenic conversations, a doubtful debate on the Three Laws of Murphy.

A whiff of the genie.

Doped teenage years wasted in desecrated degradation,
Jobless bachelorhood and impending doom.
Hollow and abstract thoughts and vague consolation,
Obnoxious odours at a sweatshop room.
An insight into the genie's mind and euphoric city lights,
Glowing fireflies at rock concerts, a void of all things sane.
Salted water on pimpled cheeks and violet paper kites,
Can Time heal all my wounds and drive away the pain?

Frantic attempts to fathom the thought of seeing the genie smile,
Inhuman chunks of palatable pastries, a chocoholic's dream delight.
A profusely bleeding carotid artery and a mouth full of gurgling bile,
A cornucopia of insane emotions on a silent, starry night.

High school.

Thixotropic grievances and malarial hedgehogs and bowls overflowing with chicken stock,
A cute, overfed child and oily strands in a plait, crudely decked up in a pink frock.
Rendezvous at the local fair and numerous glitter bangles coupled with a glistening and trendy navel ring.
Inconsequential bouts of anger inching towards the senile plus a listless and off~beat mood swing.
Grade~point averages and tumultous burpday treats, a belittling act of self~defiance so benign,
Common room brawls and ultra~secret sting operations complement a premature loss of mind and a lumpsum fine.
Consolidated high school years and egotistic love triangles trigger a dormant fit of rage so obscure,
A quarter of a decade in a pent~up hell hole and a totally secure job warranty, that's for sure.

Yo.

A volcano in dormancy and lots of party jive,
An open book with a creased up cover, an axecutioner's dream archive.
An emotion vault for pent~up flings, always game for any mood,
The yo khoo, philandering dudezeglory with lots of godforsaken attitude.
Hook, line and sinker for ze axe, cuss~words straight in your face,
Levelled proposals and amorous scrap~sessions and a whirlwind courtship at godspeed pace.
Musically adept and subtly inept, he's sold his soul to solid hard rock,
Cupid's gone for a joyride 'coz Shrediknight's now by his side, gates of love shackled by a rusty lock.
With a shoulder much colder, she makes men smoulder, cute smiles proclaiming fantasmic friendship,
Frustrated messages and unanswered calls trigger a fiery outburst that's really pretty deep.
Sarcastic mindgames and metamorphosing narcissism couple an inner realization of the divine,
Messiah's gotta be proud of this dude in a shroud, hallucinations at some distant, remote shrine.

Obscure.

Macabre meetings with the Devil's Advocate and an inner gut feeling of mystic profanity,
Sinister presences looming in the horizon trigger off unaccountable bouts of masochistic insanity.
Mummified toads and airborn felines procreate hair~raising tales in Lala Land,
Toy train rides with the genie in a bottle and calloused feet trudging through burning sand.
Immaterial consequences of an unpromised phone call wean off all the shortcomings of a tall day,
Unparalleled comparisons and physically connotated fiascoes by dastardly bashibazouks at Ottowa Bay.
An onslaught of mortified double entendres and grisly serial killings at Alien Ant Farm,
An untamed outburst of necrophilic proliferation could bring the leggy lass to a hell of a lot of harm.

Reprise.

Presumptory allusions 'n diffident conclusions to a vortex of complicated allegories,

Depressing downpours 'n bone~crackling frost waves shroud a tale of woe spawning several stories.

Boisterous banter and melancholic mood~swings precede the wee 'n wan hours of the sixth day,

Fuchsia teddies 'n cute lil' snap~frames and frozen memories of the honeymoon at Biscayne Bay.

Obnoxious odours n repugnant chocolate wrappers with a view for a better 'morrow,

Lust words etched on mammoth mammalian tusks, pathetic tales of misery and sorrow.

Three words to die for 'n a dance in the rain instigate an outburst of chauvinistic chivalry,

Frozen hyacinths 'n spewing coffee~machines and crazy cockatoos adept at foolhardy mimicry.

Reincarnation.

A suicidal kid in a floundering youth with a burgeoning shower of maladies,

Straddling on to the last sinking straw in a desperate attempt for apathies.

Incessant hankering for a drop of affection and a pitiful donation on the spur,

Subsequent drift~off's into Lala Land, life really does become much of a blur.

Frantic Cupid arrowshots attributed to neurotoxic ecstacy, a journey into the land of the lovely,

Where red over~rules all lovestruck fools and all is sugary 'n bubbly.

Consequent years and an ocean of tears with a generous scoop of lies left to feign,

Melodramatic breakups and an extra arrow shot, the gorramn cycle starts all over again.

Unnamed.

Moments of innate epiphany in a hallucinating haze of claustrophobia,
A serpentine walk down a turpentine road and subtle realizations of memorabilia.
Purple bandicoots and incinerated cigars with a haunting feeling of deja~vu,
Foe~rag dolls 'n rusty frat pins and visits to the shrink at San~Yang~Poo.
Amber haze lights 'n lemonade men with beer mugs foaming at the brim,
Gellato ice creams 'n cocktailed korny tunes and mango frappe's topped with whipped cream.
Smashed sleep~sessions 'n feigned crocodile tears and messages spewing fantasmic love,
A jeopardizing act of self-mortification, as pure as the flight of an unchained dove.

