The birthday stories

Burthdays!

I had almost written this down in my head yesterday, it had a nice beginning, something about how a new year; the next year after a birth-day is like 4 am in the morning on an every-day – everything is still clean, the comforting mist, the happy shade of black – it’s like that unused piece of soap, still packed – ready to wash everything away. It’s like you have a fresh shot at life again. Birthday`s are the Japan of sunrises – the sun rises in Japan first, covers rest of Asia, then Africa-Europe, then North and South America – as the full year goes by, so does the sun.

However I didn`t write it down yesterday, I don`t know why, maybe I was too occupied with other things. If you don`t already know, other things make up 90% of my life. But what I’m trying to say is it was something around these things.  Something around a fresh start – a clean slate. Wiped clean. The slate is not new, its only clean – Do you get it?

The point was that I didn`t feel that at the turn of this birthday. This is nothing to be sad about, so please don`t be sad. I turned 28. And I think, I only think because I can never be sure of anything, especially when it is about myself, it has something to do with that.

So you see, I had began taking responsibilities since I was 17 or maybe 18 – and no one around me was doing that, so I thought well – I`m too ahead on the road and felt a sense of achievement – the same happened when I was 24, I moved out Bombay and settled in Gujarat – a full  home (there is a difference between a full home and a home – the difference is like a box full of cookies and a box of cookies), I was 27 last year and somehow it still felt like I was ahead of the curve. On a highway there were handful of cars ahead of me and all were behind.

But now, the 28 – it’s like I`m a participant in a different race now, the rules have changed, so has the road and my car is still the same. You see same slate – clean board.

Now no one asks you if you want to participate, folks wonder what is the fun in that – let’s throw him in and see what happens. The folks in this analogy are aliens watching us sing, dance, fuck, sleep, sing, dance, fuck, work, sleep – you get it, right?

So the rules have changed, or so it seems. Nothing physically has happened. The outside is the same, the outside has always been the same. The inside has seen some overhaul, or again, that`s how it seems. It`s like a boundary I unknowingly crossed having fun, frolicking like the jumpy spongy sheep who steps outside the barn drunk in life and is suddenly in the company of wolves or sleepwalking. I was asleep, I was walking in the dark, and unknowingly I crossed a liquid slushy transparent wall and landed on this side of 28.

The train of thought :)

There's something profound about the railway platform, have you ever thought why the bogeys are called coaches.., 

When you're in a city, static, you feel like you are in a slushy, gooey, stuck in a container state; between permanence and temporary -; a breeze away from either state,  the indecisions don't need deciding. The train station and its aura; the space around it, has the ability, the authority to pick the container and place it somewhere else. In the process, disturb the equilibrium, the settled heavy, the floating middle and the light top, suddenly, become one, they start belonging, the uneasy, the uncommon, the rainbow suddenly becomes one beam of light; the sky is on earth, the earth is on water and waters all floating everywhere; flooding wherever it goes. ...It continues to be in this state on the railroad; in flux. The time when you walk into one railway platform and the time you walk out of the other; and the in between is this metamorphosis. The container remains the same on either side, something inside though, changes. 

Travel, unravel

B-longing

Belonging, how important is it for a being to belong, to a certain group, place, religion.

How often have you put yourself in a situation where you learn about yourself? your plague..the disease eating out your soul

I never felt i belonged anywhere..got substituted with, i dont belong anywhere... Everything felt rented, temporary, dis - easy.. its how one might feel when everything inside is different from everything outside.. the mind and body are out of sync..

When you're in a rented place, you always feel you have to continue to prove your claim, continue to impress the owner, one trick after another... the fear of the gatekeeper, one day throwing you out haunts your nightmares, so, you keep striving.. without a moment of rest..

There's a pricking hatred for all those who belong, when have the have-nots not hated the haves..We cannot confront the world if our own home has defeated and diminished us

Do you know how it feels to not belong? Feel out of place

You're always at the bus stop with no idea when the bus will come..

Wondering Woods, whispering words

Dont want tomorrow..
For today's as good
as it could ever be..

Misty moutains..
Hazy heavens..
Abandoned angels
surrounding me..

Silly streams...
Noiseless noise..
Whistling water falls..
their poignant poise

In dewy dreams..
among cheerful,
cacophonic clouds..
Springing in mirth..
 this rosy bee

wondering woods..
was whispering words..
Of a wonderful world
Astounding me

August 28

Have you ever felt like a container of memories, a jar might be a better word/ Jars labeled with our names, when you unwind the lid and peek inside you see memories floating like clouds, soft cotton clouds at the top - light as they can be blown away with a gentle breeze - like a memory of chewing food this morning - insignificant. As you rummage through the jar, giving it a slight shake to mix the contents you also notice a water cloud, a thunder cloud, a cyclonic pool of gangsta clouds, and maybe a couple who sneak at who`s looking and go back in, like the thing you have under your bed, you try to reach it but your hand's too short, like a baby who`d only come to you if it wants to...

