25 December 2008

Sans.

A dash of red fury
In a cauldron full of hate
Complete with a debatable date
Could it be me, could it be you
It could be anyone, anyone could do

Paint the Mona Lisa
Give her a tear in her eye
There you are with the Taj Mahal
Let's paint it black tonight

It was a fiasco of favourite colours
Red and black and white
It was a rollercoaster of happiness
On a sea of starlight

The oars made a lovely sound
Against the silver water
It was like a lullaby
For the lamb to the slaughter

The air ringing with the angels' sweet laughter
Rose to a defeaning din
The boat gently rocking like a sleeping baby's cradle
Lurched, stopped and began to spin

The boat disappeared with the silvery stars
And you rose into thin air
Into the sky so dark
You were someone else, and the difference so stark

I couldn't utter a single word, even if I dared
The demonic nightmares had me ensnared
You had snapped the bond that we had shared so far
And finally you had declared..

The water pulled me down so low
I screamed but I did not scream
I cried but it couldn't be seen
I was an inch but close to dying and you went away.. blissfully flying.



Like a dream.

5 December 2008

Bubbles and Blankets.

I see an entirely new species of people everyday. It's as if interesting people don't exist anymore. They're all the same person with varying levels of awareness of what they are. And they're not much. It's nice observing everything from a cozy bubble, a blanket of comfortable peace wrapped around yourself.

Get the Sports Day over with, then we can resume with normal life, if we can call it that. It's hard class-hopping everyday. But it's better that way, I've always wanted to have a two-person class, and most of the time it's only a one-person class.

Teachers getting ruder, students getting dumber. What kind of a world do I live in? It's not all teacher and not all students. But it's a good number of the defected. People were never really good, but this is getting to be too much. And I'm another step to becoming a full-fledged misanthrope.

The bubble's not so soft anymore. It now clinks while I walk.

Marchpast practice, full on. Last one tomorrow. Dress rehearsals. I always loved staying in school till eight or so. Loved travelling in the bus at night. With someone turning off the lights and scaring the kids. But then I was never the "kid" and never the "bad" person. Just a spectator. Bliss. All the Annual/Sports Days were good back then. I can't really be sure what fate has in store for me tomorrow.

Marching as a parade in unison. It had me thinking.. what if someone turned rebel and broke into a run yelling at the top of their voice? I like the marchpast. I really like it and I'm in it because of that. But it just hit me in the head. Why do we do this? Is there really a valid reason : Why? Does anything have a valid reason for existing? I would never know.

I sometimes think if it's me or the world.

I'm running out of things to look forward to. Anyway, volunteering, handling the kids.. that's one thing I can live with. Aww, cute. It was nice how the teacher incharge remembered me from a trip we went on 4 ears ago. Felt good. Then I just hope I get to escape and watch the rest of the rehearsals. It's entertainment, at least, if not the best way to spend my time. One of the best things is getting up late and boarding the bus in the afternoon.

I guess something's wrong with me. People live in the past, I'm beginning to live in the future. It's as if my school's life's already over. But IT IS as good as over. My semi-class, mundane afternoons, cramming away stuff. Banging my head against my bubble. Hurts, but thank goodness for that, it's hurt a lot more if I were to live bubble-free.

I'm living a life I hate.
I'm beginning to believe in fate.
I just need to get some things straight.
But I hope, I truly hope, it doesn't get too late.

12 October 2008

A Thing of Beauty Is A Joy Forever.

I've heard of people getting Writer's block.. I've experienced it too. But a Reader's block is new for me. I didn't even know that something like this exists but, however hard I try I can't get myself to read more than two pages on a stretch. Hard Times - Charles Dickens. This BOOK is giving me a hard time coming to terms with reality. Perceptual, ofcourse. Or I hope. Why am I starting to think that I won't be able to finish reading this thing ever?

I mean I've read lots of Classics. Lots and lots of them. Then why not this. And I couldn't even get myself to read more than a quarter of A Tale Of Two Cities. It's something to do with the author, probably. Positively. It has to do something with the author. Moving on, like yesterday's obsession with groupies and supermodels, today we have Artists. Lawrence Alma Tadema. Particularly this painting called "A Favourite Custom" which was painted in the year 1909.



Breathtakingly beautiful. I couldn't take my eyes off this composition. And I didn't even know that I could call Fine Arts one of my obsessions. Phew. I loved this one a little less than the first, but considerably. Fascinating because the far left portion of it seemed to me like a photograph instead of paint. Incredible.


Take a look at it closely. Right here. There is -- Lord Frederic Leighton's "Flaming June". I truly believe a person looks the most beautiful when he or she's asleep.


No words. Absolutely no words. And there was one more I loved. "The Roses of Heliogabalus". Love of roses. Since time immemorial. I mean, since I can remember.


As The Roses of Heliogabalus was painted during the winter, Tadema arranged to have roses sent weekly from the French Riviera for four months to ensure the accuracy of each petal.

How can people not like Art? Whoever says that has to be lying. And when even sploshes of random colours on canvas is considered Art. Modern. Then what is not? My scribbles turn out to be works of Art when I finish joining them together. Voila! The precious work of a perpetually depressed teen. Oh, but that's private collection. Not for viewing. You won't even find them in some Art Gallery somewhere, so don't you even consider googling it. :D

School re-opens tomorrow after the Exams. Sad. There's not much to look forward to. It sharpens the sadness. But anyway, life's less than exciting but there is some sort of "peace" going around inside me. Is this what I asked when I wrote this poem of mine. I just happened to stumble upon it while going through my previous posts. The sadness gets sharpened with peace. Well, at least now I know Peace is NOT = Happiness. Not always. Not ever. Maybe substantially but not completely. Nothing's "enough for me". Yes.

The gloom always hovers over the joy like a troublesome raincloud. Ready to burst. And I never liked using umbrellas. Sigh.

