Three

About The Night Before Last

2011-12-09T23:17:00.003+05:30

The truth, I know
Hasn't lost its appeal,
But the things
That we said
Mean nothing more
Than those we didn't think
To invent.
Yet.

You go back,
And I do too.
Being who we want
To be known as,
Our people faces
Unchanged.
And with each other,
More than ever.

So you keep your distance
Close around you,
And you feel safe once again.
And I wear my pain
Like armour,
Against feeling nothing.
Agendas complete
We can finally

Walk away.

I Breathe In

2011-10-26T05:02:00.003+05:30

And the sadness
That I feel
Burns through my gloves
The soles of my boots
I leave behind ashes
Standing too still
Thinking of you

(There's a wooded path
That we should have taken
Where leaves would crumble
Beneath our feet
And it would be cold enough
To want to hold each other
Without feeling too close
Or being compelled to speak)

I breathe in
And you're gone
And the sadness that I feel
Burns through my gloves
And the soles of my boots
Collecting in ashes
On the side of the street
Where we said goodbye

(Work in progress)

2011-07-23T23:58:00.001+05:30

There will be a place that is safe. We give to you and to your children who were the best of us all; we give to you this task. You must find this place, and you must live. You must live for those who were left behind. You must live for those who couldn’t. You must survive.

-Engraved above the entrance
to the bridge of the New Hope,
circa 3000 AD

Red lights screamed along the walls of a residential complex, jolting its occupants to sudden, disoriented wakefulness. The alarms had been ringing with increasing frequency over the last few months, and most people went back to sleep with only a few grumbles, living aboard an enormous intergalactic spaceship people learned to tune things out All that is except Jian Fahun-Pershan. But then Jian knew more about the alarms than the average citizen on board the New Hope. Though saying he knew more was deceptive, the truth was no one knew why the alarms were ringing, and the fact that they were ringing more often didn’t bode well with any of the colony council members. The truth had been kept from the population at large because there was no sense in creating panic; they had been told it was a minor misfunction with the PA system. Everything had been running smoothly for so long that no one expected any surprises. Most had forgotten that they had a purpose for being on the ship, had forgotten that they had been chosen for very specific reasons. Jian couldn’t blame them though. So much had happened. And more importantly, so much hadn’t.

Knowing he wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep Jian dressed and left his room for the Bridge. Even at the late hour the hallways weren’t empty. He returned nods and greetings, moving quickly so that no one would suck him into a conversation. Rarely social at the best of times, Jian preferred to make as few casual conversations as possible. And now, with his mind troubled, he was practically unapproachable. Banna often told him that he was living life as a thunder cloud must have, he thought with an inner smile as he watched a group of fifteen year old ensigns scatter at his approach. He liked being unapproachable. It kept a lot of idiots out of his way.

The elevator doors pinged open at the Bridge and as always Jian paused to admire the magnificence of the scene before him. The bridge doors were close to twenty feet high, and covered with carvings of all manner of elaborate creatures, many of whom Jian recognised from his lessons in Earth history, but many more that those lessons had not included. Humans shared some of the scenes with the animals, but there were no carvings of ships or anything else even vaguely related to technology or machines. For what must have been the millionth time he wondered why his ancestors, who had built the colony fleet and the all the marvellous technology that the fleet survived on, had not wanted to honour that technology on the immense carvings that decorated the bridge doors. His eyes left the doors and flicked briefly over the words engraved above the doors. Thanks to the computers and the educational programs that had been left behind, Jian and everyone else in the fleet could still read English, though the engraving was so vague no one knew what it meant. Oh roughly they could guess, but there were no details in those words, no explanation, no clue as to what that enigmatic message could mean.
“Why did you send us?” he thought at the engraving, and where is this place you promised?”

As usual there was no response. After a brief moment of foolish hope, Jian walked onto the bridge. Opia Lai-Hariff, the second in command stood at the main console, her dark chocolaty skin reflecting the charts and readings that she was examining closely. She was dressed in her starship uniform; the pale gold jacket and black trousers neatly pressed and turned out. Jian grinned in amusement; Opia took decorum very seriously and wouldn’t think of relaxing even during the late cycle shift, just in case the Fahun dropped in for a surprise check.

“Opia, what’s going on?” Jian asked wearily as he sank into the chair.
“I don’t know Fahun,” she responded, just as wearily, “the alarms just started of without any decipherable reason.”
“The other Colonies?
“Yes Fahun, they too have reported alarms, at exactly the same time as ours went off.”
“Fantastic. Our ancestors left us a warning, for something, but didn’t bother to tell us what for. Fantastic.” Jian scowled at the main clear, which was showing the black emptiness that it usually did. “Get me Fahun Bannon, I’m sure she’s awake.” He glared at Opia as he said it, awaiting the smirk that usually followed when he mentioned Banna, but Opia was too professional to as much as blink.

The blue light on the arm of the Chair blinked and Bannon’s low, clear voice filled the room, “Kisadh Fahun Jian, what’s kept you up so late in a cycle?”

“The red blaring messengers our ancestors left us, without a blaring message Fahun Bannon,” Jian added conversationally, “And you? Not bad dreams I hope?”

Fahun Bannon laughed, drawing an unwilling smile from Jian. She had that kind of laugh, un-ignorable. “But seriously Banna, we have to know why” Jian leaned closer to the arm panel, “I think we need to call pontiff.”

There was a moment of silence; Jian could almost see Bannon exchange looks with Lai-Corisa, rolling a lock of her dark hair between her fingers as she often did when she was thinking. He missed her when she was on the Eden, which was almost always. They barely saw each other, but that hadn’t lessened the bond between them at all. Jian was always profoundly aware that she was almost with him. It was usually a comforting thought.

“You’re right Jian. Call pontiff.”

The connection ended and Jian was sure that she knew something she hadn’t said out loud.

“Lai-Opia, inform the other ships. It is pontiff. An hour.”

Jian left the bridge and the made his way back to his rooms. His Fahun uniform was stiff and smelled like the cleaning disinfectants used in the ship laundry. It had been a long time since he had worn it. Infact he had only worn it twice since he had become Fahun of the New Hope. The first time on the day of his induction, the next on the day that Kihan Raishul had died. And now, the third, on the day of the first pontiff in four hundred year-cycles.

I Walk These Streets

2011-05-25T00:48:00.000+05:30

Do you watch for me,
Out of the corner of your eye
Calculating the odds
Of my walking in
To a place I never went to
Without you

Do you make lists in your head
Of all the things
You would like to tell me
If things had been different
And you and I
Still closed our day together

Do you wake up from dreaming
That my hands
Were on your skin again
Your face against my shoulder
And you no longer had to regret
The kisses that never happened

Or is it just me.

Change the Needle LP

2011-05-18T16:54:00.001+05:30

I meant what I said
When I said goodbye
I opened the walls of my heart
and I set you free

I went through the motions
Of missing you
But the music inside me
Was anything but sad

So we danced like old lovers
And we talked like old friends
And we closed our eyes
To rest against each other

And the dawn came slowly
But when I opened my eyes
The music inside me
Was singing with your voice.

Perspective

2011-04-07T13:08:00.000+05:30

To survive you
To survive me
I must stand at a great height
Stare down at the world
Mesmerised by the skull crushing distance
Try not to think about jumping
(This is about us,
Not me)
And find a point on the horizon
To measure up against
An absolute to decide
Amongst all that music playing inside my head
Which song I should be dancing to

Nothing Good Happens After 2 AM (This is just before)

2011-04-07T02:10:00.000+05:30

It's almost two in the morning, and I'm smoking cigarette butts from a nearly empty ashtray. The game, that should have been engrossing is fading away, and I am left to wonder, as I have so many times in the past, what I'm looking for.

It isn't that I'm alone here, I can do better than just handle aloneness, I love it. I am not awake and restless because there is no one to share my bed tonight, or even the house.

I think, in the dazed, fuzzy yet startlingly insightful way one can in the wee hours of the morning, that I don't know how to not be in love. So I am forcing the issue with Ekat, or rather forcing it with myself so I can obsess about him, of which I am now thoroughly bored. He is a truly amazing man, but just not twisted enough to give me the fodder I need for proper obsession. Too straightforward and uncomplicated (for which I am of course at some level incredibly grateful, having much experience with men who lap up my obsession and let me imprison myself in it).

Though I don't give up easily and have spent the last four hours quietly formulating the best way to be horrifically upset in the coming days. I have discovered, unfortunately, that I'm bored of this too, and it depresses me that I don't really care. Not about him, or us or where we are going or any of that.