I`ve had those glimpses, but like everything going inside your head, you can never be too sure - if its all made up or if its all real or both, everything can and cannot happen - 

16 Jan2016..

I'm disowning myself.. Doesn't that sound like the right thing to do..Like letting myself do whatever i want and lose accountability, like how it is with the children. I want to get out of my body and all its little limitations, i want to jump from a roof and not smash, just fall hard, i don't want to know anything anymore, except the winter cold and the shivering .. The winter is homely, i can sleep so well. 

19 Dec 2015...

I dislike idleness,like this current moment,  like a river, abruptly being stopped, dammed, damned, it makes me think,about life, i don't like that. Am trying to understand what's happening, these things around me, I'm trying to understand this longing, this immense incompleteness, it beats with these heart beats, this echoing the thumping,  every passing moment, it is monstrously trying to swallow me and I'm letting it, but it wont, no matter how much i entice it, reveal its true nature.   I'm incomplete in my entirety. ....

Next day morning...

My mind wrote a monologue.. Must have been 10 pages long..i won't ofcourse type that..

When i got down at the station..these tides brought me down, no matter how much i resist, the temptation to wallow down in oceans of this nostalgic waste, broke me down and i saw the little that is left of me hit the ocean floor with a thud..

.....

Mmm aah arch..

7th march -

Grief, id go on a limb and say is the only honest, unadulterated, unsaturated emotion I've left to feel..
I derive this conclusion from actions.. Actions which broke promises.. Dinner sobs... Incredible change in plans..

13 March...

When asked what i was upto.. I replied uprooting myself..

*between changing addresses

14 March

I dreamt i was sleeping..

Somewhere this week or last or next.. I finished the unbearable lightness of being..I'm Franz or Sabina or Tomas or Tereza or Karenin....more Karenin i wish

I vish

19 March..

Dark intimacy...

Its dark because its weightless..its light.. An unattached feather..in its aimless flight

Do we need to go somewhere?

20 March

When i don't write, i feel full..i can't digest food, im breathless, I'm.. dumb stupid and restless.. More restless

I'm an abandoned rail road..amidst a jungle..

(For the lesser privileged reader.. It was meant to go somewhere.. Maybe it went somewhere.. But somewhere along the way..the forest became a home.. Get it?)

Ain't no sunshine keeps playing in a hideous tune in the background

The day today

I can tolerate everyone but myself..

Windows opened, breeze was felt, the sun shone, like a ghost creeped in, there was a throne .. I walked, sat on it.. I was king

Everything confuses me

The incomprehensibility reached a summit and almost at that very instance reached a sudden depth..and asked me where i wanted her to be..

I told her i dont understand.. Everything confuses me, immensely.. sincerely.. Theres no foul play, please, i don't understand

My weak knees, they gave way as comprehension on quicksand, collapsed and was swallowed in its own knowledge.. Ignorance he said was bliss...

Incomprehension was misunderstood

...

Goodbye Severus! - I`m raising my wand for you.

My intense need to sob got fulfilled when news told me Alan Rickman had passed. Potter was the first book i picked when i began dreaming, dreaming through books, Snape was the first man whom i started dis-liking, from my deepest trenches, Snape was the first man who taught me that your intentions are more important than your actions. After all this time and through the 7 books, he got a permanent place within my being.

It saddens me that the person who personified Snape is dead, Snape was killed in the books and i grieved, but by then i had grown up - i knew my favorite version of reality was a dream. Today it suffered another blow, it seems someone i knew personally and spoke to is dead - maybe Snape was someone I talked to when i did an ugly thing with good intentions.

Snape was my hero and that hero is no more today and so i`m crying in my little corner. The world, somebody wrote, is the place we prove real by dying in it

To the man who died - be at peace Alan and thank you!

There`s no escaping

The left overs were buried, the ground flattened. Its like when you hit mute after a chaotic delirium , the quiet that follows, deafens you. Then you know, for sure, that there will be no signs of life, lets remove the uncertainty, lets say there is no sign of life.

This ground zero is a mega plot of my existence.

If you go out for a casual stroll, you'll find parts of me, strewn around the trains, the beaches, the pavements. Like remnants of an exploded bomb, not the destruction the bomb caused, no not that, the remnants of the time bomb itself. The leftovers.

I always felt combustible within the city, the sense of explosion always kept ticking. It was cruel, but so is hope, all variants of it.

Sometime these past years, it ticked off, the ground zero is no longer a flat plateau,  studded with valleys, volcanoes and trenches. They say this is life, sigh!

 there's no escaping, is there?

Hindi

Chuppi si kuch cha gayi hai,
Hawa bhi kuch mand si..

Chuppi si kuch cha gayi hai ghalib,
Hawa bhi kuch mand si..

Kabristan me jab ek hasi ghunji,
Khush thi woh, murda lash bhi..

Hum to ji gaye janaab, is katl e aam me,
Wo kehte ab baari aap ki..

Nihil est momenti'

Nothing is important - if there was ever a motto in this life..Nihil est momenti.. would be it..latin makes everything important and adds an intellectual zing to the statement.. An intellectual zing adds a level coolness to the idea of philosophy.. I need it.

