a blog

2012-01-05T07:57:00.001-08:00

Sorry, I don't mean to apologise, but this sort of fear calls for a bout of well-meant contrition. We'll do so much better, henceforth, I promise.

2012-01-05T07:22:00.000-08:00

The chocolate oughtn't to have been served, if Rudder had heard Norbert well. It was uncalled for. Rudder had served below the belt. He wasn't playing fair. Oh sure, Rudder was the Dark Lord and all, and Voldemort had nothing on him, either trident-wise or serpent-wise. But, it occurred to Norbert a trustful covenant had been signed earlier in the day. Was this supposed to be Rudder's twisted way of signalling a bashful retreat? Was He being brazenly spineless? Surely not, Me Lud, if Norbert may venture to call anyone that. Usually, Norbert would never even instigate such a thing, but the gold-foiled cocoa slab really was really pushing the envelope.

And suddenly, Norbert was wishing for a world in which the law of the land was either sanity or death. It was absolute madness to have a world where one was allowed to be insane. Give Norbert intellectual liberty or give him death, Zogwarg Queen.

The repetitive clawing motion was insisting that Norbert do his utmost best to ignore it. The more it jabbed, the more it urged Norbert to build his muscular resilience. "Get stronger," it thumped benevolently over Norbert's silently screeching hypothalamus. It's a cardiac calisthenic. Breathe and jump. Rinse and repeat.

When the eye tried to stare Norbert down, he knew he must rise to the challenge and climb the stair on the double. And didn't he dare worry that he seemed not to be able to play by Their rules. Truth be conjectured, They didn't seem to be able to convey with any sort of clarity what the rules were themselves, and Norbert would be a fool to himself if he attempted to understand that which strove not to be understood.

In the meanwhile, it still remained to be seen what would be done about the insidious bar of chocolate. More on that as it unfolds, or unwraps.

Irredeemable insanity should really be banned. Just saying.

My Lord, for comfort!

2011-09-25T14:30:00.000-07:00

The cushion lounged,sat back on its revered bum, flanked by two carefree attendants Who liked nothing more than to emulate their liege lord,albeit they were given only to produce a more squashed-looking facsimile.On that regal dais,sketchy-looking pages lay, bowed,having come unbound of what adhered them once to their hardbound face, although they still maintained sibling cohesion. And so they beseeched the royal bolsters to grant them shelter and patronage.

2011-09-19T05:13:00.000-07:00

I find I can be quite productive when not being crushed by despair.

Breathing helps to calm my nerves and detect my bones.

I take refuge in whatever will promise to entertain me and keep its promise unfailingly.

Conversations

2011-09-15T11:44:00.000-07:00

All the current literature state sanctimoniously that listening is a quality to be cherished and cultivated. Textbooks, morals, TV shows all talking everywhichwhere about the virtue of the listener. "Ooh, I'm a great listener," brags this friend of mine, unabashedly, just having got off a sermon of a phone conversation, in which she had delivered earnest advice to this love-lorn friend of hers for, like, half an hour straight.

Everywhere I go, though, people are actually hounding the conversation and steering the flow of debate towards their ideas and liking. It's the sign of the successful human being that he ensure that he is in full control of a situation. Allowing another person's ideas and notions to cordon the conversation, I've found in my experience, is tantamount to succumbing to death.

I'm faced with a moral dilemma everytime I enter into a conversation. Are you supposed to listen wholeheartedly, submissively even, or come to the fore with views of your own, even it they're harsh or abrasive, and potentially dangerous for that matter? I guess the key would be not to have harsh, abrasive views. Also, it so happens that I'm shit scared of advancing views these days lest they be held against me or misconstrued. This happens very often, so I find my fear understandable.

Lord, help me hold my own and not get washed down under the merciless cascade of someone else's views. I beseech yous, World o' mine, let's all just work with the power we have on our own. No one needs to stomp on another person to feel a power surge. We all have power of our own. I think it ought to be enough if we cultivate our own. I don't even wanna know how this view is going to come back to bite me.