11 October 2008

Live it. Love it.

So I hunched over my laptop all day just to get to know more about what's behind Summer Wine. And the versions. And more versions. This isn't the original. The whole life story of Uschi Obermaier. It's the soundtrack for the biopic movie of Uschi's life : Eight Miles High or Das Wilde Leben.

Natalia Avelon, the lady with Ville Valo in the video. She plays Uschi. I absolutely adore Ville. Dunno why. Even though I don't like HIM much. I meant the band. I guess it has something to do with his heavenly voice. Hmmm..

So I moved ahead to reading all about Uschi, her life, her love affairs. My oh my. Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and even Jimi Hendrix. And I didn't even know. She was a groupie but a video I viewed on YouTube, the guy stated that Uschi wasn't actually one, and that she denied it herself during interviews. She was anyhow, a model and an actress who was also a political activist.


Somehow, I always wished I was born somewhere around the 60s. Hippie culture fascinates me. Totally. Sandi Thom's music is inspiring too. Except, I hope she does know if punk rockers really had flowers in their hair. But rest of the lyrics are lovely. Following a string of Uschi related videos, I ended up going through the lives of Gia Carangi. I had already heard and seen a bit about the the Angeline Jolie starrer movie about Gia's Life : Gia.

All this reading about life is very exhilarating and depressing at the same time. When writers do stuff like making up stories. Fiction. I get scared thinking about how many lives they live at once. Best selling authors do sometimes get too much into the skin of the character. Hence, Schizoprenia. I actually have a newspaper article taped to one of my bedroom walls telling me about what happened with Ernest Hemingway, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf and more. The whole of the article escapes me except that they all killed themselves. Some of the cases were gruesome.

Back to Summer Wine. The original was by Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazelwood in 1967. Another popular cover is by Bono and Andrea Corr from The Corrs. The Corrs are amazing musicians. I went through all their history yesterday night with immense curiousity. Now I just HAVE to visit Ireland once in my life. I just loved this video of their "Rebel Heart" :



Lately, I've been playing with the idea that taking up a profession of a Travel Writer can be fun. Very interesting. It actually was with me a few months ago. Then I got distracted. I know it's very weird that I still don't know what I'll do. But if I DO decide and plan out my life right now, it'd all just end up in a way that's least expected. With me, everything's impulsive. Maybe I'd just think about going off to Istanbul and I'd leave the next day.

All the History studying is turning me into a more hopeless romantic than ever. I think I WILL do just that. Travel around the globe, come back home, settle down and have a family. Nice. Oh, but I still don't know. :D

8 October 2008

Haze.

I craved for you
With suspended longing
A tryst with nature
Of my mental narcissus
Been out of my mind
With a thousand thoughts
Of a better tomorrow
When tomorrow is born of today
Today of sinful yesterday
A ray of light can do me no good
It's all a part of the game
I lost to the mighty big sun
I crumpled and burned away.

28 September 2008

The Old Manor House

Another one of my poem's. This one's not just a result of emotional impulses. Started on it months ago, but never got around to completing it. Here it is, now.


The Old Manor House




The rusty old iron gate creaked with a sigh
As she entered the ancient Manor house
The unkempt garden seemed to sneer at her sight
And she felt as small as a mouse
The vastness of it all seemed to engulf her whole
She gathered around her the cloak that she wore

The curiosity seemed etched on her face
As she shuffled her feet ahead
The strangely beautiful mansion seemed to beck to her
As she stayed rooted where her feet did rest
Compelled to move ahead, instead she turned around
The gate had moved on its own to fling back with a resonating sound

Her lips did quiver, as she peered around the hedgerows,
With anticipation as she imagined what she’d find inside
As she gazed longingly at the door,
The wind whistling by her side
She felt a cold chill run down her spine
The tall trees had begun to roar and whine

The sun was high above her
It shone white with all its might
Beads of swear appeared on her brow
As she fought against her fear, slowly, steadily, blow by blow
She looked at the ground beneath her, strewn with dead leaves,
The dust rising in little swirls and settling, at ease

Out of the corner of her eye, she thought, she saw something move
Up, up on the window high up on the highest floor
Was it someone peering outside? Or just her eyes playing games with her mind?
The moth-eaten lace curtains flapped lazily
The glass of the window broken, cracked on one side
She saw a dark eye glinting from the shadows or was it...

Just the glass reflecting the light?
The enigma that surrounded the building was as dark as the night
But she had to know, had to see, had to prove
That nothing could stop her from going inside
She gathered all her might and set her mind to enter the house
Without even a sign of fright

The knocker on the front door resembled a snake
It shone a dull golden, which would have looked grand in it’s time
The door was dark mahogany which, with its shine and splendour,
Would have put the brightest, newest door to shame
She pushed it with her hand and it swung inwards
Baring to her a room filled with dust, cobwebs and scurrying rats

She shielded herself with her arm as a bat swooped towards her
Opening her eyes once more, she saw a colony of bats resting upside down
On the largest chandelier she had ever seen, which had slowly turned brown
The glass clinked softy as a few more bats moved in their sleep
Bustling around at the sunlight which had entered the room, unseen
Uncomfited by the sudden interference into their lives, they shut their eyes

She moved her eyes around the hall with its moth-eaten furniture
And a grand fireplace which still made the place feel warm
She moved towards it, enraptured,
Above the fireplace hung a portrait old and faded
The lady painted on it looked extremely aged
She stood with a young woman, a smile etched across her face

This must be the girl who had been left alone in the haste
While the others fled with the fear of being murdered by the enslaved
The Lestranges had been knowned to have kept quite a few innocents
Locked up in the cellar, while their glory lasted
And at last their threatening had come to no advantage
When the commoners had risen to power and they had been bated.

