blah!

this post is meant to mean nothing... i haven't written in a while and the interval makes me uneasy.
i've felt the first spark of ambition.... real ambition... last week.
i didn't quite know what it was. i've been familiar with only one dimension of ambition... "looking forward to something" :)

the other dimensions i called dreaming and wishful thinking remain, but somewhere special in my heart. they cannot and should not be described. :) what i felt recently was a rush of blood to my palms, my eyes, my feet... like i wanna start right now! maybe it is ambition, i have no standardized guidelines to say "yes this is it!" but it makes me feel happy thunking i can and want to do it.... :)

apart from this im living an invisible life, invisible even to myself. when i think i'll write. :)

thill then , :)

complaint box

i know a friend who calls me chatterbox
i know i talk a lot, one thought leads to another and they find their way to my tongue promptly...

about 3 years ago, i was talking to this other friend and realised that in 45 minutes of monologue, all i did was complain about stuff... the weather, that im sleepy, that i dont wanna do dentistry, that i cant go out whenever i wish to, etc etc etc...
i just went on and on like an empty complaint box was waiting to be filled up, and boy,was i generous!

then at one point i stopped. my friend looked at me, (she then seemed to have snapped out of a spell of hypnosis ;P) and i asked her "have i been complaining all this while?" she looked at me uncertain first, then said "well,.... yes actually"

and i felt middle aged..

it was awful! i'd see all these middle aged females cribbing and ranting about in odd issues, and i'd wish to god that i dont turn into one of them... and there i was! i didnt even see it coming!

it was then that i took a concious decision and stopped cribbing. it felt so good! its easier to see the better side of things when im not looking for whats wrong in them :)

three long years have gone since, and about three weeks without a friend's supervision... (she always reprimanded me when i thretened to crib) and i found myself rise and shine today morning and realise its a sunday and say "why do sundays come! i hate sundays!"
then i missed her :(

its so much easier to listen to myself and the promises i made to myself when friends are around! :( four weeks ago my friend and i shopped ourselves dry of cash and were forced to walk from main street to koregaon park... what more? we enjoyed the walk... i can call it fun :)
it seemed so easy then...

cover my eyes...

i saw a woman on the street the other day, very old, weak, haggard, bent with age and with cataracts in both eyes... she was begging on the road, being pushed around among the pedestrians, eating newspaper because she was hungry ....

i saw a frail man dressed in rags , almost concious, being held by two other men, one man at each arm, being dragged across the road, with both knees scraping the ground, producing a slight trail of blood behind him... and people walked and drove over his blood as though it were dust...

i saw three men heave a large log of wood onto a vehicle and drive it towards the timber market... debating a price to put on a dead piece of a living tree that they killed...

i thought about misery for hours... i wondered why certain things happen, why certain things make sense to people... i wanted it to change, i wanted to change it... i felt small, very unresourceful, helpless...

then, i changed somewhere....

wiped clean...

when everything in life has taken me where i least expected it, brought me joy from the places that were always in my peri-vision and brought all my dreams to fall into the traps of insecurity especially when my support system is slightly compromised, and all i can do is break down and marvel at the strange patterns of destiny that god's weaving into my existence, surrender to its complexity, i wonder if its all too screwed up to ever be right again... if every good thing is too late already and every dream is done fighting for.....

the beautiful picture i thought my life would make in a frame is transformed into a morbid form of modern art that does NOT make sense... and then i think that i made mistakes, i can learn from them still, i can wipe that canvas clean of the absurdity and start with new colors... maybe.... maybe i can...

the crash has been traumatic. its broken me down, but i have enough of me left to move... :)
i'll move, i'll paint that pretty picture again, i'll dream again...

i will...

shades of gray...

a LITTLE while, a little while,
The weary task is put away,
And I can sing and I can smile,
Alike, while I have holiday.

Where wilt thou go, my harassed heart-
What thought, what scene invites thee now
What spot, or near or far apart,
Has rest for thee, my weary brow?

There is a spot, 'mid barren hills,
Where winter howls, and driving rain;
But, if the dreary tempest chills,
There is a light that warms again.

Could I have lingered but an hour,
It well had paid a week of toil;
But Truth has banished Fancy's power:
Restraint and heavy task recoil.

Even as I stood with raptured eye,
Absorbed in bliss so deep and dear,
My hour of rest had fleeted by,
And back came labour, bondage, care

learning life...