So I'm awake. The match just finished (United won if anyone's wondering), I'm out of cigarette butts. And my thoughts have no one to caress.

Agony/Ecstasy

2011-03-20T15:47:00.000+05:30

And quiet is the thought of you,
The file on you complete,
Except what we forgot to do,
A thousand kisses deep.

And sometimes when the night is slow,
The wretched and the meek,
We gather up our hearts and go,
A thousand kisses deep.

Formal Complaint

2011-03-14T01:33:00.000+05:30

Oh fuck off Universe.
And isn't it way too early in my cycle for PMS?

And, why am I like THIS?

Sunday Afternoon Coffee, With You

2010-11-21T15:56:00.017+05:30

I miss you my love
And all we were sure to be

I can't stop reliving
Rerelishing, redrowning

I stare at the strangers around me
Drinking their coffee

My eyes and my heart
Filled with anguish

Silently screaming
Until they edge away, puzzled

Unsettled by the nameless pain
That rips out of my skin

Writhing in the agony of maybe
Every time I think of you.

Footprints

2010-09-08T22:52:00.000+05:30

I recently spent some time in the Ashram of a particularly popular Holy Man. I am not going to name him, because I genuinely mean no disrespect to him and have no desire to offend his followers, many of whom I have grown to become exceptionally fond of.

My reasons for visiting and staying at the Ashram had nothing to do with a need for spiritual guidance, or even a curiosity about it. It was a business trip for all practical purposes. Nevertheless I had heard a great deal about this guru, and was promised many times that the visit would change my life forever. Perhpas it will be a more gradual change.

For the moment at least I came away deeply unimpressed. Not with the guru himself, who I only saw once at a distance, but with the Ashram and the majority of the people there*. Can you spell petty? (I can it seems). It was ridiculous. The guru's right hand man, who was to help us with some of our arrangements, lied to us, to our faces and not very well, since we caught him in the lie a few hours later. This from the man who is the most devoted disciple of a guru who preaches truth and honesty above all. It was embarassing. The women who are in charge of seating within the hall where prayers are conducted are entirely power mad. For them, the ability to refuse a chair to a sixty year old woman who couldn't sit on the floor, was clearly exhilarating. Where is all that compassion now?

The other thing that bothered me, and actually bothers me about all religions, is the overwhelming belief of the guru's infallability and omnipotence. I was told many times that I had not come to the Ashram of own my free will, but because the guru had summoned me, a caim I found disturbing and rather demeaning too. It implies that the followers of this man have no free will, no ability to make decisions or chose the path they are on, even if the path is this particular branch of spirituality.

What perhaps bothered me most of all, was the money. The overwhelming mountains of it. I met people who have given up everything to live and work in the Ashram, and still had to pay rent. I saw electronic equipment that would make the Pentagon drool. I saw enough air conditioners in the offices of the higher officials to cool four football stadiums (Renunciation is also a tenet by the way). The purpose of this sect is to help the poor, but they spend crores of rupees on their guru's birthday celebrations.

What was missing, most prominently, was the feeling of peace I had expected. Having embraced the lifestyle preached, the people in the Ashram weren't above pettiness and politics. They were rude, they pushed, they cut in front of you in ques, they lied and fought and were the same human beings that they have alwasy been, except each and everyone of them was a hypocrite in the worst way. Having embraced the tenets of this guru, they seemed to believe that they are somehow better than the 'non-believer' (my word not theirs), whether they adhered to the beliefs of their faith or not. It felt more like a frat house, than an Ashram of a divine being.

I don't doubt the faith, I don't even doubt the man. I just think that his followers are destroying his reputation and need to practise some serious introspection, which is ironically, also a basic tenet of the faith.

*I did mention earlier that there were people I was fond of, and there were, but just a handful. And I may not understand their faith, but I do wish to respect it.

At Home - Bill Bryson

2010-08-05T12:21:00.004+05:30

I don't usually write book reviews, because I don't read books I don't love. So if I begin a book and I am not passionate within the first chapter or two, I simply stop reading, and thus reviews of books tend to be a bit pointless. However, there is an exception to this rule, as with all rules, and the one author to make it through the tiny loophole that presented itself, is Bill Bryson.

I love Bill. I don't just love him as an author, I tend to love him as a kindred spirit, as my kind of person, as someone with whom I could have a great and wholesome relationship because, based on my extensive and comprehensive reading of his work, I have come to the conclusion that we are in fact the same person (The only point of discernible difference between us I should like to point out, is that he doesn't like dogs. But that’s it). So I will read anything he writes, anything at all. I would read his grocery list if that were available for perusal.

Which brings me to the point. I recently acquired (and at only two thirds of the MRP, Heeheehee) his newest book, and have been in a tizzy of excitement ever since. Entitled 'At Home' it is a history of the humble abode, and all the other humble things that make up the bulk of everyday life and have done so for ever but never got the credit and recognition they deserved. Until now. Truly typical Bryson, the book is stuffed with bizarre and baffling trivia that awes and entertains all written in his wonderfully lighthearted, yet acidly irreverent style.

So why am I writing a review? Last night, circa 3:00 AM, I finished the chapter on Drawing Rooms and was struck with a rather unusual emotion. Well not unusual in itself, but certainly unusual in the context of reading a Bryson. I was... unsatisfied, and mildly irritated. So remarkable was this, that I spent many minutes trying to make sure that the source of my discomfort wasn't external. I checked the air conditioner and the mosquito repellent. I poked the dog awake to make sure she wasn't trying to make me let her out (mild irritation appears to be a ferociously infectious condition) and drank some water just to be sure I wasn't thirsty. It was no good though, I was mildly irritated by Bryson and I couldn't pretend I wasn't.

It isn't that book is bad, it is, as I said, typical Bryson, which is a good thing, but also allows me to confidently review the book before I have finished it. Though stuffed with interesting trivia narrated in his wonderfully lighthearted yet acidly irreverant style, his jokes have become, well, a little predictable. And I have never noticed before how deeply disorganised he is. Or perhaps it is only this book, but the chapter on the scullery, for example, takes you on a somewhat complicated journey through the life of the average servant in 18th century England. This is confusing enough to be honest, but he takes this a step further by including a story about a gentleman who wrote a history of the French Revolution and another who had an extremely complicated wig. And though I remember all this, and think it was rather funny, I have to admit I simply can't recall what purpose the Scullery actually served.

See what I mean? It’s wonderfully entertaining, but it doesn't make any sense. It’s like reading '1001 Jokes by Bill Bryson'.

Regardless, and in the words of Bryson himself, I will devour it (Yes I realise it’s an odd line to quote, but that's how Bryson quotes come to me. Odd one liners that I really shouldn't bother crediting to him). I will probably love it also, but for today, I am mourning a little. I'm sure it will pass.

Stone

2010-07-28T20:16:00.000+05:30

There are huge glass windows. In every perfect afternoon, there are always huge glass windows.

We sit. In leopard print chairs, facing the street, watching traffic and the odd glint of glass through rough jute blinds. The wooden floor squeeks under my feet as I kick of my blue brocade sandals, I reach for my Iced Tea, with too much ice as usual, I brush the hair out of my eyes, I reach for the soot between your fingers.

And then I look up at you. You smile and I wonder what you're thinking. You look overawed. As if you're watching something you've never seen before.

You kiss me. Gently, you brush your lips against mine and grimace as they come away sticky with lip gloss. We laugh and you tug at my hair making me ash all over the floor, but we dont notice.

The ravioli rears its head and we lean away. You pick up your beer, the bottle catches the tired sunlight and reflects stars over the white walls and dark brown wooden doors. You take a deep drag and lean back into the light, and I see myself in the huge glass windows, looking at you.

I look overawed. As if Im watching something Ive never seen before.

I wrote this on the 13th of September, 2006. I remembered it suddenly, a few days ago and felt the need to re-post it.

Gripes.

2010-07-18T15:57:00.002+05:30

Of all the things placed on this Earth to annoy me, (and damn are there a lot) the following have really got my goat recently.

1. People who walk on a jogging track as if they are the only people using it. I mean for God's sake, try and comprehend the fact that there may be people who walk faster than you, or God forbid run, and if you meander across the path lost in conflicting day dreams of being thin and eating Gulab Jamuns, you are being seriously inconsiderate to the person trying to overtake you. And if they subsequently step on the backs of your shoes, accidentally on purpose, you have absolutely no right to get upset. Just bow your head in meek apology and stay out of their way in the future, or the Dragon may be compelled to eat you. Okay?