Coming back to the present and gazing at the face of the young, beautiful girl
Who had once lived in this very house, with her grandmother and her father, the Earl.
She turned her back to the picture, glanced around and advanced towards the staircase
Which rose magnificently to the next landing, she slowly trailed her hands over the banister.

Up, up she went steadily and turned left to a golden door which led…
To a beautiful chamber with a four-poster bed
The room still smelt sweetly of roses long dead
It was strange how she could still feel the sadness creep up over her
In the darkness of the room which mystified her with the enigma
She advanced towards the broken window,
They say the young girl had climbed up atop the window ledge...

She looked down at the haggard overgrown hedge
The saccharine smell of wilted roses reached her
It made her feel heavenly,
She looked towards the horizon, the distant sky
Only a lonely tree stood whimpering under the afteroon sun

The trees whistling her a sweet lullaby, the grass whispered beneath
Beckoning her to the man of her dreams, who stood there looking up
His face ashen, with tears in his eyes, he held a bouqet of roses
Raised a hand and smiled with lips that weren’t there..

She climbed atop the window ledge,
Dreaming of flying, weightless on the misery-filled air, while joyful laughter
Rang in her head, she felt a hand support her back,
She smiled and pushed herself out of the broken window
The moth-eaten lace curtains flapped lazily
While the eye looked for another story to go by.




Partly inspired by Vermillion Pt.2 by Slipknot.

26 September 2008

Minus Eighteen.

Life has a weird way of "equalising" things. Even good things. No one can have too much of a good thing, but yeah, however much of the bad - MUCHO!! Eventually it ends up initial good being equalised by bad, but initial bad being loaded up with more bad, and more bad. And still some more. So, shit happens.

The phenomenon of "equilisation" works with grades, too. Why. I don't know.

I spend a whole day cramming up facts for the Fine Arts Theory Test and then..

I lean back in my seat at school to take a look at my question paper and there it is. Horror of horrors. Out of the five questions - each marked a BIG six - I have no idea where the last three came from! I frantically demand my teacher appear before me right now. There she is. I ask her.

"All of them are in the notes."

"..."

"Yes?"

"They are not. I think I didn't get all the notes."

"Your fault." So be it.

"But these three.. how. When. What. Huh." Dazed.

She turns to one single other FA student. "What about you?" The girl nods, feigning sympathy when I can see, almost as if in her thought baloon -
"Yes! Yes! Yes!! Woohoooooo!!! Finally. Not more than me."

Eighteen out of thirty vanish away into thin air. Simply. Kaboom.

I can register only snatches of the teacher's dialogue "Didn't you know.. how come.. must've been absent. Distributed.. long back. Very careless." Or maybe I nightmare-ed up the last "careless" bit. But it sure was there in her mind.

Sniffle sniffle. I feel my eyes filling up. On the verge. Then I feel hot all over. Then I feel this tingling. I cry.

"No problem. Do the other two. We'll see."

No problem, she says. We'll see, she says. Yeah right. The other teacher meanwhile observes me like I'm some rare specimen of an endangered species. Get a magnifying glass, Ma'am. Isn't it very interesting, Ma'am.

"You have the Practicals too. Score there." Ha!

Finally, when I care enough to get decent grades. More than decent, in some cases. Here comes someone who tells me average is okay. No, it is not. Murder. Good, so that's it then.. how did this happen? One big unsolved mystery.

Then I stare off into the distance. Down below, I see the horses going round and round as if in a circus, in the field. Galloping. Whinnying. Green grass. Blue sky. Cool wind gets in through the window with no glass.

I start writing my paper.

17 September 2008

Creeping Normalcy..

With looking forward to posting half a dozen posts per day to absolutely nothing at all for a couple of months. I wonder if it's lack of inspiration or something else? Not many people think of motivating others when they lack some themselves, I guess.

"Normal" has changed it's meaning for me. It used to be - everything goes. To.. Nothing Goes. Not even one percent of what used to be Life. Still, I'm here, same still darkness, the same faint sunlight though the light blue curtains, the same AC, the same old Guns N' Roses, and me tap tap tapping on the keyboard. Change is the only constant. I did read that somewhere. Well...

Being a Humanities student has it's pros and cons. Contrary to popular belief, it's not all "easy peasy".. and I wonder if India's gonna have a shortage of Archeologists, Geographers, Historians in another decade.. with everyone "aspiring to be an engineer". All right. No offence.

Thank goodness I don't listen to people's views. I should've been dead. But I'm as alive as I was the day I was born. India is a difficult place to be in but the people are more difficult. What with the "caste" divisons. I still get to hear a snippet from people here and there, travelling along corridors, through a crowd of shit-headed people. Even classmates. Unbelievable, considering they're 16 AND they don't believe in shitty nonsense. Or so I thought. I wish I could just erase all the surnames of all Indians. If they can show brotherly OR sisterly love to their caste-fellows. I'm sure they'd do the same if the only criteria was Nationality. Not even religion. I hate religion with a passion. More fiery than anything I can think of.

With the LHC experiments.. I hope they consider remaking the whole Earth. We get Earth II. So cool. Imagine a world without countries, religions, no higher or lower, no distinctions, no discrimination. But that's just my over-active imagination. What of all the money? The military? The wars.. the economies.. the histories.. everything rolled into one. We get another human-made disaster.

Consider living on Mars one day. As me and my Humanities friend were discussing it one day - we'd just have Geography to study. No History. No Economics. And anyway, if we get the same teacher. It's gala time! :D

13 September 2008

Rabbi Shergill - Bilqis . Jinhe Naaz Hai.

I used to have a handle on life, but it broke.

I sat under the dying mango tree and thought about how things had gone awry. The heat rising up from the ground made me feel light-headed. As I heard the buzz of silence, heavy on my ears and my mind, I felt a calm creep over me. Red ants busied themselves talking to each other on their way, gosipping. I wondered what they talked about. A half-eaten overripe mango fell flat on the ground making a squashy noise when it rolled on to it's bitten damp side. Work of the parrots. I hugged the tree, and the bark felt rough against my cheek. I breathed out.