Talking of philosophy - i think we came out nothing, yea absurd as it might sound, the idea has started to spread its reign in my head. In the beginning, there was nothing. Even before the 'beginning' there was nothing. Because,  for something to exist nothing ought to exist too. Right?

My argument towards it, is the idea that comes to your mind. First there is nothing and suddenly - 'pop' its there, right where nothing had previously existed. Filling the vacuum.

So, nothing is on one side of the equation. Any guesses on what ought to exist on the other side to make it even or odd for that matter..

Nothing balances out nothing. Void for void. Empty for the enormous vacuum. Nihil Gratis.

So that's all this entire song and dance is about. We start with nothing and end up with nothing. Does it not fit in - all of this into an enormous, a big fat, a gigantic nothing.

A circle, our planet earth is a big zero. Ending where it started.

That's broad isn't it, that's the infinite universe's scheme of things.
What are we, we mammals doing here?

Judging by history, we are just being pricks, devising ways of laying to dust, the only place ( a tiny speck, but the only place) in the universe, that let us thrive. But us individually too, the micro-scopic level - no matter what you do - once the screen zooms out - your effort would've been so tiny, that calling it infinitesimal small would be overestimating.

Our lives never had a purpose, those of us who think otherwise are only fooling themselves.

You do your little thing, but forget about any god, forget about any good or bad ( they are only a matter of perception), don't do it cause the flow of existence asks you to.

 There's no higher purpose - except nothing. Because nihil est momenti



Facts:

We are one planet orbitting around one star in one galaxy. There are at least 150,000,000,000 such galaxies

Hdk

August 1 notes

Memories are made of clouds, i sometimes think. Their gravity, content, the moisture, the light, the dark dampness and the way they pass through and through over the skies of my little worldly brain, makes me think they are clouds or cloud like – enormous in size and content, but made of something that is soft and light as nothing. There is a colossal psychology laboratory in my head and I think that’s where all of these clouds reside, regenerate, de-generate. Thoughts too, then, are lightening and thunder that accompany these memories.

All of this, combined, rains on my light being; drenching me and I, like a sheet of paper – become soggy, unusable and devoid of any crispness. And if an unsuspecting being, under mindful consideration, tries to pick me up, all it does is tear my fabric up and destroy the last thing I hold dear, my completeness.

These clouds are the end of me.

Happy Birthday Franz.

I'd almost given up on words Franz, but its your birthday today. I have to, and now when you read it, i'll change it to - i had to, wallow in, scratch - scrub - dig - pierce through this sand and be bright and shiny. For its your birthday today dear friend.

The confusion of being, when seen through the third person is eventful and one can even laugh at oneself for being naive - I've been naive all this time - all this time, now the past - a past so gloriously defining us and our boundaries - forever binding us - and pushing us towards - the end, that cliff which when the soul jumps - the body is pronounced dead. I think all we are doing is suffering for our past - but this your birthday Franz - you validated and approved of my need to sob - cringe - to be weakened and be mindful of a power within me - within us, that grabs, throws us into the mighty abyss. And while i was rummaging through this greyness - your words, you - told me its OK. And today on your birthday Franz - i want to thank you for it - in a mumble, in a corner - beyond the window sill - in the night Franz - i thank you.

For sometimes, when the night is the darkest - you turn black and swallow it.

in bombay

14/6/15:

I am in bombay today, i must feel like i have come home.

The idea of a home, the house - has blurred in my head - i feel like i no longer belong, nor here, nor there. The idea of moving, through places and time, too hasn't made home in my head. A limbo.

My head, is recovering from a childhood and the adolescence - i now feel, at 25 - i must spend a good part of my life recovering. A recovery.

I recover or say, i try,  from everything I've lost - things that were either not mine to keep or choose not to be, but things i held dear nevertheless. My own.

I am left holding nothing dear and at this point of time ( i wrote juncture - but couldn't carry its heaviness), there's nothing i want to do or achieve - to say it in naked, unashamed words -there`s aimless. Drifting

Nothing makes sense, nothing holds on, the permanence i so longed for, from the time i had my first mature thot, has ceased to grant itself to me. And all I'm now living in, is, in its weakest form - the temporal. The tempest. Where the choices i make seem immaterial - there's no better or worse, all that is, is temporary.


The restlessness of the sea, shores up this mind. I get tired of these silly rants, when nothing makes sense amidst all these flying thoughts

hdk

Honk

When i drive.. I turn into a maniac. My condition, I'm told is a constant state of mania - for all the time i spend on the ground, which is, all the time, when I'm awake.

Its my lack of attention that we drifted from driving, something i don't do without a signal.

While I'm driving my compulsive disorder is at its prime - i think. I abuse at the vehicle which turns without intimating me while I'm driving behind it - i curse at those who cut lanes, i smite those who blare their lights on my eyes, i plan to kill those who appear out of nowhere and startle me and my optimum balance.

Humans, I'm told learn the fine art of cursing when they are driving. Its true. For those of us who abide the rules, those who don't, are an absolute shame and should be thrown of this planet.

I began wrong, those of us who don't understand and want to follow the nuances that involve sharing road - should be barred from using one. So its not me being a maniac, its them.