2. Facebook. Oh dear God, how I hate Facebook. I wish I could substantiate this hate with a high and mighty boycott, but the truth is Facebook has now become essential, in terms of basic social etiquette, and not being on Facebook is tantamount to not having a cellphone number or an email account. It has its uses its true, but it also encourages menatlly unstable Dragons to obsess about the deeper meaning behind an ex-boyfriends latest profile picture change. Even worse to my mind is how people have now started talking in status messages and picture captions. Its bizarre. No actually, its evil. EVIL.

3. Telemarketers. Or whatever those people who call you and try to sell you stuff are called. And the text messages advertising some god forsaken lump of undeveloped real estate at the edge of world. I HATE them. Luckily the Dragon has a thin veneer of civilisation covering her primitive, violent, merciless self and has managed to not rip the aforementioned nincompoops limb from limb. So far.

4. Children. I am aware that Dragonfly and MinCat will probably tell me I'm being unreasonable, but children are just annoying. Though to be fair, its not entirely their fault, their parents have a lot to answer for. I have never been able to understand why a parent would bring an infant to, oh off the top of my head lets say, a play. I mean really??? What exactly did you expect? That your six month would appreciate a spoof on the bards greatest works and NOT cry during the entire performance? Or movies. Or restaurants that don't have table mats you can draw on. Or any public place where people may wish to enjoy themselves even slightly. The Dragon is not completely without a heart however, so if they annoy me excessively I will eat the children. The parents however are simply too revolting. Yech.

5. MTNL. I don't believe this needs an explanation actually.

Venus + Mars = Vers? Manus? Marnus? Venars?

2010-07-11T12:53:00.001+05:30

So I love tags, I really do. Especially when I'm suffering from writers block, as I am at the moment and I thought this one, from Mincat, who got it from the Bride, was a particularly good one. However, I was rather thrown by the complexity of their disclaimers, it wouldn't have occured to me to include one. They do make excellent points however, so instead of writing my own, I am directing you to their lovely pages.

Thusly, the following are my Manly Traits:

1. I LOVE Football, passionately. Being Indian, I am compelled to watch Cricket avidly, but my heart belongs to Football.

2. I am a devoted gamer. And I'm not bad either. Also in this vein, Star Wars fanaticism, as well as avid interest in most Sci-Fi and Fantasy.

3. I own three pairs of shoes. No really, just three. I have an anti-shoe fetish.

4. I am a power shopper. I simply can't browse (the only exception being bookshops, where I could spend eternity. Heaven for me would be an enormous bookshop with comfy chairs and a coffee shop), and I hate malls. Clothes shopping is an absolute nightmare, and I avoid it as much as possible. As a result, many of my clothes are more than ten years old, and I'm happy to say I can still wear some of them.

5. I do tend to be protective and chivalrous, though I can't stand simpering, damsel in distress type women. This is probably also a manly trait though. However I have just realised that I don't particularly like being on the recieving end of chivalry, I find it insulting if men think I can't carry my own bags or open doors without their help.

6. I am not terribly particular about clothing. I often wear things that have holes in them, or are crushed, and am not terribly fussed about what I am wearing. I also have low maintainance hair and make-up habits, so I'm perfectly happy walking in the rain.

7. I LOVE food. And am very capable of eating vast quantities of it, unapologetically.

My Womanly Traits:

1. I am obsessed with my weight. A great deal of my happiness depends on how much I weigh, which is deeply sad.

2. I love to bake.

3. It takes me forever to get ready. I dont know why it is so, but I simply can't rush the process.

4. I love to talk, about feelings. I'm not one for mush or sentimentality, but I'm not one to feel something and not share it either.

5. I LOVE Sex and the City. I'm sure I don't need to elaborate on this.

(I can't seem to think of anymore girly traits, though I'm sure they exist. Feel free to make suggestions!)

Also, Happy Budday Mincat. TheDragon loves you madly and hopes you have the best year ever.

(Untitled)

2010-06-20T14:21:00.003+05:30

The key to forgetting,
Someone said,
Was to start small
Like your keys, your library books

To stop making associations
Like the way you smell
That song you loved
Your favorite term of endearment

Lie (to myself)
I will see you again, Its not really over
We would have been great together
(And to you) I hate you

Throw away the random things
That we made together
That business card, the red dragon tissues
The newspaper we read on Sunday

Then to get to the point of forgetting
To stop seeing you everywhere
To spend a few idle moments,
Without caressing you with my thoughts

My cardboard boxes are packed
I await the empty space
That comes with forgetting
The way you loved me

*With apologies to Thoughtspotting

some text missing

2010-06-19T19:30:00.000+05:30

I've been thinking of what to say to you, that will make sense for us. I want to tell you that I miss you, and that I really want to see you again, but the professional help I'm finally getting tells me that this is just a delusion. Apparently all this turmoil and pain inside me isn't real, its just my part in a play, the script for which was embedded in my sub-conscious when I was a child. A play in which you must break my heart and I must let you, just like I've let it happen a hundred times before, when the only thing that changed was the person playing your part. Except this time I mustn't.

I want to tell you how much I loved touching you, how much I loved falling asleep with you curled up around me and waking up knowing you would still be holding me. The way you'd kiss my fingers. I so want to call you, to ask you how the move went, how you like the new city, what the shop looks like and how much he's messed it up. To tease you about how badly your country is playing in the World Cup. I want to tell you that though I say its too late, I'm really hoping it isn't, that you still want to fight for us. That I hate that we can't talk to each other anymore. That though they say what I feel for you isn't real, that its just a result of my childhood trauma and self destructive nature, I am screaming for you on the inside.

But I can't say anything to you, not until I'm no longer broken. So even though I pick up my phone a hundred times a day to reply to your message, I won't.

You were right though, we would have been great.

Frankly Scarlet, I Don't Give a Damn

2010-06-09T14:31:00.001+05:30

I should be upset, but I am strangely relieved. The thing is, I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure that what they had said was true, I wasn't sure that I was making the right decision, I wasn't sure that they were right about you.

And then you left, for the very reason that I was afraid you would, for the reason that they said you would, for the reason that you know is the nameless terror that doesn't let me sleep at night.

And I can't stop laughing, because despite everything you said you were, everything you said we were, all the times you lamented the other men in my life who had done terrible things to me, despite how much you said you would never hurt me, you're just the like the rest of them.

So now I'm sure. And no matter what changes, even if I am no longer broken on the inside anymore, you and I are done.

*GRIN*

The Leap, to Death

2010-05-05T21:57:00.003+05:30

Why do men have to lie?

I have always trusted the men in my life, simply because I believe that attempting a relationship without that basic element in place is stupid. If you can't trust the person you're with you're going to be miserable, and so its not worth being with them at all. And this worked very well for me, I had numerous relationships where I was never plagued by the stress of having to worry about what my partner wasn't telling me. I believed that I was being told everything relevant. Until of course I discovered that I wasn't.

Being on the receiving end of that kind of dishonesty is heartbreaking. God it is so painful you want to rip your heart out and set it on fire just to make the pain stop. It isn't the infidelity as much as the knowledge that something you gave your heart and soul to was a lie. That every time you smiled at the person sharing your life they were smiling at someone else in exactly the same way, that the love which enveloped you and made you believe you were a part of something magical was just a ruse to trick you into letting your guard down. That the time you spent curled up together, speaking softly late into the night, fingers entwined, your heart bursting with the intensity of your feelings for each other was just a hollow pretense, tainted by their absolute disrespect for something that should have been sacred. That the way your heart would leap at the thought of seeing them and touching them was a farce, it was just you being a fool in love with someone who was pretending they felt the same way. The emotion, the feeling, the promises that you make to someone you are in a relationship with should be sacrosanct. They should be pure and unsullied by the sordidness of lies and deception and sexual gratification. And when you find out it wasn't it kills you, slowly, piece by piece by you can feel yourself dying inside. And you can never trust the way you used to. That's the worst part of being lied to by someone you trusted completely, you are cursed to a lifetime of wondering if you are being made a fool of again.

I have never felt this kind of panic, never felt this lost or used or swamped by a nameless terror. I have no proof that I'm being lied to again, all I have are the smallest rumours, and I find myself cold and shaking with fear. I am terrified that I am going to have to go through that hell one more time and the thought makes me want to curl up and cry my heart out. The way I refused to do the first time it happened. This time will be so much worse.

