Into a night

She walks around the place,
Opening her heart and her hairs,
Cute little baby
I have seen grown
Into a raunchy girl
And a pretty stone.

Thanks for the night
Turning cold and quite
Into it when I went,
Speaking to the curls of smoke you vent
Oh dear if it could heal
The heart,
But a helpless clown
I go down.

As you stand over me
I can see into lifes eternity
So they go away,
Careless streams seeping into the hay

And I hope you won’t swing tonight
Closing the windows to the morning light
With the flicker of fire
Into the blue of your eyes,

I could swim,
Into the coldness
Of these lights going dim

For now its time,
When I can see
You before me
And I can feel all that’s into the dark
With no reason to see it all
For I have it racing into my heart

Into flowing flute,
I reason for voices going mute

The peacock it sung,

Over the borders of mud terrace

Droplets fell blooming and falling

Leaving the streams over tender face

Bees flew fluttering little feathers

Into the winds the buzzing little hearts hung

Droplets fell blooming and falling

trembling streaks over tender face

Chimes from the temple

So distant and faraway

Come whisking to this night like

Like dawn stretching out in her own little ways

Awaken to this light,

Some one sang to me, awaken into the night

For what you see,

awaken to tenderness, of the naked sight, she said

Awaken to the sizzling bubbles that lie before thee

Little Search

Searching for a subject
A muse for my study
Searching for the shade
A place where I could be

Searching for sweet desire
For my love to rest
Searching for the fall
spirit breaking to seas test

Searching for the touch
Flowing feathers to ride me free
Searching for the torchlight
Into the distance, something to see

Searching for the air
In this chamber of smoke
Searching for the words
To loosen the choke

Searching for the friends
His shoulder and an ear
Searching for the laughter
Into the bubbles of her tears

Searching for the autumn leaves
Lonely between pages
Searching for the memories
Somewhere between these ages.

Searching and crawling,
I saw you towards the sea
for the long journey within,
To quench the life into thee.

With nothing better to do...

So yes, it s been quite some time since I last felt the keys on the finger. And what brings me back tonight, as I was telling a friend today, is nothing but the passionate spirit of Orhan Phamuk to unflinchingly decipher his mind in his writings. I have been through two to three of pages of his book and I am impressed, as often is the case with any good book I ‘ve read. Though I have not read many. Perhaps when you embrace the things or images, you have an hidden affection for, you get engulfed in its beauty too soon. But its blissful to be tucked under a blanket, take a book, under the golden hue of the bed lamp and read life and essay of a person who has vociferously made effort to only find meaning of life words.

And if I were to take a leaf out of this book ( Other Colors ), I must ask myself today the question why I took of blogging. Was it egotism?. Did I consider it merely as keeping a diary? Did I have the desire to be literary scholar?. Was it vanity ? . Was it too be famous?. Well, but I do not have the patience to answer those. May be it was all of it. But I am interested in recollecting how it all began.

It began much later than the time blogging was on the internet. As usual, I was late on the horizon. It began with just simply opening an blogger account. I suppose for an year I had no idea what “ blogging” meant or was supposed to be meaning. I still don’t. They say its online journalism, it doesn’t seems that way to me at least. But any ways I went on pushing the top left bar button and reading whatever a turned page brought to life. Somehow I guess that’s the way it has been with my life. Thats how stupid and exciting it can get. What I found page after page, were poems, news items, more than asked for- technical blogs, photo-blogs, greek blogs. So I concluded a blog is like a resting place for all the wondering thoughts flying in the air. A free space where every one was welcome, with a private blue room, or a conference room, or a money minting web page, with no questions asked. And I loved the subtle way in which freedom of expression was put forth right up to you. A blank canvass and Darsheel paint whatever you want to. I was in love with the idea. Believe me you have no idea that it could be such an incredibly difficult, Herculean task to decorate the graciously gifted private space. Just like most things in life, easier said than done. Compete and prove is the motto. I think one could generalize that to life. But, I suppose, life would be much beautiful, if each was endowed with the courage, strength to explore the depth of oneself and paint and actually sing a song with a band-unaware and unconscious to the prickling eyes over you. Anyhow, I started writing about whatever I could brew up in warmth of solitude or in the discomfort of workplace. And if there was a motif behind it, it was only that I held this romantic notion that some where down the line I will read my thoughts. With a hope that someday, I would walk down the boulevard of memories this life eventually turns to. And trace the journey my opinions and dreams took, and the course my life traced. Of course, I am yet to find the answer for it, though to confess, I submit to temptation of reflecting back in nostalgia and I have noticed incredible shifts over few years. I am getting worse and increasingly dissatisfied with myself to some kind of helpless inability. But that apart, again there is a reason, during this phase of innocuous act of discovering creativity, sometimes I got inspired with R.K Laxman s humor with silliest cartoons burdening with subtle message. I read few collections by Behram Contractor. I got inspired by the brooding but meticulously crafted grief of human emotions by Anton Chekov and the gut wrenching wit of Mark Twain, to name a few (rather too few to mention) and all such masters in their individual right or might, whatever. I got inspired so highly as to sin vanity, plagiarism and dare to be motivated as to day dream about writing and express my self as crisply as these masters could. Also, to mention over this blogosphere, I found many talented and incredibly young people, whose thoughts otherwise I would have not come across, and they inspired me as much as any unsung hero with whom my empathies lie.