And the fact that i like things to be in their proper place, shouldnt be termed obsessive, nor a disorder.

Honk!

the problem

I wouldn't. But here u go.

There's no frame of mind.. I think d frame is emptied and sublet to space. Everything that invariably remains is outside it and all I'm doing is waiting for it to wither away.. And then crumble the frame too. The more easy it seems the difficult it gets..but all of this, still, resides in some kind of frame - its infinity is in its emptiness

I sometimes have a very strong feeling of throwing away my cfa books and start reading him.. In one of his books he writes I'm a cage in search of a bird.. I dunno but it does feel like that.. Otherwise the purposelessness gets the better of everything i do and mean

A lack of purpose wouldn't be a frame of mind.. Its more of a condition.. Hah.. A frame of mind is temporary.. An incurable condition is vast in its permanence..
And so i must throw my fone away and stop ...

My problem of seeking balance ruins happiness and muffles sadness

Nightmares and you

I had a nightmare last night.

Nights,
 they gulp you down.
At times when you wake up in your dreams,

You're at the bottom of the ocean.
In space,
 floating,
sucking into a blackhole.

In your thoughts then,
 maybe - a tiny speck in the vast expanse.

The oceans,
the space,
your thoughts.

Then come you,
 bursting through,
 darling.

A wand in hand.

Lumos.
You.
Light.

A dream is you, everything else is just a nightmare.

Hdk

Choke

 no body to talk to..
 no thing to talk about..
no taste for the bitter time
The sour life..
The crunchy life..

Munch, munch, munch.
How much, munch, munch.
Choke.

Sleep

Sleep.

Walks in my presence..
caresses me..
places her loving hand on my forehead..

Ruffles my tidy black hair..
A man, in her presence is a  boy..

She puts a cork on the restless mind..
There is no numbness when she's present..

A mute on the loud world..
and suddenly it's black and quite -
why, is this then, not my natural state..

Another world, greets me,
unrobes me,

the uncomplicated man..
who grows ever so tired of looking at fellow civilisation and absorbing..

Absorbing everything they throw at him..

When I have nothing to feed them -  just wants to work, earn, b loved and come back to sleep.
A man's life..hidden under all the philosophical complexities..

 a miserable man, at 24, i`m called - you're only 24 - can a man of.24 not have peace....

I grow tired of the terrible complexities of people around me..and so I come to you...my dear - sleep
Coz even spelled around you are peels.. As us unrobe my mind - peel it of all thot - a calm then spreads as a blanket on winters evening..

Soft and comfortable..she tells me there's nothing to worry about...

My mistress, my sleep..

Hdk

Spillovers

Putting a stopper to the chaos within..

The vessel's already full ..the tap keeps the water running.
.
The spilled over brain cells is what you see in my eyes..

is what you hear me speak..

it is wat I cannot ..cannot retain within my world..

And that is what comes out.

The spillovers.. The content within the vessel then..is never changing...

Pushed around

We're all spinning  - so many miles per hour, around ourselves, around everything that is around us. Round and round.

Quietly as I'm typing this, the breeze, breathes around me,  circles around.

She's traveled places she tells me, to comfort me in this peaceful darkness. Its peaceful because the noises dont hurt now, its quiet because I'm not under the sun - I'm not what i claim to be. She turns around again and shush's me, not now she says, not now.

Now you lay back, stop spinning, you take a pause. Gently, she closes my eyes and sings the songs of her travels. She's tired too, she says, as she ruffles me one last time, before breathing down and dying.
The winds died down Joe, says a voice.

"Yea, she's tired down" i mumble, in my sleep as we stop spinning, stop twirling.

.. random ..almost in tandem

It is windy today..
The tshirt flaps and continues flapping ..
almost trying to awaken what's not there inside...
It brings relief for the body..

The mind -
is but a cold marble forever placed on the forehead..
Heavy and Dense..
Crushing ..

It sometimes feels - when I stop lifting it..the burden falls over and I sleep..

Lamenting

I resign to these words - beneath the cloudless skies..
Hdk

Floating

The pretense of floating through and through has its own fun. How easy it is to deceive yourself into believing and then floating, whirlpool after whirlpool - floating - believing in "its ok", " it could be worse", "it hasn't drowned you yet"

The terrible numbness that follows has its own blithering pleasure, while you're still floating - without a life boat - why need one?

The water - tears of joy and pain - one dip in all the self pity and you feel the tremendous urge to not raise the head upwards, keep sinking downwards, wallowing in the laziness it brings along with it.

Theres fun in it, all the struggles we call struggles, all the joy we call joy and all that fills this immense, silent and stony self - the experience of dragging yourself to experience this experience - is fun.

Then there's floating, we are all floating.

one day. We'll walk.

If you love yourself, go mad

I like to think I'm crazy. I relate to madness as it relates to me. If it had blood, I'd adopt it as my father and learn from it.

The asylum would be my home.

I'd lay in the asylum garden, look at the sky,smile. I'd smile and the clouds would form to  reciprocate.

 A visit to the asylum would teach life lessons, on how its cruel to live your life not being called mad. It is not a condition but a way of life.