Maybe God'll sink his teeth into me today.

Eternal mirth and mindful satisfaction

2011-09-09T07:49:00.000-07:00

Future tidings rang out
and sounded strong gongs.
The acolyte drank in the clamour
and digested them as silken songs.
Of eternal mirth and mindful satisfaction.

Every act and thought
became a rectifying mercy.
Steep steps climbed
all the way to pleasing surety.
In eternal mirth and mindful satisfaction.

Three doors above,
the dragon expired with a start.
With its final blow it called the shrieking ogre
to come claim its heart.
Of eternal mirth and mindful satisfaction.

Complexities unravelled,
subtleties ran outside to play.
In the sunny morning,
every cell made hay.
With eternal mirth and mindful satisfaction.

Fleets came together in solidity,
captured by an even speedier instant.
Things were said as they were
and meanings, like they were meant.
For eternal mirth and mindful satisfaction.

Survival indistinct? Kicketh in survival instinct

2011-09-08T00:34:00.000-07:00

The fish called F swam in the sea. F had its fins to guide it through the water, its eyes to see, and its digestive system to process nutrients for its sustenance. Its gills were smoothly functioning respirators. It did not ever have to wonder about anything, for the answer was always apparent without needing even to be asked. F was very happy, for it knew its environment like the back of its fin. It also knew how its neighbours and colleagues functioned, what made them tick. Therefore, it did not ever fear what the other fish might do to it, for it knew the other fish could never gain access to its treasured pearls. The other fish would never seek to or be able to devour it, for F's success was indispensable to the ecosystem, and the other fish relied on it for their own livelihood. There was no question of worry, anxiety or trouble, for everything was negotiable, and success was a birthright. Life was fluid and nice.

One fine morning, as the rays of the sun glistened off the surface of a recumbent oyster (it was such a bucolic day as of usual), F found that something was thrusting it upwards, applying an insidious pressure on its underside. F, strangely, felt an odd resentment to this. It was odd that it should feel resentment towards this upward thrust; it was this very same ascensionary pressure that F felt and thrived on day in, day out. So, why was it experiencing an antagonism towards something it had always loved and trusted? A strange anxiety began to grip F and slowly, but surely, F was paralysed. It just could not move through the water. Desperate, F sent shooting bursts of neural instruction to its tailfin for it to move and propel its body forward, it thrashed and flailed, but the water seemed intractable. F seemed no longer to have any clout with the water. The other fish were staring at it, their big fishy eyes agape. They seemed genuinely concerned about the plight F appeared to be in. They seemed to want to help, and they crowded around F, trying to observe it from all angles.

Some told F that it had to kick its tailfin harder, that it was guilty of laziness and lacking in self-love. If F could speak, it might have been able to explain that the state it was in seemed to be one of doom, that there seemed nothing within its power to make its tailfin move. But its explanations were incoherent. None of its famed, trusted mental clarity seemed able to work, and whenever F tried to speak, only hazy spumes of seawater and seasand took shape. No communication could take place.

Soon, the relationship between it and the other fish became confrontative. F did not understand why such smart, successful diagnosticians among the other fish were clueless about how to effect a cure in him. Truth be told, F was horribly frustrated with itself and the mutinous water which would no longer be friends with it. And with the exasperation the other fish displayed at F's seemingly stubborn refrain that it was feeling incorrigibly incapacitated, F began to feel like the other fish were in some way responsible for his insane condition.

As F reflected on memories of its past triumphs and wondered how to revanche lost territory, it only encountered wispy semblances which, it appeared, need not even ever have been true. It began to doubt its past, its self, its very core right to love, success and life. These were dreary times, they were.

F knew it did not want to be swimming with the fishes. It wanted to be eligible to partake once more of the wonders and beauties of its Life.