Given my limited ability to understand things in true and factual sense, I concluded that be it expression in any form of art, music, writing, poetry, requires practice as close to be termed as devotion and sadly as profession. And I have understood I am good at neither of the two.

And having confessed that, I must say, I feel better. And thinking of all this, I remain just amazed as to how much all this prose has effected my brain. The lasting impression which all these liberated spirits have left on me is to seek an originality of one self. Probably, it’s the second most toughest task after the struggle to earn ones bread. And perhaps, these Of the many lessons from there work is that, may be all of these artists found their original self by being true to themselves. I suppose they went through both misery and joy of life like everyone, but all along they silently collected the residue from this churning life. They did not sell there conscious, they just ceased betraying it any further. And tactfully unburdened all the grief or joy and brought out the varied confection of the words, colors, notes, music and sensitized and tickled all these subdued elements that make a human.

And these are great men. I mean, nobody’s mom s gone tell her kids to be Rudyard Kipling or Ruskin Bond, or any thing like that, but that doesn’t mean these men weren’t great. They have become people whom the society loves to adore but dare not to dream of becoming one. There’s just a wonderful different crazy wonderland, better left alone in a nice little corner of imagination. But I love the work these great people achieved, which could just excite the dormant senses. The task of tickling with human emotions and to make you feel like one.

Adieu to a loner

Today, I sit here. Waiting for a part to be sealed. Holding on the anxiety and the nervousness of bidding a part good bye. I do not know, if we meet again. May be some where long down the road, I shall meet my friend for one more time. Till then, as I see today, it would be late. Not that I have regrets for not keeping it with me. Not that I hate it, not that I have remorse for it. Nothing of that sort, rather it’s the strongest sense of silent unspoken understanding with it. A silent acceptance of a loner within. People might hate that, but I love it the most. More than any thing and any one in the world. It is something that has made me real, far beyond the relation of flesh and blood, something which makes me feel more human than the whole world.

I wish, it remained the longest night of my life. By the sea-side. With each wave a splash of memory rising and striking the walls. Walls that we make around ourselves. Walls that the world builds around itself. Each one for ones security, for a comforting familiarity, to be among the known and derive the pleasures from it. But I suppose its mostly to keep away ones fear of quarrelling with life alone.

With each memory, a splash of wave moving forward and a shining glance falling behind. Behind in time, over the stretch of wall, by the seaside.

While at a modern day cafe

In a particular sense of disbelief for myself, I sit at one front corner of the coffee house. Its an amusingly stupid choice I consider, for of course unknown reason. May be because all the sockets for plugging in any thing that need to charged are at one private lonely corner in every room you go, the same is the case for this place. If you need charging up, go to a lonely corner of the room. However, that's not the point. The point is how so ever, I strive through the day to keep up my charming self, I realized the "routine" prevailed and before it could turn blasé, I decided to drop in to this coffee house. With the meandering thought to relax, enjoy a coffee over news in print and kill time. Or may be to kill my sense of time, which I guess is already dead, but anyways. And like usual, some one had taken diligent effort to loose middle pages from the news paper, which supposedly had continuation of stories from front page. Finally I browsed over the supplement. Going over the movies screened and gossip in the world. No matter individual opinions, those are the new items that are trendy and make up for a well-informed gentleman these days. By gentlemen, I mean the groomed guys with well-groomed girls behaving in a well-defined fashion, updated with the gigs in the city, the movies screened in multiplexes etc etc. Before even a glass of water arrives at the table, I was over with the supplement with slight disappointment for it not having the slightest provocation I was sometimes secretly look for. May be because I would like that old tradition of deriving pleasure from pictures in magazines and paper to be continued in the modern age. As a mark of respect for the print.

Eventually, I gave up and left myself to favorite daydreaming looking straight at the red wall in front of me. The only thing I could manage is to over hear people talking. And I thought of coffee houses as place, where people enthusiastically or politely share experiences, adventures of life. Talk about nostalgic memories. Engrossed in intellectual discussions about Asian economic powerhouse being exploited by west. If that's too much expectation then talk on various forms of Art, Cult Movies, Vintage Classics. Discussions about fascism, omnipresent racism and these days reverse racism or whatever. A relook at great human history or music or whatever, some thing that was of higher order than the pedestrian life. But that was not to be. Sometimes, you just end up hearing a couple engrossed in solving the mysteries of life and discussing the color of curtain matching with wall paper and furniture linen and last but not the least, the families budget. Then I realized that the pattern for wall-paper itself was not frozen between them. All homely chores put forth open on the their table and of others. Life can be sweet, I think. I guess that's the problem in the world, choice and garnering the courage to exercise it. Then the society committee members start allotting the parking lot. All I could conclude at this hip-hop coffee shop is that my perception of the world has been always skewed. And may be I was wrong.