A cool breeze lifted my hair and brought it down slowly. A couple of raindrops fell on my hands while the sun still half shone merrily on the grey, party overcast sky. And I thought of the sketches I used to draw as a kid. The sun hiding behind the clouds, grinning, smiling forever. Was it the sun who was always happy or was it I? I felt a lump rising in my throat. I gulped and pushed it down. But the tears still came. There was no stopping them. No end to them. They went on, came back like the birds did to their nests every evening. Without fail.

I let go of the tree and raised my head towards the sky. A tiny drop fell on my right cheek. I didn't wipe it off. I never did. I prayed an Atheist prayer that it would soon start raining heavily. Anxious that I'd miss the first raindrops, I ran to the hall through the kitchen, up the stairs and stumbled on to the roof. Breathless, I reached for something to hold on to. I couldn't find anything. My eyesight blurred for a moment while my eyes looked at nothingness. Then I settled on the ledge. Mum always got scared when I did that. I didn't think there was anything dangerous. I wouldn't fall off. That would be stupid, and I was anything but that.

I swayed my legs to and fro, touching the wall and then not touching it. Hitting my heels lightly on the wall.. and then hard. Side by side, but that made me queesy. I resumed the to and fro moves. Harder. One two one two one two one. It hurt. I alternated the movement between the feet. That felt rhythmic. Then the rain started pattering on the jamun leaves right overhead. I was shielded from the rain. I felt cozy. Safe. For then, atleast.

6 September 2008

Food for Thought..

“The Sun, with all the planets revolving around it, and depending on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as though it had nothing else in the Universe to do.”

- Galileo Galilei

31 August 2008

Oscar Wilde Quotes I Like..


From The Picture of Dorian Gray -

There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.

The one charm of marriage is that it makes a life of deception absolutely necessary for both parties. I never know where my wife is, and my wife never knows what I'm doing. When we meet - we do meet occasionaly, when we dine out together, or go down to the Duke's - we tell each other the most absurd stories with the most serious faces. My wife is very good at it - much better, in fact, than I am.

Conscience and cowardice are really the same things. Conscience is the trade-name of the firm. That is all.

It is a sad thing to think of, but there is no doubt that Genius lasts longer than Beauty. That accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate ourselves. In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have something that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and facts. The thoroughly well-informed man - that is the modern ideal. And the mind of the thoroughly well-informed man is a dreadful thing. It is like a bric-a-brac shop, all monsters and dust, with everything priced above its proper value.

Those who are faithful know only the trivial side of love : it is the faithless who know love's tragedies.

The bravest man amongst us is afraid of himself. The mutilation of the savage has its tragic survival in the self-denial that mars our lives. We are punished for our refusals. Every impulse that we strive to struggle broods in the mind, and poisons us. The body sins once, and has done with its sin, for action is a mode of purification. Nothing remains then but the recollection of pleasure, or the luxury of a regret.

The only to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself, with desire for what its monstrous laws have made monstrous and unlawful. It has been said that the great events of the world take place in the brain. It is in the brain, and the brain only, that the great sins of the world take place also.

To get back one's youth, one has merely to repeat one's follies.

He was always late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time.

Never marry at all, Dorian. Men marry because they are tired; women, because they are curious; both are disappointed.

There are only two kinds of women, the plain and the coloured. The plain women are very useful. If you want to gain a reputation for respectability, you have merely to take them down for supper. The other women are very charming. They commit one mistake, however. They paint in order to try and look young. Our grandmothers painted in order to try and talk brilliantly. Rouge and Esprit used to go together. That is all over now. As long as a woman can look ten years younger than her own daughter, she is perfectly satisfied.

The people who love only once in their lives are the shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom or their lack of imagination. Faithfulness is to the emotional life what consistency is to the life of the intellect - simply confession of failures. Faithfulness! I must analyse it some day. The passion for property is in it. There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.

Ordinary women never appeal to one's imagination. They are limited to their century. No glamour ever transfigures them. One knows their minds as easily as one knows their bonnets. One can always find them. There is no mystery in any of them. They ride in the Park in the morning and chatter at tea-parties in the afternoon They have their stereotyped smile, and their fashionable manner. They are quite obvious. But an actress! How different an actress is! Harry! Why didn't you tell me the only thing worth loving is an actress? -- Because I've loved so many of them, Dorian.

It is only the sacred things that are worth touching.

When one is in love, one always begins by deceiving one's self, and one always ends by deceiving others. That is what the worlds calls a romance.

It is personalities, not principles, that move the age.

The only artists that I have ever known, who are personally delightful, are bad artists. Good artists simply exists in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are. A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look. There mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible. He lives the poetry he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realise.

He had always been enthralled by the methods of natural science, but the ordinary subject-matter of that science had seemed to him trivial and of no import. And so he begun by vivisecting himself, as he had ended by vivisecting others. Human life - that appeared to him that one thing worth investigating. Compared to it there was nothing else of any value.

Ordinary people waited till life disclosed to them its secrets, but to the few, to the elect, the mysteries of life were revealed before the veil was drawn away. Sometimes this was the effect of art, and chiefly of the art of literature, which dealt immediately with the passions and the intellect.



He began to wonder whether we could ever make psychology so absolute a science that each little spring of life would be revealed to us. As it was, we always misunderstood ourselves, and rarely understood others.

Experience was of no ethical value. It was merely the name men gave to their mistakes.

Children begin by loving their parents; as they grow older they judge them; sometimes they forgive them.

I never approve, or disapprove, of anything now. It is an absurd attitude to take towards life. We are not sent into the world to air our moral prejudices. I never take any notice of what common people say, and I never interfere with what charming people do. If a personality fascinates me, whatever mode of expression that personality selects is absolutely delightful to me.