If you love yourself, go mad.

Hdk

the beach song

The beach is, where the heart is..

The symphony, my mind sings...

Crashing waves,caressing sand

Silent skies, This world,

Right here, ends

Waters breathe, soulful songs,

Whistling winds, they so long,

They compose and whistle,

And dance away,

As the sand mourns,

For its love in the bay..

The mockingbird talks,  ending stories with a sigh,

Ecstatic audience, swaying, they're high.

 the singing ends, and the stories stop,

I pick my heart, throw it, from the moutain top,

You belong not me - you belong to the sea.

For you still beat and dream and long,

I sit and wonder and sing a new song.

Hdk

..what am i turning into

15/07/2015:

I mentally updated this note every month - the worthlessness of this entire exercise, my own relentless background noise (and it grows even chaotic when i try to muster courage to do this) and this everlasting powerlessness.

What do you do when the doctor asks you to get up and look outside and take a walk - or atleast try and get up or atleast think about trying to get up, to atleast think.

 I dont like people coming over to visit when i am sick, I dont like people visiting, it turns into a monologue where i m compelled to entertain them, I dont like doing that - its a great mental effort

I am not bored though - i wonder why, I get angry, I have become rude, as a person - i wonder why
 incompetence is something i cannot see the sight of - I wonder a lot things.

The day i fell sick - I felt i was not present anywhere where my body was - for one distinct moment i felt i wasn't there in that same place. i felt my eyes being sucked in - it felt good that i wasn`t here.

Over all of this - its not raining - i want rains, I want rains so bad - I might even pray. I have a lot of results coming up in the next few days - I am not excited - nothing excites me.

I end up asking the same question every single time, what am i turning into - a giant narcissistic baboon - cause despite all of this, my love for my own self has not waned. I wonder why

21/02/15:

I am here, between the shadows, walking, with my weak legs - A sense of dread, a calling, accompanies me. The ringing in the ears does not die, it follows me, like a master trails a slave - a slave, which is his last possession, he doesnot remember what else he holds, owns. Except the slave, except this ringing. 

Forgetfulness is now a way of life. Its that master - who wouldn't know what to do with the slave except to keep walking with him. This blind static, has thus, become my partner, my owner- through a life lived within a thin existence and this burning in the bones.. 

This ringing, is thus, a  distraction - there's times when i forget what things are called, there's times when i forget forgetting, there's times when the second takes an hour to tick and pauses - puffs,looks around for help, is breathless and then, in this moment of weakness - takes a giant leap towards the next and falls into the abyss, a second thus, is lost; those are my worst moments, else, I'm happy with this ringing - this gentle static which keeps telling me I'm still here and i have to walk..take the leap, live.

-what am i turning into?

21/01/15:

2 am. 21st January.

The day passed,14 hours, me and the monitor at work. My system. There, i believe, is a reason its called so - my system.

I'm home and am the mirror is staring back at me. Sunken eyes ask, with a pregnant pause. What am i turning into?

My indifference to the magnificence around me, lack of will - to raise my head - sluggishly - to people who open their mouths, smelling like gates of hell, disregarding the need for nutrition.

To not add words to meaning less diary notes - words which seethe of   my  dry, bony, ironic - existence and the pain, this inscrutable pain

-what am i turning into?

Train Station

A visit to the train station, early in the morning

board a train to the silly clouds or to the wise sea trenches.. to the dark lands of hysteria or to the cheerful forest branches..

board a train towards the mighty heavens, where brave old men of yore dwell.. Or to the loathsome, the spiteful, ignorant yet funny men yell - the vulgar hell..

Take a train to some place goddammit.. Take a train, get away from this narrow shell.

Hdk

Darkness

Lights on the coffee house sparkled, the quiet, almost mum, darkness, blended in.

Psychedelically, they both it seemed were having a conversation about life and its various shades..

When the conversation turned to darkness, turning on the shore of lights, to have a good time, when darkness just started to curl up that grin someone pulled the plug...

And darkness plunged and it all quietly ended - the melancholy of the dark was not seen in the absence of light..

No one ever knew !

hdk

Are we all, just the same??

A calming sea framed
Rippling water under it, tamed

Trees hide for cover..
Let the sea monster hover..

Beneath the blue pane..
A question driving me insane

Whats beyond the cover
Whats beyond the frame..

Am i the ruler or am i the slave
Am i boundless or am i just the sa ne?

 Let the sea monster hover..
Let me be its game..

Theres no fun in sanity..
Theres no taming, I've got no name..

Ask the stars, do they shine in vain?
Ask them, are we all just the same?

Hdk

The Mood

The mood is to twirl the universe -
gulp it in, one swallow..

The mood is to choke on it -
show it,  i ain't so hollow..

The mood is an everlasting
state of high..

This mood is,
at the end of my sigh..

The mood is to befriend gravity.
not comply..

The mood is to free fall,
in ecstasy i fly .

The mood is to take another swallow -
this time.

i die -

the universe is me - this mood is vile

Hdk

Hindi : Mai baitha hu yaahan

Mai baitha hu yahan..
Meri kaynat ko simat kar

Mai baitha hu yahan..
Meri aah ko lipat kar..