Lyaad.

Yesterday was like, good, proper, onek phunnz. The afternoon mostly. Dhrubo and me, as always. After dada clinched a half~century and Lil' Master got stumped, we jogged out, indecisive, vulnerable and hungry for lots of lyaad. Gold flakes edged us onto Park Street and with semi~diluted large pegs of burning Old Monk inside our intestines, kurtsy good ol' molly holly Oly Pub, we set out for Gorer Math. Tumultously fiery chicken rolls and incinerated Benson Hedges cancer sticks brought out the smoking poetic talent in mah gay buddy too. Alongwith songs like Mitwa.KANK*eesh* and Kisna.Kisna*barf* we could have hardly asked for more. Yet, with the Gorer Math, impossible is nothing.
Just imagine.
"A smouldering speck in the blue couture,
Flies on, far, far away.
Zeus rests on His snowy lil' throne,
Amidst the cirrus and the cumulonimbus in some distant, Milky Way."
All we missed out on was the lebu cha. I mean, how can you NOT have lebu cha after sprawling on the Maidan for the better part of an hour, you tell me?
Dhut.
We also smoked up our last Navy Cut cigarettes till Sanskriti and paid our tribute by frenchkissing the burning ends, preserving our stubs in the matchbox and throwing it far, far away. Then with the mitha paan at Charu Market to tie up the loose ends of odour, I received Riadi's call and booked myself a Slayer tee.
Woah.
Halew'd awesome shaet.

Arthur Hailey. Detective.

Mystic 'n gruesome symbols from the seventh chapter from Revelation,
Limbs immersed in silvery bowls of filthiness and abomination.
Corporate BOLO's from the Tomorrow file on a steady path to evaporation,
Midnight scuffs and alleyway brawls, a vent for pent~up frustration.
Inter~cubicle flings 'n raunchy lil' motels, a breach of marital intimacy,
Schizophrenic lifestyles 'n burgers on the run, a threat to the vow of celibacy.
Archaic decoys 'n scheming lil' cover~ups, tantalizing fingers with connections far 'n wide,
An avenging CrUsAdEr 'n faked guilt pledges, Messiah was finally by Animal's side.

For those who've read the book, I'm open to comment.
Others.
Go figure.

Just.

Intensely melodramatic mindgames coupled with livid and liberal expectations,
Colourful kaleidoscopic images caught in a spidery web of frustrations.
Bland, wilting lilacs on a dusty 'n quaint, old windowsill,
A warm, repugnant, turpentine morning with poetic prowess at a nil.
Eleven zombies scratching their crotches with lots os vaseline and crores at stake,
Cutting-edge gizmos 'n cute lil' pen-drives plus lots of moolah left to rake.
A subserviant blow to the poverty line and a serious threat to humanity,
Random 'n disconnected discussions in mind, a faltering grip on the reigns of sanity.

A momentary lapse of reason.

Charred scratches of love and lust,
Contorted dreams on fire.
Promiscous procrastinations bite the dust.
Lovelorn souls gone haywire.
Cupid's probably lost His touch,
Shot them arrows too hard.
Nocturnal coruscations at the edge of the porch,
Incoherent rantings of a retard.

Theism and all that prevails.

Would you hold Him responsible,
for the cataclysmic conjectures at Bhuj?
For all that surpassed the claustrophobic cubicles of
The Pentagon?
Believe, for we do,
In the omnipotent, all-encompassing cry of The Messiah.
In His infrequent, deliberating search for compassion.
Do believe, for we do.
For else, all vows of faith fail us,
Our dreams of a global village shatter ground.
We shall believe, else strive to,
Least fathom the thought of making an attempt.
To believe in Him, Inshallah,
Gopal Krishna and Pee-Wee-Herman.
Give me the strength and bravado, my hero,
to accept the things that I cannot change,
and to change the things I can.
To forgive and to forget,
also,
to forfeit and to forsake.
My attempts for atheism are as true
as Kaavya's 'original' spin-yarn.
I wAnT to believe in Him,
when all is well and good with me.
Help me believe,
please,
Help me believe.

Rain.

Drippety drip, squish squish,
Mud in boots, let's make a wish.
Drop a coin into the well,
Let the genie cast a spell.
Induced visions in a drunken stupor,
metamorphose into a plesiosaur.
Colourful puddles and paper boats,
Half-burnt rice and semi-parched oats.
Unfulfilled wishes in an old smelly stocking,
Inscrutable lines from the eccentric Stephen Hawking.
Sachharized candy treats at an upbeat shopping mall,
Burpy lil' cries from my own babydoll.