Women are wonderfully practical. Much more practical than we are. In situations of that kind we often forget to say anything about marriage, and they always remind us.

There is luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.

Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account.

Women give to men the very gold of their lives but they invariably want it back in such very small change. That is the worry.

Pleasure is the only thing worth having a theory about. But the theory belongs to Nature, not me. Pleasure is Nature's test, her sign of approval. When we are happy, we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy.

To be good is to be in harmony with one's self. Discord is to be forced to be in harmony with others. One's own life - that is the important thing.

It is perfectly monstrous the way people go about, nowadays, saying things against one behind one's back that are absolutely and entirely true.
The only way a woman can reform a man is by boring him so completely that he loses all possible interest in life. If you had married this girl you would have been wretched. Of course you would have treated her kindly. One can always be kind to people about whom one cares nothing.

One's days were too brief to take the burden of another's errors on one's shoulders. Each man lived his own life, and paid his own price for living it. The only pity was one had to pay so often for a single fault. One had to pay over and over again, indeed. In her dealings with man Destiny never closed her accounts.

I admit that I think it is better to be beautiful than to be good. But on the other hand no one is more ready than I am to acknowledge that it is better to be good than to be ugly.

When they make up their ledger, they balance stupidity by wealth, and vice by hypocrisy.

--Still, we have done great things.
-Great things have been thrust on us, Gladys.
--We have carried their burden.
-Only as far as the Stock Exchange.
--I believe in the race.
-It represents the survival of the pushing.
--It has development.
-Decay fascinates me more.
--What of Art?
-It is a malady.
--Love?
-An Illusion.
--Religion?
-The fashionable substitute for Belief.
--You are a sceptic.
-Never! Scepticism is the beginning of Faith.
--What are you?
-To define is to limit.
--Give me a clue.
-Threads snap. You would lose your way in the labyrinth.
--You bewilder me. Let us talk of someone else.

We women, as someone says, love with our ears just as you men love with your eyes. if you ever love at all.

The appeal to Antiquity is fatal to us who are romanticists.

Describe us a a sex, was her challenge. Sphinxes without secrets.

The only horrible thing in the world is ennui, Dorian. That is the one sin for which there is no forgiveness.

There is no such thing as an omen. Destiny does not send us heralds. She is too wise or too cruel for that.

Knowledge would be fatal. It is the uncertainty that charms one. A mist makes things wonderful.

Civilization is not my any means an easy thing to attain to. There are only two ways by which man can reach it. One is by being cultured, the other by being corrupt.

Death is the only thing that terrifies me. I hate it. One can survive everything nowadays except that. Death and vulgarity are the only two facts in the nineteenth century that one cannot explain away.

Anything becomes a pleasure if one does it too often. That is one of the most important secrets of life.

If a man treats life artistically, his brain is his heart.

The soul is a terrible reality. It can be bought, and sold, and bartered away. It can be poisoned, or made perfect. There is a soul in each one of us. I know it.



Ah! Then it must be an illusion. The things that one feels absolutely certain are never true. That is the fatality of Faith, and the lesson of Romance.

To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable. Youth! There is nothing like it.

It's absurd to talk of the ignorance of youth. The only people to whose opinions I listen now with any respect are people much younger than myself. They seem infront of me. Life has revealed to them her latest wonder. As for the aged, I always contradict the aged. I do it on principle. If you ask them their opinion on something that happened yesterday, they solemnly give you the opinions current in 1820, when people wore high stocks, believed in everything, and knew absolutely nothing.

You may fancy yourself safe, and think yourself strong. But a chance tone of colour in a room or a morning sky, a particular perfume that you had once loved and that brings subtle memories with it, a line from a forgotten poem that you had come across again, a cadence from a piece of music that you had ceased to play - it is on things like these that our lives depend.

13 August 2008

A Message

All you proud Indians, if you feel like, you can congratulate our very own.. very first Individual Olympic Gold medal winner in the 10m Air Rifle event, Abhinav Bindra right here.

29 May 2008

Quietus.


Remove the thorns with your own bloody hands
There’s no-one to help, not a soul
The fear gripping the ribs in painful bands
You shuffle forwards, retch, cry and moan

The air is empty, lingering with the promise of getting worse
Dry, damp, cool, warm, still, and breezy all at once
A gale whips up the alien leaves with an alien force
Blue to black to blue to black, bruised by fists and cut by a sword…

Back in the coolness of a musty room…

The blood seeps up the skin in beads
Like sweat but only darker, filthier, thicker than water
Your face is contorted with rage, distorted with pain, covered in sweat sheen
A battle lost, then a battle won, life’s not a bed of roses but a throne of thorns

Your heart thumping in your head, the emptiness of your emotions
Making you ache for the love long lost, a lost... lost cause
A dreamer still inside you, toying with the foolish notions
Of a world past gone, of happiness dead and born, of grief ungauged

The ruby red beads on the jeweled bracelet run loose, dance around
Moving about with ferocity unbound
Untamed, unchallenged, they pounce about with the air of a egocentric maniac
Who pushes people about, running into them, flowing, weaving, for him there’s no turning back

You jump back to the bruised alien leaves, back to the sad distant moon…

The leaves still dead and worn, blue to black to blue to black,
The earth hadn’t sheltered itself, had looked up, frightened but pride intact
Been bruised by the mighty sky, by the hailstorms it sent towards her
The leaves been bruised, but unseen, her head still held high

On the ground now, smelling the earth, her beautiful smell
You clutch the stones, the leaves, the twigs,
You shook with fear while the air stood still with incoherence
A beetle crawls towards you, up on your hand
He still had a life to live, his ending unplanned