“I've learned that good-byes will always hurt, pictures will never replace having been there, memories good and bad will bring tears, and words can never replace feelings" i don't know who wrote this :) but it fell in my lap just when i thought i needed someone to tell me....

it is so, that the last few months of my being have been a revelation of changes that have turned me around, carved new roads where i never anticipated roads could be tread... i've had to fight wars that came without warning and have found cushions in the queerest corners of my heart...

i've almost just survived (or have i?) and i dont have any way of explaining what really happened with me!!! i remember how hard the year 2006 was for us. we even wanted to make a bonfire of all we could find associated with that year.... but this year!!! i dont know what to do with it!!! this year has been a decade already, but it has made diamonds with its cuts and oyester pearls with the pain, every aspect of life came a round circle back to where it was, making me whole...

i realised i had a few precious things with me but was too occupied to notice them, like putting my fingers in my pocket to unexpectedly find a chocolate left behind..... :) i've had the best most uninhibited time with my friends (since junior college) in the last few months!!!

but there was a breach of trust here and there, there were disappointments, loss, injury, unforgivable behaviour.....and then forgiving and forgetting... most of all, a few questions dissolved into clarity....

i don't have answers or explainations, but i can look my doubts in the eye, i can adress them...

i dont know if i like self awareness yet, but its new, i'll look around.... :)

lost and found....

i hold it now, now let it go,
hide it now, now let it show,

a tear comes now, i close my eyes,
u look away, i say good byes,

its been so long, my life falls short,
you've been around in flesh and thought,

you take your leave, i walk away,
like nothing else is left to say,

a piece of my smile lies at your door,
smiling for you, one time more.....

good bye is not even a word..... :(

a tear shed, a smile spent,
a moment paused in thought,
a hand held, an eye met,
a word spoken (or not),

a moon shared, a secret bared,
a hope in times of hurt,
a warm embrace, a mirrored face,
chocolate stain on a shirt,

a night of talking,
a day of walking,
a lifetime or a mile,
a scream of joy,
a special boy,
fo'ever for a while,

a lovely start,
a homely heart,
a dream set on your wing,
of everything you mean to me,
good bye don't mean a thing....

when its not important to grow up.....

sometimes its just okay to be little again... immature, impulsive, unmannered......

laughing out loud whenever i really want to, breaking into song at the drop of a hat, saying lets go to the first idea that comes to my head.... there was a time i was this person... i was wild noisy company, unabashedly drinking from life like it was a high.... :) i loved that me....

enter responsibility, the "appropriate age" to have a goal, pressure to "get serious" and other stuff like that....

i did just that, got serious, buried my impulses, laughed in moderation... they said to be someone i would have to be serious and focussed.... i didnt know i'd lose myself to form this "identity"

i never knew what i felt anymore, it was trapped somewhere between reason and rhyme... even borrowed logic that i'm not supposed to feel such n such in such n such circumstances....
i was only one mosaic, a piece of modern art, that people find appealing, but it cannot be defined... it confirms to the interpretation of any veiwer who looks upon it...



then i looked into myself one day.


its was like visiting a place of the past that gave u comfort, a sepia toned era of warmth and ease.... i took a nose dive.... and there i was... me again :)



often i think about the futility of growing up... must we really?

i feel life doesn't get harder as we grow up, we choose to make it hard for us unconsciously...
people expect us to be different people suddenly and we accept those new different people as skins we have to grow into...

grown ups say no a bit too often for their own comfort... for youngsters there are 7 options between a yes and a no that they consider before "chucking it". i feel life deserves the latter kind of treatment.....

for the people who dont agree with me, i'm sure you are intelligent people... living everyday like it should be.... i'm only among those who want to live upto life rather than have life live upto me.... :)

cheers :)

we, the fortunate

today, once again, i found myself not convinced that i must give a beggar a coin. like countless other days, innumerable other instances that haven't found themselves important enough to linger on in my memory.
but today i thought, why am i judging the need of another man! who am i really, to gauge the depths of his misery?
to decide that he doesn't deserve that coin? whereas if he were a little more deprived i'd have given it to him.

its quite unfair on my part to go around laying my verdict on these people who obviously, besides their poverty, suffer the humiliation at all times to have to stretch their arms before unfeeling souls. the excuse i often give myself is that the man is strong enough to work. or that i have more important things to do rather than stop and open my purse.... i could be the better person if i only do that bit, but i forgo the chance, and choose only to be myself.

is myself good enough? its not even an exhibition of generosity to give alms to a beggar. kahlil gibran very aptly said "it is unfair that i own gold and i give you silver and deem myself generous" i wrote this post as a reminder of a valuable step i've taken closer to being just. justice, respect, acceptance, are what should be our basic and honoured birthrights. yet, it is sought in this world of billions.....

all the good things in life

It's the times we're so crazy,
that people think we're high.
It's the times we laugh so hard,
we can't help but cry.
It's all the inside jokes
and "remember whens".
those are all the reasons
that we're best friends!