Blah Blah Blah

2010-04-19T23:49:00.004+05:30

I have spent a lot of time with myself of late, trying to figure out a good way to deal with some of the issues that are crippling me right now. What have I realised? I don't need time with myself, I need time away from myself. Of course this realisation has come at a ridiculously inconvenient time. I have exams starting very shortly, which means that I will have to spend even more time with just me and Maroon 5. A situation that is not conducive to life changingness, let me tell you.

So anyway, I did what any mature adult would do and booked a flight to see my girlfriends for a weekend. Three days before my first exam. I am in so much trouble. Six feet from the edge and all that. I don't care though. I know, or rather hope, that at some point I will start to care again and then I will feel very stupid.

If only real life came with a reboot option. I suppose if you believe in rebirth and all that it does. Blah I say, Blah.

Afraid of the Colour Blue

2010-04-07T17:59:00.006+05:30

You didn't just kiss my lips
I felt you breathe
Against my heart
And from that moment
I belonged to you

And nothing has changed
Even though you've left
You're still here
My heart still trembles
When I think of your kisses

*An attempt, at a love poem. Alright, a rather amateur attempt at a love poem.

Too Strange to Title

2010-03-31T15:35:00.004+05:30

I have always known that I was not the most ummm, emotionally balanced person. I have crazy mood swings, am often crippled by sudden, inexplicable terror and driven by irrational and obsessive emotions. This has been a problem of course, but having developed my psychosis at a young age I also managed to develop great strength of will, so as to keep myself under control and my insanity a secret from everyone. I have gotten so good at it, that I managed even to fool myself.

This last year, 2009 was not a good one. Many things happened that were traumatic and disturbing, though I have no wish to go into the details, even just with myself. However, I managed to keep it together ("with a little help from my friends", without whom I would have killed myself years ago. This is a tangent and a rather random one, but these people, in my life who love me despite how terrible I often am at being their friend, I could never frame the words to explain what they mean to me. Which is rather depressing as I believe I am a writer.) and as the New Year progressed I felt that things had stabilized. I even managed to convince myself that some of my more serious obsessions were in fact harmless, that I was taking only a brief hiatus from the world of the living and the thinking and as soon as I got myself together I would be back out there, as happy as I have always been.

Late in the year 2009 I became single for the first time since I was sixteen. I told everyone, and myself, that having jumped the sinking ship that was my last relationship, I had no desire to see what else was swimming in the sea with me. Almost a decade of near constant boyfriends had given me a craving for the single life, and perhaps I would emerge on the other side of it with an ability to fall in love with something other than scum.

It turns out that was all an elaborate lie. I don't mean that I am desperate to find a boyfriend and can't stand being alone (Oh I'm not saying I'm not lonely, having been 'with' someone for most of my adult life I find it very difficult to adjust to a 'single' mind frame, though I think that its just a matter of practice) I find now that I am terrified of starting a new relationship. I am, for the first time since I was fifteen, scared of boys. Of talking to them, of saying the wrong thing, of making a move or taking the next step. And I have met a few lovely men who I believe, in the calm, safe moments in front of my computer, would have been incredible to have in my life. But when they are standing in front of me, asking me to have dinner with them I feel an inexplicable urge to run. And then I do.

Today, I was faced with a poignant wake up call (in a rather becoming blue t-shirt) and it occurred to me that I was in fact, completely mental. I seem to have left the world of reason, of even caring for the concept of reason, far behind me. And I know that I could sort it out, but I don't seem to want to. If I take a step back, and try to analyse why it is that I am losing my mind, the image wont stay still. It will twist and shimmer and dart around, not wanting to be scrutinised. I am not sure what it is, that my subconscious has so determinedly repressed and why it is so afraid of my trying to dig it up. But I am afraid too. It must be really terrible.

My apologies for the rant.

Hair Today

2010-03-31T13:30:00.005+05:30

I spent two hours in a High End Luxury Salon having a Hair Spa Treatment yesterday. There are two hours of my life I'm never getting back.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure the treatment was very good for my hair. As the polished lady in charge told me, the intensive dura-enhancement therapie would fill in the gaps between the protein in each strand of my hair caused by the uneven tilt in the Earth's axis, which is worsened by the increasing frequency of the solar storms on the surface of the sun. Okay she didn't really say that, but her explanation was just as incomprehensible.

I emerged from the experience rather bemused by the whole concept. Classified as a luxury treatment, and certainly priced as one at Rs. 2600 (but we will come to that later), the entire process involved a man with rather extravagant hair rubbing various types of goo into my tresses while I tried to read an outdated Vogue with my neck in an unbearably awkward angle. He then proceeded to tell me I was graying at an alarming rate, something I already knew but always appreciate being reminded of by complete strangers. And why do these places believe that if the air conditioning isn't low enough to make penguins don parka's and mufflers they will lose their luxury status? They may not be aware of this, but freezing your clients balls off (I know this doesn't apply to me exactly, but 'freezing your tits off' just doesn't convey the scope and suffering of it quite as well) is not considered a hallmark of luxury. Though they did offer me tea OR coffee and I suppose variety in the free beverage department is a step in the right direction, and there were a multitude of Plasma TV's showing... Well I don't know know what they were showing because I spent the majority of my two hour treatment staring straight up at the ceiling. Now if they had a Plasma TV up there I would have been impressed. Instead I now know exactly how many lights there are on the ceiling of the therapy room (six), how many of them work (five), where the plaster is cracking (top left corner) and a number of other irrelevant details I am afraid I may have committed to memory forever.

Anyway, the goo came on, there was a little head massage which was nice, and then the goo came off. And that was it. Oh admittedly my hair is now all sleek and shiny (see image below), so I suppose it's not all bad, but I simply cannot comprehend how someone, ANYONE, would be willing to part with two and a half K to have goo rubbed into their hair and then rinsed off. I, of course, was there on a freebie, but I can assure you that had I been paying for it I would have been cranky. Err. Crankier.

I suppose I am being unkind, it wasn't completely unbearable. The staff were by and large lovely people, and they were attentive and accommodating and clearly very well trained. I just think our concepts of luxury are irreconcilable. When someone offers me luxury I imagine, at the very least, being draped in satin and being fed fat free yet delicious chocolate cupcakes by scantily dressed male athletes who proceed to rub warm, aromatic oil all over me. Though in retrospect I suppose that may be asking too much of any salon not based out of ancient Greece.

The Time of SItara

2010-03-28T11:18:00.003+05:30

PROLOGUE

The land of Sitara had been the blessed jewel of the ancient gods for centuries. Divinely patronised and guided it grew in prosperity and happiness- Three great nations ruled by a line of kings descended from the gods themselves. However, men touched by the blood of the gods are still only men, and nothing will go well for long before some men feel they are more blessed than others. Sitara dissolved into civil war. The divine royal house of Arth was all but destroyed and the great land of Sitara splintered into smaller kingdoms that soon began fighting each other. The laws, magic and government of Sitara faded from the memory of its war ravaged people. It passed into myth and legend. And their greatest weapon and treasure, the true secret of their success, the flame of their peoples hope was forgotten, awaiting the return of the true kings of the stars.
The greater continent of Sitara had changed dramatically over the thousand years after the war. Not only had the invisible borders devised by men twisted and re-positioned themselves, but the land itself had changed. Coastline had submerged, new islands were created and mountains were thrust up towards the ever watchful eye of the green Sitara sky. The ancient kingdoms of Samarth, Tur Kirrin and Adila passed into myth and legend, and their ancient lines of kings disappeared into obscurity. Khalikha and Isiijekh, the God and Goddess of the beginning and the end hid in their homes in the sky. Their children, numerous and quarrelsome, reigned over humans, animals and amars, indulging in war after war to satisfy their sibling animosity.
So one thousand years after the fall of the mighty kingdom of Samarth and her sister kingdoms of Tur Kirrin and Adila, the continent of Sitara had splintered into five smaller states and the divine blood that flowed in their royal houses disappeared into the dust of oblivion.

One Thousand Years Later

One thousand years later, there was movement in the middle of Uth-Vardentull, now called the Isle of Nothing. It was here; a thousand years ago the last king of Samarth had been killed. A mischievous wind began blowing, and in its wake was revealed the last true artefact of the long forgotten kingdoms. A plush velvet padded chair- it kept solitary vigil from the top of a large moss covered rock. No one ever passed through this particular part of the deserted island, but if they had they would have stopped and goggled at the sight. The chair was so strange that one may just have missed the old man who sat hunched amongst its purple cushions. He wasn’t really much of a sight, a toothless old man in a brown sack with a stick, but those people, if they had ever made it to this part of the island would have been deeply moved by the look of determination on his face. It is hard to imagine being determined about a stick and a chair, no matter how nice the chair is, but this man had a purpose. He was a watchdog, left behind by an ancient police force, to wait for the birth of a catharsis. And it is on the day that his wait finally ended that this story begins. The old man left his chair for the first time in seven hundred years and began to walk slowly toward civilisation.