Anarchy "99

'My red rose has turned to white,
How must I bleed, how must I fight,'
From these very eyes you take the light,
Screaming your way into the dead of the night.
Unchain the colours before my eyes,
All the broken promises were merely white lies,
Tears are the cathartic that I fall back on now,
I'd fathom it would be just another hackneyed vow.
It's in our blood, in our voice, in all our gorramn veins,
Bloodbath, anarchy and all else that reigns.
Heart me, fall for me, wuv me lil' angel,
Else I'd sure sue mah soul for another pweety damsel.
I'm sorry I had to hang up,
Momee gave me the super chaap.
You'd make a great Lacuna Coil,
My very own chwit lil' Olive Oyl.

The italicized portion was added later on.
It's totally non~anarchy.
Censored.
Heh.

nIrVaNa.

" Come away with me, my pretty. We shall walk upto yonder beach, hold hands, light a bonfire and kiss each other. "
" Uh, why are you being so romantic ? "
" Oh, do not fret, so, my pretty. You must know that I do love you with all my heart. Come, let me show you something. "
" Uh, huh. What is it you want to show me ? "
" It is a secret, my pretty. "
" Please stop calling me that. I have a name, Eve. "
" Ok, Eve. Let's walk. "
" Uh, are we going to do that ? " *blush*
" Priorities, my pretty. You do not want to spoil such a beautiful evening, do you? "
" I think I told you not to call me that. "
" Sorry, Eve. "
" It is all ok, Adam, if we atone for carnal sin, is it not? "
" No, Eve. It would spoil everything. "

The Beach.

" Uh, huh. Anyway what is it that you wanted to show me? "
" Lovemaking. "
" Huh? I thought you said it would spoil the mood. "
" A different type of lovemaking. "
" Er. My,my. "
" Fret not, my pretty. Strawberries and lavender await us. "
" Eve, Adam. People call me that. "
" Ok, let us go, Eve. "

Velvet smooth. Cloud IX.

" Down on your knees, Eve. "
" What? "
" I said, down on your knees. "
" Uh, why so? "
" We must atone for carnal sin. "
" I bore the brunt the last time, Adam. "
" Men provide, women nurture. Now. Down on your knees. "

Whiplash.




" Christ, Adam, it hurts. "
" Stop it, stop, stop, stop for the love of God. "
" There. We are done now. Get up. It is time we go. "

Eve stumbles.
Adam drags her away.

Utopia.

Proper.

Wait.

Wait for your birthday. Wait for the bus. Wait for Ma to come home and make you an omelette coz you're an inept good for nothing idiot. Wait for the song to get over so you can close MediaPlayer and go to sleep. Wait for an answer. Wait for the evening to come so you can go out and play. Or go to tuitions. Choose whichever applies. Wait for your favourite part of the movie you watch every time they show it on ZMZ. ( And that's many, many times. ) Wait for the monsoons. Wait for the day when you'll say "I love you" and mean it. Do wait. Wait to surprise her with your letter. Wait for the lunch break. Wait for the computer to boot. Hell, wait to be born. Wait to die, coz you know, one day you will. Wait for things to work themselves out. Give up, sometimes. Wait for your sister to leave the bathroom. Wait for your friend to tell you what's wrong even though she said "nothing" when you first asked.

And if you're me, wait for the day when you'll finally have scraped together enough money to fly to Tallinn via Mumbai.

Today.

Icecream, a sandwich and a friend ( sadly inedible ) on the way home.

"The sun is right in front of me, aaaargh!!" "It doesn't matter if the sun is in front or behind you." "Whaa..? The sun won't be in our eyes if we walk the ulta way!" "What a faltu conversation."

"My hands are sticky with drops of vanilla icecream, so I lick my fingers and feel good. My bag is heavy, but I don't mind that sort of thing. My bag looks like something that a kid in class 3 would carry, coz his parents bought it for him and he had no say in it and none of them knew much about being cool anyway. I know a lot about being cool, I just don't practise any of it.

Reminds me of another friend, with whom I'm going to build another world someday. There, we'll ban hair creams and be uncool. Banning combs is a priority. We don't want to spend half our lives combing our hair.

The road is quiet, and our heels click click on the rough road. A man comes up from behind us and hands my friend a drawing of a monkey saying some smartass slogan, which fell from the book she's holding. She stares at the drawing ( she's very proud of it ), then at me, and laughs.

We walk.

"Hey, where are we ?" "I don't know." "Oh oh, I know." "Yah, I know too."

For a moment I am lost in my neighbourhood. Delightful, like very few things ever are.

I buy a sandwich from Bake Club. The guy ( who's supposed to be ) behind the counter enters just as I say, "Hey there's no one in the shop...". I also spot some repulsively pink strawberry pastry. The expressionless guy heats my sandwich and hands it to me with a bent toothpick stuck in it.

Rain falls in almost intangible drops on my sandwich. My friend is thrilled.

"Four o'clock showers! We studied, na, in class 10!"

I look at my watch to see if it is really four o'clock. It's forty minutes past. She laughs again.

Then the road forks and she has to turn right and I have to turn left.

Ciao.

Seems strangely symbolic to me.

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?