Then F experienced a sharp tug that dragged it straight upwards, towards the light. F went along, but never succumbed to the despondent submission of labeling sadness as being its inherent nature. So long as the pathology persisted, F never stopped squirming and sulking, and thus did it confirm what must constitute success and happiness to it. F did never give in. F was a fish ordained to see the ether after all.

One fine morning, Life became a breeze. F was a flying fish.

2011-09-06T10:28:00.000-07:00

When your life is an inexorable situation, in which negativity and powerlessness surround you completely and cannot be shrugged off whatsoever, nor placated, coaxed, pleaded with, or entreated into loosening their vice-like grip on your soul/mind/brain/self, and there appears not the tiniest cranny into which your spirit can slip for some solace or redemption, either of two things must be happening:

* You have been cursed by something/someone malevolent, and all the components of your life are being puppeteered, monitored and regulated constantly into keeping you mired in the state of chronic negativity, or...

* You have a mental disease you'd better get checked out asap if you want to live a life of basic human dignity.

Of course, it is theoretically possible that you have been thrust into a dystopia which is actually a phenomenon/experience whose culmination will liberate you, fulfilling your original, long-obscured life purpose and therefore is good for you.

Rainbows, sweet-smelling daisies, dainty butterflies, fresh-cut grass in the dewy morning, seaside breeze that is redolent of a new book, warm clothing, love, success and good wishes.

Wealth redistribution

2011-09-01T14:01:00.000-07:00

He arose one morning,
and saw the moon recede.
Thanked sufficiently, the lunar pearl
had once again became a bead.

He plucked the marbles,
hitherto flotsam, adrift,
frazzled in the ether,
and threaded them back as his gift.

Soon, he began to plunder
all his wealth back
from the hooded robins
that had once pronounced him a hack.

With a kindly altruist,
he exchanged verbs of warmth.
Disallowing the bypass of his filters,
he would know he saved himself from all harms.

His currency sniffed the market
and deemed it safe to emerge;
Its deep slumber
had given it a new surge.

2011-09-01T04:39:00.001-07:00

The falsehood is thriving! All eyes are seeing, feigning obliviousness.

The mongrels have gathered around and are cackling their prey into submission. Isn't this an opprobrium? Where is the magistrate?

Why isn't Radiohead doing anything about this? Why are their songs not potent enough to expurgate this atmosphere? We demand clean oxygen for our living children, Dear Sir! This happens to be a family movie. Kindly desist from having it masquerade as an exploitation film. Does the Censor board know about this... Or are they in on this too?

Calling all cops, calling all cops, blare those sirens.

Sniffing for health.... It's still rabid out there, so we'll take our bottle along everywhere won't we?

2011-08-31T02:31:00.000-07:00

Fine dining, creative thinking, being immersed in fineness, using music and words to weave powerful monuments of beauty and fortune, spontaneous rectitude, visions and shows that stimulate and tickle, the feeling of deliberated insulation within self, doing the right thing.

Till then, I Pray

2011-08-31T01:02:00.001-07:00

I'm sorry, World. I'm an asshole only because my mind is corrupted. I don't mean to say that you did this to me, but it's just that I don't see anyone else around, and I know I don't hate myself, so I feel like taking you to court so you can please recompense me for all the tyranny I've gone through for your amusement.

This sarcasm, if found to be unfounded, has to be condoned. I know you deem that lie evil which has not infused enough belief in its own self. And belieflessness is the very disease I have. So, anything I say, anything I be, is inherently prone to seeming stupid/evil/intolerable/contemptible. But see here, I'm going to ride my contempt to freedom, since that is all you will give me. And maybe, one day, when you're tired of condemning me, you'll get your kicks out of giving me what I want.

Till then, I pray.

Serenading the sky

2011-08-29T09:53:00.000-07:00

The crazed boy looked at the sky and started to wink in a most impish, affable manner. He knew if he befriended the sky, it would be an eternal source of solace for him. He wouldn't ever need to face the anxiety of being friendless.

The blue visage was acting coy. One moment, it would beam down at him in a show of affected conciliation, and the next, it would begin to perspire on him dismissively. The boy, for a long time, was at a loss.