The capital of Isharth was the lively city of Athakhaan, and two days into the old mans journey it witnessed the birth of a new and rather unimportant prince. The gluttonous and self-indulgent king of Isharth had numerous wives, and a son born of a lesser queen was rarely regarded as something worth getting excited about. Worse, the lesser queen in question was Ithaca, a vaguely noble girl whose bloodline was cluttered and unclear and whose sea blue eyes were completely vacant. The day was warm and the delivery difficult and Ithaca endured both the heat and the pain without expression. She struggled with the contractions, and a few moments after giving birth she died as quietly as she had lived. The child however was a different matter.

The old man trekked across the island and with the same calmness trekked across the sea. He reached the northern shores of Isharth, after a brief stop at the Frigga Islands, and found himself in the newly destroyed fortified city of Lytalia. Lytalia had been rebuilt and destroyed numerous times, because it was very susceptible to pirate raids. In fact she was raided so often that she had stopped functioning as a trading port centuries ago. There were no merchants in this part of Isharth; there were no tourists either, because they all went to the port of Wardhak three kilometres down the coast, but the city port of Lytalia was rebuilt every time it was destroyed. The old man, who we shall call TOM, reached its harbours after a particularly successful pirate raid and watched its rebuilding in a wise stupor. He didn’t offer the obvious advice to the bedraggled Lytalians, because TOM was a man who knew a good curse when he saw one. The Lytalians were doomed to rebuild their city and watch it be destroyed until someone somewhere in the endless bureaucracy of Isharth surveyed the area and told them to move the hell on out. He knew that common sense would not prevail over the glitter over of a notarised document, so he held his tongue and moved on. It had taken him 10 years of steady walking to reach Lytalia; another three days brought him to the wealthy town of Cromagna. Cromagna was an immense glowing point of humanity. It sprawled endlessly around the palace of Luskara Samitha Derish, and extended for kilometres in every direction. Cromagna was the city of the rich and wealthy. There was no place for the poor. The rich were not to be troubled by the plight of the poor, and the result was a city eerily free of the downtrodden. The wide tree lined boulevards were occupied by impressive large white buildings and their purpose was proclaimed by thick golden letters painted on the front. Cromagnians used the elegant curving script of ancient Sitara (well actually not so ancient, but it wouldn’t do to admit it), and because it looked so very grand on their white buildings their names tended to be much longer than necessary. For instance, the library was known as the “Great Hall Of Numerous Sheaf’s Of Paper Bound Together And Stacked On Shelves” and so on. The gates of the massive white city were guarded by tall Amars called Lambais

TAG (Feel Free to Take it On)

2010-03-12T13:41:00.001+05:30

A
- Available: I'm never really sure.
- Age: 25
- Annoyance: Shrill female voices.
- Animal: Dogs and Dragons

B
- Beer: YECH. We hate Beer.
- Birthday/Birthplace: November 13/New Delhi
- Body Part on opposite sex: Chest and Shoulders
- Best feeling in the world: Ah. I believe I will keep that to myself.
- Blind or Deaf: Blind. (I think, I'm not sure what this is about really)
- Best weather: Rain and stormy, gray skies.
- Been in Love: I would like to think so.
- Been on stage?: Yes, often. I love it.
- Believe in yourself?: Hmmm. I am reserving judgment.
- Believe in life on other planets: Yes. Without a shadow of a doubt.
- Believe in miracles: Ummm. Maybe? I'm open to the idea.
- Believe in Magic: Ooh yes. Wizards and Jedi type people.
- Believe in God: Err. Unconsciously.

C
- Car: BMW
- Candy: Milk Chocolate.
- Color: Black, Orange and Purple. Not all together though.
- Cried in school: Hmmm, you know I cant remember crying in school. I must have, but I cant remember.
- Chocolate/Vanilla: Chocolate.
- Country to visit: Greece, Egypt, South America (I know its not a country, but there are too many there).

D
- Day or Night: Night.
- Danced: Only in private.
- Dance in the rain?: YES.
- Do the splits?: No. Ick.

E
- Eggs: Scrambled, with cheese and toast and bacon and sausages. Mmmmm.
- Eyes: Yes Please.
- Everyone has: Eyes?

F
- First crush: Abhimanyu Chopra, In First Grade.
- First thoughts waking up: Gaaaaaahhhh.... chai...
- Food: Oh god, the love of my life I think is food. It shows too.
- Greatest Fear: Anonymity
- Giver or taker: Sharer?
- Goals: A few, the most embarrassing was an own goal in the eleventh grade.
- Get along with your parents?: Always, they are my best friends.

H
- Hair Colour: Brown/Black
- Height: 5'10"
- Happy: Meh.
- How do you want to die: Hmmm... Happy? No too general. Asleep.
- Health freak?: Nope.
- Hate: Often, but for short periods of time.

I
- Ice Cream: Chocolate chip cookie dough hot fudge.
- Instrument: Tambourine?

J
- Jewelry: Rings!! I love my rings.
- Job: I don't believe in them.

K
- Kids: Never. Will rip my own uterus out first.
- Kickboxing or karate: Neither?
- Keep a journal?: Does a blog count?

L
- Love: I will never turn it away.
- Laughed so hard you cried: Yes, and I grin every time I think about them.
- Love at first sight: I didn't used to believe.

M
- Mooned anyone?: Flashed people, does that count?
- Marriage: Very bad idea.
- Motion sickness?: Yes, any kind of motion at all.

N
- Number of Siblings: None
- Number of Piercings: None

O
- One wish: If I say it out loud, it wont come true.

P
- Place you'd like to live: Sicily.
- Perfect Pizza: Every kind of meat possible with extra cheese and jalapeno peppers.
- Pepsi/Coke: Orange juice.

Q
- Questionaires: Kinda fun.

R
- Reason to cry: Vaguely soppy movie/book/Ad/emotion
- Reality T.V.: Stupid.
- Roll your tongue in a circle: And then?

S
- Song: Lips of an Angel - Hinder
- Shoe size: 9
- Slept outside: In a tent?
- Seen a dead body? Yes. I live in Delhi.
- Smoked?: Yes. Often
- Skinny dipped?: Heeheehee noooo.
- Shower daily?: Yep
- Sing well?: Nope.
- In the shower?: Occasionally
- Swear?: Wait, do I swear in the shower?
- Stuffed Animals?: I am a stuffed animal. Can't you tell?
- Single/Group dates: Both?
- Strawberries/Blueberries: Strawberries. With sugar and cream and mmmmm....
- Scientists need to invent: A head and heart separator. Because mine are too close. I don't mean a neck. I mean a metaphorical Head and Heart separator.

T
- Time for bed: Usually post 2 AM. Sigh.
- Thunderstorms: Yes. Lots. All the time.
- TV: Bones, House, How I Met Your Mother.
- Touch your tongue to your nose: Why?

U
- Unpredictable: Cows. I know it doesn't make any sense.

V
- Vegetable you hate: All the Lauki-Tinda family type. And the Karela.
- Vegetable you love: Bhindi. Mmmmmm.
- Vacation spot: Europe, Somewhere in.

W
- Weakness: Husky voiced, broad shouldered... Weakness? I don't have any weakness'.
- When you grow up: Never!
- Worst feeling: When you now you're out of smokes and there is nothing you can do about it.
- Wanted to be a model?: A model what? Aeroplane? Citizen?
- Where do we go when we die: King's Cross, obviously.
- Worst weather: Muggy cloudy-ness.

X
-X-Rays: Errr... No thank you?

Y
-Year it is now: 2010
- Yellow: Buttercup?

Z
- Zoo animal: None! There shouldn't be any animals in zoo's. Zoo's are bad.
- Zodiac sign: Scorpio.

GRRRRRRRRR

2010-02-23T19:51:00.002+05:30

Stars shining bright above you,
Night breezes seem to whisper, I love you,
Birds singing in the sycamore tree,
Dream A Little Dream Of me

Just say goodnight and kiss me,
Oh, hold me tight and tell me you miss me;
While I'm alone and blue as can be,
Dream A Little Dream Of Me.

Stars fading, but I linger on, dear,
Still craving your kiss;
I'm longing to linger till dawn, my dear,
Just saying this:

Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you,
Sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you,
But in your dreams whatever they be,
Dream A Little Dream Of Me.