The moon sat serenely, indifferent to your ghastly stare
Lumbering away in his sleep, dreaming of nutcracker fairies and cashel blue cheese
His face cratered, seemed destroyed, dark blotchy patches forgot to turn red when it cried
The numbness attacked your legs, creeping up to your chest, engulfed you, the pain ceased. And it was dead.
While in the still, silent, orange glowing room, the rubies made a glove for you
A beautiful glove with a hundred rubies and nothing else, the hand was no longer tense
It marveled at the redness of the royal hand, a red glove of rubies shimmered as it sped
The opaque redness dripped down ahead

The stinging pain like a nettle bite, spread across the fingers,
Shooting up through the forearm to the shoulder to the neck
To your smile
As you take one last look the room, your signs it still bore

Everything heaving up in a great uproar, the heart jumping, thrashing to get out through your ribs
The jumble of thoughts straightened to become a thin line
Broken, it traveled in straight lines, green to black to green to black
The whiteness shushed the noise in a sweeping motion of a ruby hand

As the eyes close, the silence morose,
You feel happy as a child on his first bicycle ride
As everything slows down to an imaginary race
The hands turn cold, the memories lie in folds

Everything turns to unbreakable ice and you feel…
And you feel your heart and your soul fall dead inside.

13 May 2008

One Better Than the Last..


So this blog celebrates going one better than the last blog of mine, which boasts of thirty wonderful posts. This is the thirty-first, finally.

Err..sorry, that was way too show-offy! :p

So, this wretched habit of tapping away on the keys putting up awful stories and penning down futile ruminations of a very uncultured mind, came into existence on the Ninth of September '06. The posts weren't so wonderful as to take a look at. But thankyou for the encouraging comments which you typed down for the very undeserving me.

Ahem, I tend to be a little melodramatic. Take care. Stay Happy!! :)




You Are a Comma



You are open minded and extremely optimistic.

You enjoy almost all facets of life. You can find the good in almost anything.



You keep yourself busy with tons of friends, activities, and interests.

You find it hard to turn down an opportunity, even if you are pressed for time.



Your friends find you fascinating, charming, and easy to talk to.

(But with so many competing interests, you friends do feel like you hardly have time for them.)



You excel in: Inspiring people



You get along best with: The Question Mark

7 May 2008

On a dark desert highway..


Being a travel writer can be a thrilling experience for any person. Recently, I came across this short story by Roald Dahl, who is infact a great writer for adults, as well as children. Having read almost all his Children's stories long back, I plunged into this one as enthusiastically. I'd read this book twice before, but the stories seemed as fresh as ever. "The Visitor" is one of his feats as a short story writer. All the other stories in the book are as good but this one really hit the spot.

The roads can be fascinating in a very metaphorical sort of a way. Geographical, for some folks. The views, the people, the life. With your own two eyes. Be it any place with civilization.. you get to see a good deal. Even without. The wilderness revels in its own glory. There are innumerable accounts of people coming across strange circumstances, people or seeing something plain weird while they're travelling. Almost all of us get something to tell the others when you get back.

Personally, I had once dreamt of becoming a travel writer, going to strange and even eerie places on my own. A lot of things inspire idiots like us who dream everyday and run away from reality as if it's plague. No, there is no "running" away, but we just don't like visiting the place. There's nothing sweeter than Home Dream Home. But we do visit sometimes and yes, the memory always remains deeply etched into the brains. Painful memories. And we say, thank goodness, we don't actually live there. Poor people, wasting away their lives stuck in one boring place when they could travel away their lives on the roads of Dreamland. Reality is an absolutely fixed place. And boy, when you get stuck.. you get stuck real bad.

Everyone thinks a romantic is a stupid, absent-minded person and they go on goading themselves that they are some intellegent people with their feet firmly set on the ground, with work to do. Jobs to attend to and life to get on with. They don't know they're missing out on what life really is. These people, they run away from fiction saying they rot the brain, fill it with strange stuff which is not good for you. But they're wrong. Once you start living to what you just know, then you're gone for good. What you know in this tiny, mean life is just what your infernal brain thinks. They never get to know what a hundred other think of everything.

They get stuck in the mud knee-deep, getting on with squirming to get away from stress that they build on themselves. The world is not cruel, the cruelty is what you make of the world. People get tangled in this whole mess of affairs which they take responsibility of. Duties, they call it. Too many things to take care of. They search for things to be happy about, forgetting that there are people having bigger problems who only think about making others happy.

So, these people should be shook by the shoulders and told that the world in NOT reality. The world is a dream waiting right there on the bookshelf, down by the lane, a hunder kilometres away, in some forest.. in another country. There's a whole new world out there for you to escape to instead of blaming every other person for what the world has come to. Selfish, self centred people with only money on their mind, it's all about them. Not some poor small boy starving when he gets no food all day, not a dolphin who's been trapped just because someone needs cheering up. It's not about seals dying, not about some poor animals who have to die because something had to be tested just to make it right, just so it could be sold for money to give you a better life.

How can a country be labelled better on what weapons it has? Why make weapons when we aren't supposed to kill each other? Anyway, if people decide on what they want for reality, they can make a difference. A good life is not too far away when the line between dream and reality starts to fade. But first, we need to start dreaming.

19 April 2008

Just A Story.

I experienced my very first Writer's Block and I really don't think I'm over it yet. But, there's no harm in trying. Just last night I experienced wild flow of creativity which I found difficult to channel. Basically because I was torn. It resulted from to a lot of personal "shit" which I guess.. just HAPPENS.

So here I have it, a short story for you to critisize. Or praise. Preferably, both. I hope you like twist-in-the-tale stories. Here goes:

Evangelina glanced irritably at the clock and realised that Derek was late in calling her once again. No surprises here, she thought. She unfastened the latch to the balcony and stood there at the door experiencing the welcoming smell of eucalyptus leaves in the night air. The cool air soothed her and she slowly began to relax. The much creased forehead of hers and was starting to become smooth again. She breathed in deeply and let out a heavy sigh. Stretching her hands up, she yawned and smiled a blissful smile.