It is really not far in time, when I used to be sitting out side on shabby but neat chai shop during the college days. Under the cool shade of a tree, under a little shack, over the warm cement, in a little known tinsel town. We had the newspaper, even Economic times subscribed to a place with no address. The paper boy knew the place, the owner of the place knew the subscribers, the subscribers knew the editors. The guys would just drop-in, bypassing all roads, that go to classes with benches and blackboards. Greet each other with abuses rushed like love letters, smiling and bursting into laughter and dig into the newspaper finding sections of individual interests, snatching and grabbing from hand to hand. And the humble guy would keep smiling and scoffing and keep blabbering and pulling legs of each one. He would serve cups of tea one after another, back to back without any one requesting it. Tea was brewed continuously-masala, special, with ginger, lemon tea, whatever, take or leave it was the attitude. The chat would range from the elections, to international crisis, from virtues of god and evil, truth about right and wrong. Opinions formed on how cruel and smart the state of Israel has been and how fool hardy the leftist in the country are. When guys were peculiarly enthused and curious about the world. All that now sounds peculiarly naïve unless coming from the sexy news anchor over television. I guess maturity calls for being focused in life and execute the little things which make it up. May be that's not a bad idea altogether.

But watching all the cuties walking around makes me think I would be fool to look for Nazi history at this moment. And to be very honest people discuss a lot of issues which are absolutely attached like leech to the ground reality of survival and happy life. And may be these are the issues which make up a general life and not the nuke deal. But that's all because I have never made up my mind on any issue I feel. With certain people every things ok as long as it comes without much hassles.

Sometimes, I have this strong opinion that the world has been always like this. That the coffee house during the earlier days would have had the same comfortable environment riddled with trivial petty issues. Because solution to all the little things in life has made life what it is now. And constant pondering on little issues is what keeps an other wise empty time filled with some purpose to pass it away. Achieve one goal, set another and get on to the next one. Some crazy guy would have found it extremely inconvenient to go far away to fetch a cigarette and would have discovered the wheel. Wheel to roll the world. And the life went into circles. That's how it is. Some crib and some do something about it. That could be a very possible argument to encourage all the society people and squabble about society troubles and the couple should squabble about each other coming late in spite of thousand mediums to commune. And people wasting half the time making up their mind to choose the perfect dish for all the value of their money. But a brilliant idea would born out of all this. And some how I find the most amusing, interesting and amicable person is this guy gyrating to the beats of the music from the speakers, tapping his feet gently on the floor and watching her girl friends lips move to talk to empty air. And shes so lost in talking her heart out. Pretty cute.

All this is while I feel the eyes behind my back. How could one come with a coherent stream of thoughts in such madness. All I realize is that to communicate with each other has become extremely important substance for a creative out come these days. And may be that s why people , these days, are talking so much.

In a pedestrian life like this you really can expect a great journalistic work, but not from me, and before I loose it all, I can loose a piece of my mind.

But surprisingly the bill came with a nice little hand written note, " Dear Guest, it was nice having you … ( a smile).. keep coming ! " . For a moment it felt like honor to a skewed patron but then it appears it was just another new customer retention marketing strategy to have a mind share for the brand. I don't know, where should I put my beliefs?

May be that's what people talk so much for a genuine sense of belonging in this world taking an over bearing exercise to make their presence being felt. The thing is make your presence feel for the listener.

---CCD, Ghatkopar

P.S: A few days later, I noticed, the thanks giving note was presented to me yet another time in another coffee shop. It was also hand written to give a sense of personal touch. They give it to every customer.

Reflections of a married man

And I watch her going about the daily chores. Arranging our home. Dusting the table, wiping the beads of sweat from the forehead. Unaware about her lazy hubby over internet. Can't say if I know her, but then, I have never bothered much. She came just like that, since then things have been in present. I have grown liking to observe her, walk around. A company, little fluttering butterfly, flapping around, willy-nilly, in a sub conscious way, unaware of the eyes over it. Nah, may be not, she's been flamingo too at times, silent, with intent gaze, waiting for the opportune moment. But again, time and memories in course of time, sweetens the residue of bitter moments of bickering in the past. I like her glow in smile, I like her perturbed, I like her frown with glittering eyes, I like watching her tears tumble down over her cheeks.

Sometimes, I wonder, what does she know of me. That thought used to be scary, giving me Goosebumps. Now it doesn't scare me much. Something of mine, gave up, sort of succumbed. Her ignorance of my deeds is now shielded behind unknown grace and humility.

And I write this perhaps for the reason, that someday she'll find the truth. May be she'll understand I wanted to tell her the truth and she'll let it all be, the way it is.

P.S: Futuristic Blues.