Dream A little dream of you and me.

(Your Silence) In Couplets

2010-02-02T21:57:00.008+05:30

If in time you feel I'm cold
My hair's too long, my form too old

You can say goodbye without a fear
For I'm too proud to shed a tear

I won't scream, or shout or sob or yell
When next we meet I'll never tell

That for a time my heart was yours
I'll keep sheathed my hidden claws

The time we spent will stay between
The things you said and didn't mean

I'll seal my lips and play along
We both know you did no wrong

You never said your words were binding
And I asked for nothing and you were obliging

You and I are done and I won't grieve
I always knew that you would leave

*inspired by conversations with Vogon Prose

What is wrong with me? And other questions

2010-02-02T12:36:00.002+05:30

I need release.

I feel compelled to write something beautiful. That I can reread every time I feel the pit open at my feet. Something to take away from the ugliness in my head.

Its a four letter word, Hope.

So is life.

Stage Directions

2010-01-31T14:07:00.004+05:30

I should be in a white dress. The wind, it should be blowing, flinging my hair into my aura, wrapping my dress around my ankles, and then blowing it away.

I should be at the beach. Not the bright, sunny, colourful flotation device beach, but the crashing waves, steep, crumbling cliff and scraggly grass kind of beach. Walking along the edge of the cliff, staring down at the churning sea, unconcerned by the fate of my white dress in the vicious wind.

Perhaps I should clarify. I mean a white dress, not a White Dress.

I should be barefoot, having lost my shoes somewhere along the way. I could not recall where. Or what shoes. Or if I had ever worn shoes at all. I should be crying. Though, I always find that difficult. Knowing that I should be crying, I am suddenly incapable. I might cry. Let's leave it at that.

I walk, barefoot in my white dress perhaps in tears, to the edge of the cliff. The clouds, for the sky is gray with them, they pick up speed. Rushing by, blown away by the vicious wind, I should almost be able to hear them screaming. I should think, Just like I can almost hear myself screaming.

There should be rocks, in the ocean below me. The water around them should be white, and frothy. The rocks in contrast should black, slimy and jagged. There should perhaps be some sort of poetic echo, between the rocks and the water, and my white dress and my black hair.

I should step, to the very edge, with it crumbling beneath my toes and falling to the rocks that welcome it below. I should think, Just like it will welcome me.

I should lift my eyes to the sky, I should extend my arms as if pleading for salvation, I should turn my eyes into the wind and close them, I should lift myself onto my toes.

And then I wait. I wait.

Valhalla

2010-01-27T15:43:00.002+05:30

*footsteps echo*

Ummm, hello? Sir? Are.. are you here?

*silence*

I have a problem Sir, a big one. I need your help.

*more silence*

I know you'd probably say that since these conversations happen in my head, the reason you aren't here is because I don't really know what to ask you, but I would really like to speak with you.

*yet more silence*

I'm sad, and I need guidance. A reality check. Something real, something true. Something, something I can use to bounce back from rock bottom.

*nothing*

Please?

*The lights dim. The curtains close. The stage door shuts*

*footsteps echo*

This will make no sense.

2010-01-14T23:30:00.004+05:30

How deeply ironic, that as I compose myself to write, 'Pay For What You Get' begins to play.

It has always been special, this song. I must have listened to it a few hundred times in the last ten years, but every time it plays I discover its message anew.

How apt, that the man who introduced me to it seemed to never stop paying.

I am afraid. Of everything.

I live at the edge of life. Almost there, but never quite able to take that one last step, and really live. Afraid that I may not be cut out for life after all.

If only, I could escape. The small things that keep me here, make me happy, temporarily.

Am I searching for a fix. Another fix. The tragedy, of giving up drugs to embrace the far deadlier addiction of want.

I could eat the world and hunger still. I could be filled to gorging and hunger still. A perpetual resident of Satis House.

The art of repression. Which I had mastered. My mind is regurgitating all that has been forced into it since I was four years old. And I am covered in vomited anguish. Decades of it.

I thought I was unhappy because I didn't fit into that dress anymore. The time I spent, wanting to be this thin again. It never changes anything really.

My best friend isn't here, for me to drown my sorrows with. Tonight I must find another way. To hide. Forget. Feel loved.

And I want. More than anything, to not want. I crave the absence. The silence. When my mind was peaceful. Empty. What will happen, when I have nothing to think about.

Ants. Mindless. Marching. Ants Marching.

Meet my magnifying glass.

Seeing is Believeing

2010-01-12T13:30:00.005+05:30

And I light another cigarette.

The blackness in my heart. The blackness in my lungs. The stillness in my hands that brings you to my mind.

And I light another cigarette.

The rush of nicotine in my brain. The need that consumes me every few minutes. The absence of thought that bends my conscious to you.

And I light another cigarette.

The back of my mind, that thinks about you without asking. That wonders and replays and relives though my hands and my mind are busy. That fuels the need for something more.

And I light another cigarette.

And it doesn't change a thing. At the end of a day spent in motion I turn to switch of the lamp, and the light catches my ashtray. Brimming with ash and cigarettes smoked to the bitter end. A reminder of every time my hands and mind and heart reached for you.

And I will light another cigarette.

I am a Bloody Rock

2010-01-05T15:52:00.002+05:30

So in light of my age and general coolness, I have decided to not go completely insane.

This was not an easy decision to make of course, it required much thought and calculation. Though having lost most of my mind already I am not entirely sure that thought and calculation are my best skills, at the moment anyway.

Anyway, the point is, I must behave like I have lived for a quarter of a century, rather than just a sixteenth of it, and it starts now.

In other news, boys suck.

Age is something that doesn't matter, unless you are cheese.

2010-01-03T19:48:00.005+05:30

The Dragon turned 25 recently, though she wasn't happy about it. Apparently one has no choice in the matter of aging, no matter how bitterly you might complain about it to the relevant authorities. So, I decided instead of brooding to accept it gracefully, and embrace all the wonderful things that are supposed to be the plus side of rushing headlong to your death.

There weren't very many, and some of them did sound suspiciously like old people trying to hard to sound cheerful, but there was one certainly that caught my interest and that I was very eager to incorporate into my aged-ness.

I was told that as one got older the drama, the incessant love-lust drama of ones youth faded away, and was replaced with calm, rational wisdom. The raging emotions (or hormones, lets be honest), the do or die compulsions, the deep, soul-wrenching anguish, the uncertainty, the triple guessing, the 'should I fucking call him or would that be too needy' debates that keep you awake at night would all disappear. You wouldn't have to wonder, you would know.

HAH.

What rubbish. There are no advantages to growing old at all.

(So seriously, call him? Not call him? Call him? No, maybe not. Or perhaps I should. No, no stupid idea. But...)

To Sleep, Perchance to Dream

2009-12-19T13:21:00.004+05:30

There, in the distance, the skies were clouding over. The stillness before a roll of thunder, as the world holds her breath, waiting, watching.

I walked into the sunlight, unwilling to acknowledge the darkness I could foresee.

The sky turned to soup, a thick murky swirl of grey and black. The storm doesn't like to be ignored. It boiled, slowly chasing away the sun.

I turned my back on the gathering storm, I threw down my coat and I whistled as I walked across the grass that died at my feet.

He screamed. The skies opened. The cold rain poured over me and burned through my skin, the ground shook and the earth wailed. The storm was here.

And I kept walking. I turned my eyes away from the carnage, the violence and laughed as blood seeped out through my charred skin, leaving a trail of red behind me.

The storm would kill me. The storm has killed me. I didn't even know.

It was you. With your lips. Your fingers. The things that you whispered to me. I heard them all as the rain dissolved me into nothing. Into a patch of bloodstained dead grass.

It was you, the storm said.

It was you.

The Hamlet of the East

2009-12-08T19:15:00.003+05:30

I choose.

To Dive

2009-12-07T16:44:00.003+05:30

In the running water,
Flecked by the sun
I saw you wash away
Disappear into the depth of the river

In the sudden silence
It became clear
I have no choices to make

Untitled

2009-12-03T17:31:00.002+05:30

I was born, I am told, with my heart on my sleeve. A fistful of sinew that would bind me to love, all consuming, obsessive, unreasonable, a result of simple theft, of a willingness to trust the light fingers that brush my arm.

With my heart on my sleeve, I wandered into you. And you took my heart and you left, without knowing you would leave me bereft.

Without even the ability to awake my limbs and feed my starving mind, until I wander into you again, and remember to reclaim what I have lost to you.