Then she came forward to the railing slowly and settling her hands comfortably on the cold black metal, closed her eyes. She could hear the sound of the night insects and as she opened her eyes, a bat or two swooshed away swiftly near a tree she could just see in the distance. A very familiar sight. She turned around resting her back on the railing and stretched back her neck so she could have a good look at the stars. They look beautiful, as usual, she thought. The moon was not visible from this part of the house. She'd have to go to the terrace. But she was violently brought back to reality when she remembered she had a phone call to attend to.

She hurriedly entered the room and started pushing a button to see if anyone had called. She didn't really trust herself to be vigilant anytime of the day. She had always been a daydreamer, always. Thank God, no calls since the afternoon. This was getting tiring. She laid down on the bed beside the phone and a couple of books she had been reading last night. Slowly, she raised her arm and brought her wrist up to see. No, it looked normal. Quite unlike what it looked exactly a month ago. She experienced a dull pain in the chest and a sinking feeling in her stomach as she recollected what she the same wrist had looked. Hideous. What had actually come over her that she had decided to end her life, she couldn’t really understand. An intense look set upon her face as she pondered over it.

Derek had always been a good person. Was it she who had caused all this to happen? Sure, everything was all right between them NOW. But there wasn’t a time when everything was ACTUALLY all right between them. She sat up straight and brought her knees close to her face and tucked them under her chin. Rocking back and forth, she remembered what had actually happened and tears slowly welled in her eyes. She wiped them with the back of her hand and absent mindedly picked up a book from the side table. Opened the page she’d left at and started reading to keep her mind off everything.
Five. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty minutes passed, still no phone call. She stared at the phone and picked it up to see if it was working. Yes, it was. He must be really busy to delay the call. Or was he? She was sure he loved her. He did. He absolutely did. Well, he did say that. But, maybe he just SAID that. She was no mind reader. Ever since they’d been together, not one day had passed that she’d not told herself that she was not good enough for Derek. Never good enough. He was everything she could ask for, but she… she did not fit the bill. She was all right, but definitely not good enough for him.

Nonsense, I’m good enough for anything. There’s a lot of negativity in you. Stop underestimating yourself, Eva. You’re as good as any other girl. Even better, she thought. She knew it was her alter ego speaking. She sucked in air as she fondly thought of what her opinion of herself was. She had a lot of mental testimonials she had verbally received earlier. From a variety of people. Certainly, she was not just good as any other; she was one of the better part of the population. Right. That settles it.

Derek’s to blame. It was he who painted her world black. It was he who told her that she wasn’t what she thought she is. A number of times, a lot was said about her to herself. Enough said. The old spirit was back. Very good, she’d see that she gets her life back. As soon as he called, she’d tell him to go his own way. That would do well for now.

As she was thinking what else she had to tell him… there came a sudden loud crash from just outside the house. She experienced a wild adrenaline rush and hurried to the balcony. And that was a sight to behold; there lay a car not far from their own family car, totally upturned, windows shattered and the tires still rotating rapidly on their own accord. Wow, she’d never seen anything like this.

With a shock, she thought that there MUST be still somebody inside the car, the driver. She could see no-one standing near the car or anywhere around it. Being almost midnight, she could see no-one else on the street too. Oh my God! This needs urgent help, she thought and racked her brains. She turned around and ran to her parents' bedroom and banged on it with full force.

“Hello!! Open the door, please! We’ve got an emergency here!!!”

There came a sleepy voice from the inside, “Uhh.. yes? What is it, Eva? Can it wait till the morning, please?” It was her father.

“NO!! It’s not about me. Come outside! There’s been an accident!!”

“What?? Wait a second.” In about a couple of seconds he was at the door in his robe and her Mum was struggling to get out of bed. “Where? What happened??”

“Just outside.. hurry!! I guess someone’s still trapped inside the car!”

The three of them hurried to the main door, out of it, and reached the car just in time. Now that her mind was starting to clear, she saw that the car was just a few yards away from their own and if it hadn’t stopped where it was, there would have been serious damage to their car as well. She went with her Father to the other side, the driver’s side. There he was, half his body outside the window and the other half jammed under the car. It was tight position, but not dangerous. Her father helped the person out of the car, and with a little help he slid out from under it and thanked her father profusely. He wasn’t hurt except a few bruises and some scratches on his arms. Everyone turned to look at the car and unfortunately, the car wasn’t as lucky as the driver.

“How DID this happen??”

“I don’t know, it skidded and then… I really don’t know.”

Evangelina looked at the driver and saw that he really didn’t look too well. There was something strange with the way he looked. His eyes were a bit swollen and red, and he couldn’t speak properly. He seemed dazed, because of the accident, most probably, she thought. It seemed as if he’d pass out any second. Strange. She looked at the car again and up at her parents. She saw out of the corner of her eye, her Father nudging her Mother and telling her to take her inside.

As they got inside, her Mother told her to go to bed immediately. She had to get up for school and it was much later than midnight by then. She asked her if she could have some water first, and went into the kitchen and brought back a glass of chilled water. She sipped it slowly and shook her head to help her get the incident out of her mind. Her father appeared at the doorway and locking up the door as he came inside, told Eva to fetch him a glass too. She did as she was told as she came back she could hear her parents conversing quietly, she stopped to listen. Listening intently, she could make out the words that were being half whispered – “yes, you’re right…drunk…had a fight with someone…couldn’t say anything properly but yes,…told him to go home… fetched a cab..” So that was it.