Mai baitha hu yahan.. Aasma ki sateh par..

Zameen khilkhilati neeche.. Dhalte suraj ki chamak par..

Mai baitha hu yahan..
Gairo ki tarah..

Inn sitaro k beech..
Iss jag magati mehfil k beech..

Mai baitha hu yahan..
Baitha hi raha..

Kayanat guzar gayi..
Meri ruuh bhatak gayi..

Mai baitha hi raha..
Jannat guzar gayi ..
Meri maut bhatak gayi.

Hdk

Dreams

castle's locked down..
Silent, without a sound

Dull, dark and quiet..
Magnificent grey abound..

 kid runs along..
Mom, look what i found..

 forest, dense, green..
Found sleeping..on a mound,

A breathless,
Tired hound

Gunshot wound,
The human mass on the ground..

They said its Worth a pound..

A prisoner,his chain's off -
Why won't he walk around

Kid comes back again,
Mom, look what i found.

Come back,
Turn around

Hdk

The man - again

I stay curled. Nothing haunts me like my own mind. Thoughts which are nothing but endless streams of recollections - broken, bleached, rusted collections.

When i am alone, the man wakes up - looks around, is disgusted - steers a look at the man - within whom he resides - i give him a faint smile. Is that the best you can do?

When i am alone, i feel i am not. For   theres my conceit, my deception - my misguided life, standing, staring.  Is this all you sum up to?

Did i have 10 minutes of pure emotion this year?
Was i awake for even 5 minutes during this entire ordeal?
Everyday i feel i am completely finished, and then there's the next.

Then there's this beastly longing, this long for answers - an order among all the chaos - a center - for i am but a planet yo-yoing around in empty space without a sun - without gravity. I am but into an infinite free fall - there's a dull, soft thud - the lights are switched off.. The man curls back - turns around - to sleep

Hdk

Beach

Why.

My feet, the damp,
cold,
mild sand.

Tiny particles decided to act together and land on my feet at every step.

Was i walking or the sand calling me, absorbing itself and then me in the next step.

Rolling over and letting me go - in circles

In circles they revolved..
Tidal waves evolved..
Burying sorrows in their depths.. ..
the shores dissolved..

With passing tide it held...
The unsure shore -
its wicked sand...

The waves kept trying,
loving them,
in every bend..

Sand looked over -
to love,
is to pretend.

Hdk

Blobbed bulb

The hour closed, the bulb kept flickering..

 Flicker flicker,
 it begged for death -
 as it was humiliated for its sickening attempt to live..

 Flicker, flicker,
 it held on,
 to breathe -  unmerciful death pondered at its every heave

 It moaned..it groaned..

 In a distance - the bright moon shone.. With visible white teeth when it smiled.. The light bulb flickers..
 Alas it dies

 The moon shrugged off,
overlooking the disintegrating world..

 While the sun burned down..

The moon.
.losing gravity ..
swirled..
Its end of the world..

 Flicker flicker..
 Flicker on and twirl..

Hdk

To be with the unliving

I wish to walk in a cemetery..be with the unliving ..pour myself into them . for i think they'll realize.. they'll understand this magnificent nothing.. my sparkling darkness and this fear..this fear which bulges beyond the bounds of my trembling mind..

I think, but well in fact, I know they will hear about my condition and nod their heads.. One of them will say i felt that too... There'll be a murmur when I'll start talking about this unbearable emptiness.. This craving.. this immense lightness...which has me floating aimlessly - like air, but air still has direction

For one moment i die, the other moment i wish i was dead. For my death did not kill me..

And so i walk into my cemetery tonight.. Looking for friends.. Looking for a life, staring into the beyond and there after

Hdk

Few good men !!

In defense of a few good men.

Moments ago, I finished reading an extensively descriptive article about 2 different women of this country. One experimenting, the other, being experimented on. The former is on a quest of dating 50 men and the latter on the whims of a distrustful father is opting for an arranged marriage.

I have heard, read and spoken about innumerable such stories looking at the way things are and could be, however, from the perspective of a woman. Surprisingly, I haven`t come across a single male-centric article on the issue. So I wondered and asked around other fellow gentlemen why, the answers I got were

• ·         We are men, we watch football and drink beer (I`d personally prefer whisky and when the woman on me awakens she asks for espresso vodka – (not being sexist))
• ·         I don`t understand what you are talking about – is this got to do with the new playboy edition
• ·         If I do write about something like this, a feminist will take a single line out of context and screw my life and probably my writing career – they are too touchy about it (rightly so) – but it is hard to write it in a politically correct way – that we do CARE – at least some of us do

             I take up the mantle, not more than 5 people are gonna read this, but well, I have to write.

             Having spoken to and being in the community of men, I have heard disappointing, blood-boiling, funny, fresh, down-right dumb etc tales on what women are for men, and the broader issue of marriage (the licence to have sex). (Right now, I think, a marriage, is an idea who`s time has gone, we need to move on and as a civilization look for something beyond – never mind about that now)

 But let me tell you, there is an increase in these new breed of men, who think and want to move beyond definition – but are fearful at the backlash of the community, at the stereotype we men are supposed to follow and to add not many women are accommodating that. Personally, I just know handfuls who acknowledge it.