If I ever see you again, I must remember to swallow my traitorous heart, that would follow you everywhere, but home.

Dreaming Tree

2009-11-28T20:22:00.000+05:30

Talk to me. Want to talk to me. Think about me, remember me, send me messages for no reason, to let me know I didn't make a mistake with you. Worship me, just a little.

I can't do it any other way, I'm a coward and a romantic.

Or perhaps I like you in many more ways than I can say, at least out loud. Never to you.

Live with me.
I will keep you warm.

The Fate of the Fly

2009-11-27T22:12:00.004+05:30

I am trapped in you
Like the foolish fly
and the golden amber
I know I'm a dead thing
But I can't fly away
In a million years perhaps
I will be a beauty too

The Great White Fear

2009-04-24T22:43:00.004+05:30

I knew you all my life. Even though I didn't see you all that often, I always knew you would be coming home sometime in the future. To stay with us and bring us funny presents, to make jokes and tease me about my latest boyfriend, to take me out for lunch and teach me about being quick witted.

At your memorial I couldn't get up and say anything, because I just couldn't stop crying. I wanted to let everyone know that even though I wasn't your friend, or your student or your colleague or one of your supposedly numerous girlfriends, I treasured your visits and remembered you with nothing but laughter and good memories. As I will try to remember you from now on.

I regret so deeply that I couldn't know you as a full fledged adult. That our conversations were always you teasing and me giggling helplessly. Except for the last time that you were here, when I would crack a joke and you would look surprised and delighted before you started to laugh. I couldn't wait for your next visit, so I could make you laugh, and test my wits against yours.

Thank you for letting me have the brochures of Miss Saigon. I know you wanted to keep them, but to twelve year old me they meant a lot, and the pictures from it helped me get really good marks in my seventh grade project on the Vietnam War.

So many of my happiest childhood memories revolve around you and that beautiful house in Dehradun, and those fabulous visits to Delhi. Like the time when I was six, and I opened the door and you said "Driver!". I still remember that and smile, even though it makes no sense whatsoever. And thank you for eating that terrible food I cooked for you. Thank you for the yellow towels.

I will never be able to shake the feeling that you will definitely come to visit again.

Farewell Great White Fear.

Come The Spring

2009-04-21T14:20:00.004+05:30

The transition from winter to summer is a traumatic time for many. Here in Delhi, where winter is an infinitely preferable state to summer, everyone watches the rising thermostat with unease and more than a little apprehension. Those with delicate constitutions, or in many cases just unlucky, crumble under the merciless onslaught of coughs, colds, bronchial pneumonia and other gifts from the change of season. It really is a miserable time, and all you have to look forward to is the blazing heat of summer.

Of course, my trauma at the hands of what cannot even jokingly be called spring, is more severe and desperately cruel. You see I have two dogs, and while for most of the year, they are sweet, lovable, and mildly inconvenient, come 'spring' and they are transformed from cuddly canines to gigantic balls of walking fur, the only purpose of which is to shed on everything. And when I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING. My lungs I am convinced sport internal fur carpeting that would make PETA turn Iran and issue a fatwa for my immediate death. Every piece of clothing I own, almost all of which is black, is now brown. And not a very nice brown either.

Curses to you Mother Nature.

The Coreworld Begins

2009-03-27T14:15:00.005+05:30

There was a Tower that still stood, on the very edge of a cliff. There were no roads that led to it, no trails, no way to climb the forbidding rock wall it was perched on, but it was not empty.

On warm days, when the air was so still and languid it could be spooned into bowls, they could hear the voices of a castle drift down into the valley. The clink of glasses and clatter of hooves on flagstones, the high pitched laughter of the young, and the clack of wooden practise swords wielded by the enthusiastic, if unskilled.

Life was strange in the valley in the shadow of the Tower that still stood. It was about to become stranger still.

The Dragon came. She was gold and green, with enormous black wings that cast a shadow on the valley as she flew over it. Bound for the Tower that still stood, for the castle that once was. As she approached it she slowed, as if the still air had indeed turned to soup and fought the beating of her wings. It was a battle hard fought, but at last she alighted on the roof of the Tower that still stood. She spread her wings and roared silently, calling on powers ancient, wise and in many cases rather grumpy. They were reluctant to help, but the Dragon would have none of it. Slowly, as if it were rising from the depths of the squishiest bog, a castle arose around the Tower that still stood. The cliff became less fierce and more a hill. A road appeared grudgingly, unwilling to serve again after such a long holiday. And a wind began to blow. To all in the valley, it said, unmistakably and with great feeling, "Bugger off".

Has she really lost her mind... I said, I couldn't tell you, I've lost mine

2009-02-26T23:40:00.004+05:30

There are heavy chains around my wrists, and they drag me down as we trudge across the endless landscape. The ground is dark, lit inadequately by a sinister grey sky, but it doesn’t really matter. There is nothing here to see.

I stop, for a moment and stare behind me. In the distance I can see light, bright, happy, twinkling light. The kind shed by a family eating Christmas dinner. My guide, for he is not my captor, the chains are of my own making, clears his throat, and I resume my reluctant trek across the barren ground below me.

We reach our destination soon enough. There is a slope, and it leads down into a deep bowl in the earth. There are people there. Well, they were people once. They look as I suspect I will as soon as I take the first step towards them. Bereft of a reason for light, they exist, fueling a promise once made, an exchange that once seemed essential. They were the halves left over. The bits that they always thought would die from the pain, the loss, the sheer cruelty of letting them live. They wait for me.

I hesitate. My guide waits with me, staring silently down at my fate, sharing none of my uncertainty. We both know I have no choice anymore. The bargain had been sealed, but he was kind in indulging my sudden fear.

The silence lengthened, and I found my lips were moving unbidden, I stared into the depths of the hell that I had chosen and asked him softly,

“Why?”

My guide, he had heard this question asked before. He took my chains in his hands and told me,

“You pay for what you get.”

The BIG question

2009-02-13T16:04:00.004+05:30

I was not one of those popular kids at school. I was friends with the popular kids, for awhile anyway, but I was never one of those girls. You know who I'm talking about. As a child, one often attributes this decided lack of coolness, to one factor, that through its existence has ruined yours. For me, it was my glasses.

I acquired my first pair at the tender age of seven. I have notoriously bad eyes, and I often got attention at parties by convincing people to put on my glasses for a lark. My reasoning was quite clear, if a little pathetic. The boy wearing my glasses would exclaim with amazement at how warped his vision had become and call other boys to exclaim over it, and I could stand there in the midst of the excited chatter, without glasses and therefore obviously looking stunning. Of course, boys at any age are assholes, so I would invariably never get my glasses back, or at least not in one piece, and though I would be delighted at having to exist bare faced for at least a few hours, I soon realised that knocking into furniture and tripping over things are not exactly the most effective way to attract the opposite sex.

Time went on and the mild dislike I felt for my glasses turned into out and out hatred. Till this day I will do anything to avoid wearing them at all. Don't get me wrong, this is not a tale of heartless bullying. In all my years at school no one actually even mentioned my glasses, but as I turned thirteen my lack of a love life was clearly a result of the glasses perched on the bridge of my nose.

For years, I had begged my parents for contact lenses. I was always denied of course. Too young, too poor, too terrible at the studies to deserve them, but finally, at the advanced age of fourteen, they gave in, and I was able to assume my destiny as the pretty girl at long last.

Well not quite. I still wasn’t terribly popular, and I found myself, with the advent of my contact lense wearing phase, subject to a new and considerably more worrying problem. At fourteen, the only kind of sex I was familiar with was the Mills & Boon kind. Coitus was described in the most romantic terms, with euphemisms that included heat like the heart of the sun and the rhythmic pounding of the waves. And at the end of the umm, session, when the Earth had stopped moving and the afterglow was in full swing, the lovers invariably fell into deep, happily exhausted sleep, their naked bodies still entwined. This was how it always happened, and as far as I knew, it was the only way. There is no arguing with this rule.

Thus I was faced with a most unique problem. As any Contact Lense Wearer (CLW) will tell you, you are not allowed to sleep with your contact lenses on. If you do, or so you are told, your eyes will start to rot and the Devil's own eagle will pluck them out of your skull and you will be blind forever. There is no arguing with this rule. To my fourteen year old mind, it presented an insurmountable obstacle. Say, just say, that one day someone would want to have sex with me. Should I take my lenses off before hand and risk stepping on something important? How much before hand? How would I judge that we were in fact going to have sex? What if I was wrong and had to pretend I wasn’t blind for the rest of the day? Or should I just pretend to go to sleep and slink out of bed to the bathroom after a sufficient amount of time had passed and I could be sure he was asleep? Or just stay awake all night and take them off in the morning when he wasn’t looking, and then put them back on again?