She re-entered the room and her parents stopped conversing suddenly and sat there quietly without looking at her. She told them that she’s going to her bedroom now. They both nodded and smiled at her. As she turned, she asked them, “Oh, by the way, how did that accident happen?” They both stared at her and her father replied, “Nothing, just a stray cat or something in the way. You go to sleep. Good night.” She turned around and went to her own room. Amused. What made them say this? Always a problem with parents. They think we’re not grown up enough.

Just as she sat on the edge of her bed, the phone rang and she picked it up at the first ring. “Hello!!?”

“Hey there, Eva! Sorry…was a bit busy with the homework. Too much of it nowadays, eh? I hope you don’t mind?”

“Yeah… no problem. You think I’d get angry on such a thing? Aww, you’re such a sweetheart! And you just WAIT till you hear what happened…”

____________________________________________________________________________________

Thank you for reading. Please don't forget to comment, or I won't ever know if you read it or not. Thankyou, once again! :)

12 March 2008

The Dust of Happiness Settling On Everyday Life

She sat there on the balcony, looking down on the garden which boasted of a dozen roses, dahlias, sunflowers.. a light green hedge which was starting to overgrow. Her eyes wandered to the lone white plastic chair and table lying there. She smiled. On the ledge below here, a cat lay looking over the garden as she did, probably looking out for innocent prey. She had three kittens to feed. The girls whistled and then meowed at the cute creature. She looked up. Yellow eyes with dark green, even emarald pupils, a pink nose with a snow white mouth while her whiskers twitched violently for a few seconds. Delicate ears through which the sun shone through.

The girl rested her chin on her folded arms and smiled at the beautiful creature. And then looked up at the sky, signs of rain. Signs of happiness. Signs of peace. She thought, if she wasn't an atheist, she'd have prayed for some rain too. The birds chirped heartily in the trees surrounding the house and two squirrels played on the metal gate's narrow width. The trees swayed in unison and it felt as if they were cheering for the same team somewhere. The squirrels? They're cheering for one of the squirrels, she thought silently. She looked at them again, they were racing down from a tree, like young children free of all wickedness, happy to the core.

She turned to go back inside, but she couldn't decide. Then she smelt smoke in the air. Hints of smoke, someone burning leaves. She'd seen the sight innumberable times, neighbours burning leaves in heaps behind their backyard or a little outside the main gate. She didn't like it. She turned back anyway, and sat down on a chair. Her eyes rested on the calender hung on the wall. A painting, it showed a village scene. Some with axes, some dancing, some together just happy, a group of people talking, a lone tree with a peacock on it. Her eyes wandered aimlessly and much to her dismay, there was the television. She mocked at the ugly block of sheer stupidity. How it blared in this room, as night fell, as the others sought happiness in useless junk which wasn't alive and which rotted their brains with unimaginative garbage.

She glanced up at the picture of a beautiful place, a temple, with a purple sky. It mixed up beautifully with purplish-white.. golden yellow and then deep red as she looked down towards the temple, which was lighted with hundreds of earthen lamps. As she sat mesmerised by the sight, she heard a soft clinking behind her. Turning around, she saw the cat which has come up by the balcony and had now made her way to the dogs' food which lay near the bed. There she was, looking straight at the girl's face with the same yellow eyes, a paw's distance away from the food and a paw raised to complete that distance in a second. The girl sat there silently, not moving an inch, acting like a statue. She didn't mind if the cat ate some of the food, unlike her mother who resented such actions. The girl hardly breathed while the cat slowly stretched out her leg and finally had a taste of the food.

How graceful the creature looked while doing anything, be it even blinking. The girl wonderingly thought what made her blink so slowly. The phone rang and she started, hastily reaching out for the phone and tripping it over while trying to grab it, unsuccessfully. The cat stood there alarmed. It was her mum on the phone, and she put it down, she saw the cat move away slowly, as she had come. Probably, she thought, the room wasn't as safe and quiet as she had thought. Another wickedness of technical advancements. She sighed and went out to look for the cat, which was nowhere to be seen.

She decided to quit and return to the room and stood infront of the mirror, which had become quite a habit of late. She stared at the dark mane of hair and fingered them listlessly and then thought of how he had brushed them the day before. How lovingly, and as she recalled it, she thought it must be a dream. And that a flicker of wild imagination had caused her to think of this story. But it was true. No wild imagination, just pure reality. Pure blissful reality. She closed her eyes and thought how she had felt. Feeling weak in the knees, she leant on the bedpost and smiled to herself. Clenching her hands together hard, she sighed happily. Life wasn't so bad as she'd thought, after all. She closed her eyes and her mind wandered far away to where it usually resided when she was away from anything or anyone else.

The phone snapped her out of her bliss and as she picked it up, brought her back to a more blissful reality than a merely blissful dream. Long live Love.

26 January 2008

Winter Blues

Haven't read a single book since days. The last one I read was 'Web of Deceit' - Glenn Meade, after 'Rosie' by Alan Titchmarsh. A typical contrast, the same pattern. Light and funny to dark and broody. Been reading a lot of random blogs. Oops, I mean.. just looking at some random blogs. Didn't find much to read, more of pictures than words. Not good. Family photographs to far out amateur football teams. Phew. In addition, every other blog's in whats-it language which gets on my nerves. Can't I just find some friggin' inspiration without experiencing these out of the world, totally awesome.. HEADACHES!!

With the temperature dropping like never before, the depression meter increasing like alwayyys.. it goes without saying how the exams add to it. And to add to it all, I'm probably missing my last ever school trip! :(

Nevermind, I'll get something better to do. Maybe I'll get my head to start working and complete the next post for the story. If you've got time, just go through the first one and if you think it's good.. just comment. I won't know if ANYONE has read it if I don't see comments. No, this is not a plot or something. Witty, eh? :p

You'll find the new blog on my profile. Or if you're really lazy, like me, here it is: http://vermilliontranquility.blogspot.com/

Winter has never been THIS cold since 15 years, atleast. I guess. By the way, Happy Republic Day, people!! :)