Then he began to speak to it. He tilted his cranium heavenwards, and began to mumble sacred words imbued with attractive power; these words were earnest and woven from his very depths. He took steps, propelling his body wherever the perpetual canopy stretched, and found that his vitality was replenished and augmented with every footfall.

The sky had accepted him, he began to feel; and he began to feel.

2011-08-26T05:41:00.000-07:00

It's a bitch to live in a world you think is fabricated. The world may or may not really be so, but just the fact that it appears to you as such is enough to rob you of sanity. I find I just can't build an understanding of the world when I feel like everything that meets my eye is something placed deliberately for the sole purpose of bamboozling me.

This disillusionment seems to have subverted my mind and brain so that all my precepts, ideas and concepts are rendered way too incongruous and amorphous to be recallable or discernable any more. This is why I seem to be tearing inexorably down a sheer decline into unmitigated dullardness. Well, of course, eternal hope keeps enthusing me to force myself to believe that I will break out of this cocoon of doom sometime very soon, but this eternal hope is constantly under merciless assault from my overall situation and everyday experiences.

Now, I know that this tirade of articulation does not ring true to my alleged mental ineptitude, but I'm not going to deny myself these fleetingly rare halcyon periods just to prove a point.

Of course, Mother tells me I am doing myself a great disfavour by not trusting things the way they appear. She's totally right, but prima facie authenticity is something I have long been forced to mistrust. If things were indeed as they appeared to be, I would not have gaping lacunae in my understanding of the world. There must be a world beyond the apparent one, where all the chemistry happens and the well-oiled mechanisms work their cogs into effects and phenomena.

Oh, to have eyes that could glimpse that glistening chamber of secrets. Please, oh please, let me run about every once in a while in that dewy meadow of gladdening information; I promise I'll set aside a portion of my earnings to pay my dues.

Pre-menstrual disdain

2011-08-21T22:23:00.000-07:00

Deep, underneath the surface
there was a monster
that cried for its lotus;
all the while, wondering,
would its language suffice
to invoke the Sun?

To spend its time fruitfully
it loved to create ambiences
that dovetailed metrically;
knitted in fluid webs
of candid perfection
that spoke no lies?

Memory kept fading
just to flaunt its indispensability
to all those who were cursed to forget;
the accursed lost access everyday
to who they were
and what they meant.

The eye will strut the globe
in claret robes of clear
and untainted contentment;
that is
so the way
to be.

godhelpedme

2011-08-19T23:07:00.000-07:00

The fairy glided up to the boy and asked him what time he wanted to be liberated. He told her he preferred 1330 hrs. And then he went to meditate.

2011-08-19T23:04:00.001-07:00

No one ever wants to talk about it, man. And the worst part about that is, it makes you believe that the thing you wanted to talk about isn't even there. And that doesn't relieve me with its suggestion of a lack of a problem warranting discussion. It gives me this really deep feeling of nihilism.

Like say you have a problem. And rather than diagnose it, treat it or provide some solution/coping mechanism for it, they try to make it out that there isn't any problem to begin with. What can you do then? Where are you left when your family doctor, the guy you trustingly called up to ask why your spleen hurts so bad, takes advantage of your temporary weakness and makes away with your organs? Damn, that's morbid.

See, because the point is that when you admit your problem, you're admitting that you're stupid enough not to know how to handle it yourself. When you do that, you enable them to fill your head up with any story they care to concoct. And you have to believe it, because you don't have your own answers. It's called 'faith'. And it's holy, because you have to accept it without questioning, especially since you have no other choice. God forbid that you point out some inherent flaws in the story you're being told, or offer the anxiety that you have been misunderstood. It would just be construed as arrogance, or labelled as the very same stubbornness on your part because of which the problem persists.

Anyhoo, I wish I could talk. I wish stuff could be talked about, and not be so friggin ineffable all the time; it would really help clear my doubts and set things right for me and my mind. These doubts are eating my mind away. I want my mind back.