What stereotype? the one with man who`s got a swim-suit body and who`s just out of the gym, the raw bull, the beer guzzling – yelling out loud, unaccommodating yet chivalrous, the smart yet cute, the workman who fixes mechanical instruments (magically) and to top it all knows all that is to know about a computer hardware/software/patches/programs/tools everything – you the get the idea. And the one I personally hate – is the idea of a man who constantly has to sing and dance and crack jokes just to let the woman not be bored. So here`s to all those men – who do all this, not out of heart – but just to “fit in” –

“Get a life !!”

We are not born as your play toys, we are not nothing if we do not have a fat bank balance, we are not as Tyler puts it right – the all singing all dancing crap of this world, if we admire how beautiful you look – don’t hate us, if we ask you out – don`t call us perverts, if we read and have fat bellys don`t call us undesirable or shabby.

Indian men socially, are as fucked up as women – just because they have to :

• ·         Study hard, get good grades so they are deemed intelligent
• ·         + get a fat bank account, keep looking decent, belly tucked in -  to marry a girl (the thot disgusts me)
• ·         Fight/compete with I don`t know – a billion other men to get a good job to accomplish all this
• ·         Get a house for themselves (look at the real estate prices) and then plan to settle down (and die)
• Let me tell you, its not easy being a man in this country, and to be a good man its increasingly difficult and improbable. I`m not saying have pity on us, nor am I saying we`re more anguished than you women. All I’m saying is we are almost as screwed up as you, we hate all the dogma`s that tie both the man and the woman down and we have to live up to the shallow ideals just like you women do

So don`t hate us, don`t hate the guy who just looked at you and smiled, smile back at him and make his day for what it`s worth.  

The time to wake up from this sordid dream, I believe has come. To be unbound, unchained and to pursue, chase, follow, run, swim – to do and be impulsive at every passing second, be it man, woman, child.

The idea is to be, just, be.

He for she for as much as she for he.

**I`d want to be a woman in the next run, just to see how things turn out.

Enough said.

hdk

PS:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EiIxkOah09E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdPqGLB18js

THE APOLOGY

Having said all that above, to add to it – I apologize.

• I apologize for that piece of shit who made you think twice before wearing that beautiful dress
• I apologize for the men who don`t make you feel safe on the roads
•  I apologize for men who look at you the wrong way
• I apologize for men who say "she has good boobs, i`ll marry her !!" , when they say they want to marry just to have a licence to have sex
•  Not being the white knight – but those are due to`s for which this note saw the light of day, else i`d be reading Kafka –  so I hate them as much as you do.

How long

I breathed out..

These months..these years..breathing in..in ..

deeply..
gulping..

minute by minute..choking..
gulping again..
down the throat..

slowly ..
accumulating..
piling up..

a sense of dismay..
a scene of destruction..
a groan of pain..
but still breathing in..

no - no - no -
yes..
breathe in -
the waters to be turned off - or risk the damn bursting out..

but who controls the rain..
it keeps building..
a beast chained..scarred..

the madness in his eyes.. Aaaarggghhhh...

a structure - beaten - demolished - by the powerful - the iron ball crashing - the structure still standing ...

How long

Hdk

Disgrace

The mad man crouches,
Burns,
Yearns,
debouches,

 has no shelter,
running helter skelter,

the world around him
 doesnot, get their banter,

scared he is.. being out in the open..
the people around - surround,
my shell reopen,

hides his face,
with palms, efface..

call`s himself..
disgrace
deface..

Disgraced..
Defaced.

Escaped.

hdk

To dream a dream

Then came a dream he loved, he wished he lived it – he drowned in it – as a calming melody hit him, he let himself loose in the harmony of the things surrounding him

Folks said he died in his sleep whence he had but found what he was looking for – the eyes finally saw what they longed – all their lifetime. Ages had passed, and when the gleam was flickering and aiming for a final flutter – came this wonderful sight. He tried to clasp a hand around it, like time it scattered. 

Tried to keep his feet firm, like quicksand it gulped – nudged him in. Tried to take one last look, like love – it left him.

There came a final sigh, a final aah – and to dream a dream he died.

Hdk

Undead

The cold steel was at my heart.. My heart..If that's what you call the beating red thing..the sword hilt in my hand as i creaked it right through the cage that held it.

I had stabbed myself

I was falling

Abandoning the world i didn't want to come back to..

I heard the wind lull me to sleep..as i fell, felt as she touched my lips to hear that last gasp...

 as gravity , too tired of sucking.  ...
refused to accept me..
gave up on me..
and
i was there..
stuck..
In between..

There was no death, where there was no life.

My joy of dying was short lived..there are some who die happy.. there are some who are happy at the thot of dying and there are those in between - not knowing - not knowing

I did hear Dante reciting his Canto 9 to me:

O you possessed of sturdy intellects,the teaching that is hidden here

sotto 'l velame de li versi strani.

beneath the veil of verses so obscure.