Our inside jokes-too many to name.
When we're apart it's never the same.
When we're together it's nothing but fun.
Replacing my girls just can't be done.
As the years pass, and we grow apart.
I want you to know, that you guys are in my heart.

You helped me through problems,
through things good and bad.
You helped me keep smiling :-),
when I was sad.
You helped me with guys,
you made me stay strong.
How will I live, when you guys are gone?

And where the years take us,
no place is too far.
We will think of each other,
wherever we are.
You're wonderful people,
with good hearts to lend.
And I want you to know,
that you'll always be my Best Friends

change.....

every day is a new piece of time to spend...

every person is a new world to be lived in...

every thought is a new direction in the making...

every second takes us into a new irreversible frame of time...

everything around us is because it changes....

why make such a big deal out of change? if a person around us changes why make it an accusation? with the innumerable variables affecting our lives, we do change... into better or worse people, never knowing where the changes started.

the next time you want to tell another person he or she has changed, think a while if its worth it. the way you say it may hurt that somebody, and things might never be the same again...

heathcliff

catherine about heathcliff............

he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he's handsome, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same

My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning: my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it

My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being. So don't talk of our separation again


heathcliff about catherine........

I saw they were full of stupid admiration; she is so immeasurably superior to them--to everybody on earth, is she not?

You teach me now how cruel you've been--cruel and false. Why did you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. Yes, you may kiss me, and cry; and ring out my kisses and tears: they'll blight you--they'll damn you. You loved me--then what right had you to leave me? What right--answer me--for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it. I have not broken your heart--you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me, that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you--oh, God! would you like to live with your soul in the grave?'

He endeavoured to pronounce the name, but could not manage it; and compressing his mouth he held a silent combat with his inward agony, defying, meanwhile, my sympathy with an unflinching ferocious stare. `How did she die?' he resumed at last--fain, notwithstanding his hardihood, to have a support behind him; for, after the struggle, he trembled, in spite of himself, to his very finger-ends.

And I pray one prayer--I repeat it till my tongue stiffens--Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said I killed you--haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always--take any form--drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!


heathcliff and catherine, when death did them apart....

I was going to the Grange one evening--a dark evening, threatening thunder--and, just at the turn of the Heights, I encountered a little boy with a sheep and two lambs before him; he was crying terribly; and I supposed the lambs were skittish, and would not be guided.
"What's the matter, my little man?' I asked.
`There's Heathcliff and a woman, yonder, under t' nab,' he blubbered, `un' I darnut pass `em.'

romantic comedy

i believe that god is watching over us all the time.

and because I've been granted rather minuscule proportions of brain, my perception of it brings to mind a laaaaaaaaarge cabin, with billions of t.v. monitors.. each of our lives playing on those screens.

maybe god categorises these "motion pictures" into categories according to

1) age groups: the ones, twos, threes....

2) type of activities: drama, comedy, suspense, tragedy, action....

3) the characters we play: heroes, bad people, sidekicks, comedians.....

4) the level of entertainment we provide: with star ratings....

what category would i belong to is constant curiosity...

have i been "heroes" ?

would my life look like a "comedy" from up there?

i would like to be watched as a hero in a romantic comedy with 5 star rating.....

:)

these have happy endings, its funny all the way, only the climax maybe sad, and i can be all glory...... :)

i felt a desire to have such a review of our lives before us... then i was reminded that they already exist..... we call them epitaphs.

past days....

by Anne Brontë
'Tis strange to think, there was a time
When mirth was not an empty name,
When laughter really cheered the heart,
And frequent smiles unbidden came,

And tears of grief would only flow
In sympathy for others' woe;
When speech expressed the inward thought,
And heart to kindred heart was bare,
And Summer days were far too short
For all the pleasures crowded there,

And silence, solitude, and rest,
Now welcome to the weary breast
Were all unprized, uncourted then
And all the joy one spirit showed,
The other deeply felt again;
And friendship like a river flowed,
Constant and strong its silent course,
For nought withstood its gentle force

a thought...

strange it is, that we are given the world to live in, and we take it and build walls to confine ourselves......