This question consumed me. What do I do with the Lenses? I would lay awake at night and plan, trying to come up with the most feasible plan possible. I researched expensive imported ‘gas permeable’ lenses that allowed the CLW a few hours of sleep while in use, and begged my parents to buy me those instead, though I was much to embarrassed to tell them why. They said no obviously…

It is now becoming slightly clearer, why I wasn’t all that popular in high school.

On a Church Floor

2009-01-28T16:10:00.000+05:30

Um... Hello!

Ah its you. I havent heard from you in awhile.

Yes well, I was... busy.

And you're not now?

No. Well. Actually, I had some questions.

Dont you always? What is it this time?

I still feel, somewhere, inside, where it counts I think, that it will all work out and things will go back to 'normal'.

And...

And well. I've never really felt that way before, and I wanted to know, what does it mean?

Why should it mean anything?

Well because! Its so profound, and unshakeable and.. and inherent. It must mean something!

Oh you mean that these feelings indicate that he is the one for you, and that the love you shared was special and would conquer all and eventually it has to work out because you were meant to be together?

Yes!! Is it true? Is that what they mean?

No.

Oh. Then...

Nothing. They mean nothing.

Nothing at all? Not even-

NOTHING.

{silence}

You love him. And you haven't quite stopped yet. Now, go get drunk and find a nice boy and a quiet corner. That should help.

Oh I... Umm, thank you.

Anytime.

In Stone

2009-01-22T12:02:00.000+05:30

In a beautiful house by a river in a land where the sun was always shining, a little girl lived all by herself. She had always lived there, at the edge of a beautiful forest with the happy little river, she could not remember a time before, and though she was alone she was not sad. She would often sit on the river bank and watch the water gurgle over the rocks and sand at the bottom and wonder idly what was on the other side. She had never left her side of the river, and knew nothing about what lay on the opposite bank. She would spend her day in a curious state of peace. Mostly staring at the sky and thinking of nothing. She would meander through the woods and the house, tracing the route she had taked the day before.

But when evening came, she would leave her house and walk a little way into the forest behind it. In the soft light of dusk she would stand before a marble tomb encrusted with moss and crumbling with age. As she stood there, not really knowing why she had come, the nothingness of the day would desert her, and she would suddenly be over come with emotion. She wondered why her heart felt so heavy and brimmed with so much pain. She tried to remember but the silent cruelty of the tomb banished her thoughts. Every night she decided never to visit the tomb again, but every evening, as the sun began to disappear into the trees she found herself walking into the woods. Something called to her, something that begged to be found, to be returned. To be forgiven.

But in her sleep she walked her life before. She walked along a wooded path dressed in black. She walked behind a train of silent people. She walked behind a beautiful stone sarcophagus. She walked across the river that would be her prison, she walked past the house that would be hers alone, she walked to the marble tomb, gleaming in the late afternoon sunlight and watched as they placed the Sarcophagus inside. She stood beside it before they settled the heavy stone lid. She stared down into the cold eyes, watching as a slow smile twisted the cold lips. Her heart screamed in pain and without a thought she ripped it from her chest and threw it into the stone coffin. Her pain dulled and after a year of fighting for peace and freedom, her mind slept. She stepped away from the sarcophagus and walked to her house, wondering at the cold laughter that followed her, unmoved at last by what lay inside the tomb.

And so she lived alone in her peaceful, beautiful house by the river. She never remembered her dreams and never thought of her future. She knew nothing about her past. She never felt sad, and she never felt alone. She never felt anything.

Except for a few moments every day, in the cool grey light at dusk, when she stood before the marble tomb and tried to ignore the agony that she had paid so much never to feel.

Three Steps to the Right

2009-01-21T12:13:00.000+05:30

I made a choice recently, to leave someone I love a great deal. Not because there is something better out there, but because, though I loved him, he made me more unhappy than I have ever been. He acquired a job that he loved, that meant he would be out of town for long periods of time. It meant that I would have to live alone in our house, in what was effectively a different city from where my friends and family lived, for weeks at a time if not more. This is not a relationship worth keeping. I have wondered if I made a mistake, if I should have just sucked it up and dealt with the misery.

I started reading a blog, written by, well not a friend, but someone I know, and she writes of her life, and her husband who travels constantly. She writes of how difficut it is to trust him, how alone and miserable she feels, how she has had to harden her heart and sterngthen her independance to keep misery at bay. I read what she is saying and I can see what my life would have been like if I had stayed. I never want to be as alone as she sounds.

Mrs. Asshole or Ms. Nobody?

2009-01-20T14:57:00.000+05:30

I recently read an interview with actor turned politician Sanjay Dutt, in the Delhi Times. Being a tabloid-ish newspaper, the Delhi Times did not ask him about the elections he was hoping to win, or even about his acting career, they asked him about the supposed feud between his sisters and his wife. The alleged feud apparently did not exist, but Mr. Dutt felt the need to stress his version of family values.

He felt that women have one basic function. They get married, move to their new family, adopt their name and take on the responsibilities that running the family entail. He went on to say that he disapproved the new ‘fashion’ of women keeping their ‘parents’ last names after marriage, it was insulting to the man they had married and at odds with their place as the beast of domestic burden in their new ‘family’.

Alright I added the beast of burden bit, but the rest was pretty much a direct quote. It left me speechless. I was so upset on so many different levels I wasn’t quite sure how to articulate my anger. In order to make sense, I am applying GRE essay techniques to his interview.

The first issue of course is his view of the woman leaving her family behind and joining her new, true family, her in laws. Is that how defines women? A being to incorporate into a family to assume its responsibilities? Not even a General Manager, because they have some status, but a Housekeeper with benefits? As this is her only function, she obviously needs no identity separate from that of her husbands, which brings us to issue number 2, the change of the last name.

It clearly escaped the magnanimous Mr. Dutt’s notice, but his wife’s parent’s last name was also her last name. In allowing her to use his name he seems to forget that beyond being his wife or their daughter, she is herself. A person with, hopefully, a personality that has nothing to do with either of her two families. Why is it that women must sacrifice everything, down to their own identity, to be successful wives? They leave their families, they assume new duties, they have to bear and raise the children, they have to make sure that their husband’s lives are free from any trivial, irritating domestic problems. I have often heard these nameless women described as the power behind the throne, but honestly that is just such rubbish. Why must they be behind the throne? Why can’t they rule and let their husbands bring them chai and do the laundry?

A boyfriend once told people that my role in his stressful, challenging career was making sure that he got up in the morning and made it to his meetings on time. Apart from being completely untrue (for the most part I would lie in bed and watch him stagger around in the early morning light, if I bothered to wake up at all), his proudly claiming that I was a domestic Super Queen completely poleaxed me. For starters, I wasn't. And I wasn't even in training or anything, I mean I had no intention of ever being a domestic anything. I had no idea that he felt this should be his girlfriends function in his career. Worse, all the times I had utilized my intelligence to actually help him were not only forgotten, but completely irrelevant. Why is it that a woman’s worth is defined by how much easier she makes her husbands life? How well she runs her house, and how happy her husband is because of it?

Mr. Dutt’s views were traumatic. It made me realize how deeply ingrained they are in todays Indian society. And whats worse is that he will probably win the fucking election.

With this body I thee worship...

2009-01-08T16:47:00.001+05:30

Ever since the demise of my almost marriage, I have found myself deeply fascinated by married couples my age. Luckily for me, it seems as if all my classmates are determined to be married this year, and I am blessed with a huge abundance of people to wonder at. I have spent hours on Facebook, studying photographs and conversations, trying to discern... Well, I'm not exactky sure what it is about these people that interests me so fiercely. I suppose I feel that I can find the answers to my problems in their relationships.

What was it that made them sure that they were ready for marriage? That this person was the right one? How did they know? Every boyfriend I have ever had, (except one) has asked me to marry him, and with most I haven't even considered the option. Even now, though I had said yes, I wasn't a hundred percent sure. I had my doubts, and I knew that many things would have to change before I would wholeheartedly open my mind to marriage. It seems to me, in light of the nuptials taking place in everyone elses lives, that I am the only one who isn't satisfied with what I have.

I am holding out for the impossible? Am I the fool, to want so much from a relationship before i accept that it is ready for marriage? Or are they the fools, for settling for a relationship that may not be perfect? Or are they all universally blessed with the perfect lover and I still haven't found mine?