I was beneath and above the verses so obscure

Inferno-Purgatorio-Pardiso ..

haha Parody or so?

Hdk

The 100+ friends i made these 25 years

1 HarryPotter and the Philosophers Stone JK Rowling read
2 The memoirs of a geisha Arthur Golden read
3 Wings of Fire Abdul Kalam read
4 Mein Kampf Adolf Hitler partly
5 The immortals of Meluha Amish Tripathi read
6 Secret of the nagas Amish Tripathi read
7 Oath of the vayuputras Amish Tripathi read
8 Sherlock Holmes Arthur Conan Doyle read
9 The god of small things Arundhati Roy read
10 White tiger Arvind Adiga read
11 The fountainhead Ayn Rand read
12 Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand read
13 Virtues of Selfishness Ayn Rand partly
14 Anthem Ayn Rand partly
15 We the Living Ayn Rand partly
16 The new intellectual Ayn Rand partly
17 The romantic manifesto Ayn Rand partly
18 Living with a wild god Barbara Ehrenreich read
19 5 pt someone Chetan Bhagat read
20 2 states Chetan Bhagat read
21 Revolution 2020 Chetan Bhagat read
22 A grief observed CS Lewis read
23 Tales of Narnia CS Lewis read
24 The Da Vinci Code Dan Brown read
25 Deception Point Dan Brown read
26 Lost Symbol Dan Brown read
27 Inferno Dan Brown read
28 Digital Fortress Dan Brown read
29 Angels and Demons Dan Brown read
30 The divine comedy Dante Alighieri read
31 the famous five Enid Blyton read
32 the secret seven Enid Blyton read
33 the hardy brothers Franklin Dixon read
34 Letters to Milena Franz Kafka read
35 Metamorphosis Franz Kafka read
36 The great wall of china Franz Kafka read
37 The day of the Jackal Frederick Forsyth read
38 Thus Spake Zarathustra Friedrich Nietzsche pending
39 Beyond Good and Evil Friedrich Nietzsche partly
40 On the genealogy of morals Friedrich Nietzsche pending
41 Twilight of the idols Friedrich Nietzsche pending
42 Crime and Punishment Fyodor Dostoyevsky reading
43 The Brothers Karamazov Fyodor Dostoyevsky reading
44 The Idiot Fyodor Dostoyevsky reading
45 Notes from the underground Fyodor Dostoyevsky reading
46 One hundred years of solitude Gabriel Marquez reading
47 Poems by Lord Byron George Byron reference
48 The time machine H G Wells read
49 The polyester prince Hamish Macdonald read
50 To kill a mockingbird Harper Lee read
51 HarryPotter and the Chamber of Secrets JK Rowling read
52 HarryPotter and the prisoner of Azkaban JK Rowling read
53 Harry Potter and the goblet of fire JK Rowling read
54 HarryPotter and the order of the phoenix JK Rowling read
55 HarryPotter and the half blood prince JK Rowling read
56 HarryPotter and the deathly hallows JK Rowling read
57 The Brethren John Grisham read
58 The painted house John Grisham read
59 the firm John Grisham read
60 Ford country stories John Grisham read
61 The Broker John Grisham read
62 The Associate John Grisham read
63 Poems by Keats John Keats reference
64 Gullivers Travels Jonathan Swift read
65 Sophie`s World Jostien Gaarder reading
66 Lord of the rings JRR read
67 The prophet Kahlil Gibran read
68 Madman Kahlil Gibran read
69 Spirits Rebellious Kahlil Gibran read
70 The kite runner Kaled Hosseni read
71 A thousand splendid suns Kaled Hosseni read
72 Capital Karl Marx partly
73 Eye of the needle Ken Follett read
74 The company of woman Khushwant Singh read
75 The inheritance of loss Kiran Desai read
76 The Tibetian Book of the dead Lama Kazi Dawa-Samdu read
77 The sorrows of satan Marie Corelli reading
78 The Godfather Mario Puzo read
79 Jurassic Park Michael Crichton read
80 Timeline Michael Crichton read
81 The Lost World Michael Crichton read
82 Congo Michael Crichton read
83 Prey Michael Crichton read
84 Shock Doctrine Naomi Klien read
85 No Logo Naomi Klien reading
86 The ascent of money Niall Ferguson partly
87 In the line of fire Parvez Musharaff read
88 Malgudi Days RK Narayan read
89 Rich dad Poor Dad Robert Kiyosaki read
90 Midnights Children Salman Rushdie pending
91 Satanic Verses Salman Rushdie pending
92 Dilbert Scott Adams read
93 The interpretation of dreams Sigmund Freud read
94 Who moved by cheese Spencer Johnson read
95 A brief history of time Stephen Hawking read
96 Lajja Taslima Nasreen read
97 Man`s search for meaning Viktor Frankl read
98 To the lighhouse Virginia Woolf reading
99 Shakespeare - all stories William Shakespeare read
100 Life of Pi Yann Martel read
101 Man And Spirit:The Speculative Philosopher Saxe Commins,Robert Linscott
102 The Story of Philosophy William Durant

103 Les Miserables Victor Hugo