......and it rained :)

a drop of rain fell to the ground,

and met my face instead....

it fell like a tear to the corner of my lips,

and when i parted them to smile,

it tasted like freedom :)

moonshine and love

I will tell you.
Many Years ago there was a young handsome Shepherd (who fed his flocks on a Mountain's Side) called Latmus - he was a very contemplative sort of a Person and lived solitary among the trees and Plains, little thinking - that such a beautiful Creature as the Moon was growing mad in Love with him - However so it was; and when he was asleep on the Grass, she used to come down from heaven and admire him excessively from a long time; and at last could not refrain from carrying him away in her arms to the top of that high Mountain Latmus while he was dreaming -


-john keats

time and tide

i look upon a bird called time,
feeble voiced and deathly pale,
resting from war, weary, weak,
yet mute endeavour to tell its tale...

who stole the wind from its wings,
what beast devoured its breath?
i wonder while the bird called time,
plays daunting games with death.

it sings a song and lifts a feather,
battered by rain and storm,
then wraps its life within its wings,
its shroud to keep it warm.

identity crisis

this question seems to be a constant stimulus for thought.

how do you introduce yourself to a complete stranger? my name means nothing. nationalities, they are only man made. professional qualification? dad's name? likes and dislikes? religious faith? would they define me?

do we have identities? rather, must we have identities? is it really imperative to life?

over the years i visit the same quiery. but contrary to a hope in wisdom, i've not found an answer to satisfy myself.

sometimes these quieries occur to me as far from clarifying answers...... the question being "who am i?"

reflections / mirages

i looked at a mirror, and i did see,

a perfect stranger staring back at me.......

first lessons in loss

as if the days grow weary of me
they come and go so callously,
and there you live, oblivious of this,
that with you dwells my joy and bliss,
all the love and strength that i sought,
is born and buried with every thought,
that brings you back to memory,
when the moon comes down to sleep with me.

so come your thoughts in lonely hour,
and tell me of the deepest scar,
but oh! joy! i know its true,
the same moonlight does sleep with you..

17/7/00, my first sense of loss.....

one of the crushed truths

The forceps of our minds are clumsy forceps, and crush the truth a little in taking hold of it
HG Wells

guilty as charged

most of the lessons i've learned have been the hard way. that's because i've wronged people. there is a certain glory in being the victim, who rises to the light of knowledge after ignorant naivety, learning one's lesson in caution. i have met my teachers however, at the tail end of this glorious horse.

the guilty. the charged. charged with treason, carrying a weapon, sentenced to.... permanence?

i've learned my lessons, but without glory. i've accepted myself for them, never made them twice, but what of it? why is it so tht the lessons i learned cannot help the ones i wronged? why must guilt have no correction?

sorry is a word i use often. even so, its not the eraser or correction fluid we mean it to be. a short while ago, i tried to relieve myself of the worms in my conscience, by apologising to those people i know i've hurt. it didn't help me one bit. well, what did help me was knowing that they had moved on beyond that spot i'd stopped at and revisited so many times. the injuries i'd inflicted on them carried no permanent mark.

but those same injuries translocated themselves onto me. my apology, and every word in it, hurt me. the guilt remained. the hurt added onto it. it is disillusioning. even today, i hurt people, but i find it just as impossible to "make it up" to them, if such a thing exists. i hope to be someone who always gets it right. .................well, almost always, when its important.......

i don't know what to title this one....

i was in a train, on a journey back home from a place 18 hours away. mid afternoon in a sleeper class coach leaves you with nothing to do but read/ listen to music/ talk to others, options which i exhausted rapidly. i submitted myself to watching a world framed by a grilled window. i wouldn't be able to tell you when it happened but i felt a gentle detachment from the world, like i was born again. my nascent memory couldn't recall the tall green leafy "things" that filed up against my view, my hands in my lap looked alien, the people in my compartment seemed like a hitherto unseen species of presumably civilized existence. it was as though i had unlearned everything i had acquired in life.

it was a mesmerising feeling that evaporated almost as soon as the fascination shone in. a new fresh start. your dirty slate wiped clean. a spectral bubble of promise and anticipation that burst only because i touched it with feeling it. life after that has been distinctly but unfathomably different. it still seems like god rearranged something in my life, and at that moment he hit the pause button.

slowing down in life can be about as hazardous as its break-neck speed. it makes me conscious of the several people who live in me.when i slow down to "smell the flowers" these "people" sequestrate as though each of my individual senses assume independent human form.it is at these brief episodes when i can watch my own life from a second, third, even fourth person point of view. it may sound to you adequately profound for maturity, but the truth is i never know of what consequence it might be or what is to be done with it.

then there are times when my other selves can't express themselves. life runs so fast that my integral self falls short of it. any effort to capture it reveals a blur, devoid of direction, colour or feature. at present i live in my latter self, trying to catch up with life, marvelling at the absolute servitude of god that we dwell in. for us, security means to hold, possess, sense in some way, anything we love, any place even person.... it is a deep-rooted compulsive human tendency, that is the defaming catalyst of the divinity of love. only god can achieve this, to make man understand and lose his perspective at once. where our perspective and understanding meet, i imagine, we'll touch the hem of god for one breathless moment....