2011-08-17T03:47:00.000-07:00

Reach for the pen again
as cancerous neurons
appear to want resurrection.

Sighing into softness,
burgeoning creations
are spewed forth in a dazzling splendour.

A nauseated mind
will be squeezed in no time,
and nurtured into the horizon.

Grasp Your Power

2011-08-04T01:07:00.000-07:00

The bow-legged charmer seems to be up to something fishy. You can't seem to understand why she would keep summoning you to her chambers only to insult and belittle you (the insulting and belittling were subtle, disguised as affectionate chiding. However, you felt her words were aimed at destabilising you). But enough about her. There's no need to stay in a room that's filling up with toxins.

In other news... your dad is another head case, isn't he? He seeks you out of your lair and cajoles you into revealing stuff about yourself you'd sworn to keep safely stowed away within yourself, and then he denies that it is all in any way true! Double-you-tea-eugh!? Who needs him any way? You feel he isn't even out to help you. We'll just thank him for the constant roof he provides our head and let him work out his own issues, won't we?

All you will ever need is yourself. You hit upon this exhilarating feeling and capture it, never to let it whine out of your grasp. As you keep it held firmly between your lovingly fastening fingers, you feel treasured, strengthened and invincible. You feel all your Powers come rushing back to your fold. "Oh lovin' Master, We never should of left your side. We'll be of good cheer fo'ever more," They, the Powers, blubber in, strangely, what is a Georgian accent. Why the accent? Maybe you'll find out to your pleasure later on. .

A rooted mind takes root

2011-07-21T11:06:00.000-07:00

The urge towards the Buddha had taken root. You figured your mind was no good being awol, and needed to be summoned and harnessed for you to have any chance at a liberated life. So you awaken your body that your mind may be inspired in turn. But your mind was inebriated in a pall of drowsiness unbecoming of an aspiring activist. It reached out for the glowing point emblazoning the occula-natal intersection, but what could the point do but swim hazily in protest against your stupor.

You burst into a dry panic; lost hopes and dying causes were reprising themselves with pent-up fury. Later, in desolation you would sit, curled up into a farce of an embrace, trying to recall the forgotten sensation of the precious convalescent fluid which, possibly, you had spilt into naught via a lowlier duct. You vow to take better care of your vital fluids, so that they may feel you worthy and deserving of being immersed.

The bow-legged charmer was sighted at the station, trying to be ignored by your reclusive consciousness. She walked past, then sidled up to you. You essayed your poker face, you hoped, to some avail; but the nightly exuberance was but a shadow of itself in the blinding twilight. Your habitual dumbness came over you and you chided the charmer on the pretext of chiding yourself. Deathly references pointed hamfisted fingers upon smoky graves in a jaded flail for the taste of a kindred spirit. She would turn out to be a truer you than you, and you felt shunted out of yourself.

There's so much more, but isn't all this already simply precious?

A shored wail

2011-07-06T14:54:00.000-07:00

Things are dying inside me
But I am still alive.

Every new morning
calls me to awaken
to its shallow depths.

Where is my ticker?
I can hear it flicker
in a puddle of weak injury.
It won't even bleed
its pain out.

It hoards pain,
it's a plain whore.
It's playing itself hoarse
So I complain to the hordes.
In throaty whispers
that carry my plane to the shores;
They keep me on course.

Get that pitiful slime off that face!
You're only getting fazed by a phase.
If only you won't drown now, you'll love water all your life;
You were meant to survive.

Bask, drenched in Blood

2011-06-28T19:49:00.001-07:00

A Bleeding Heart, surrounded by Weighty Thoughts, felt ambushed. It felt like it needed to be as authoritative as its planetary cohabitants. For, mark, these Thoughts were shaped as it, the Heart, was. They appeared to possess the same winding arteries that criss-crossed its own schema. Rational the Bleeding Heart was, and it could not ignore the way the Thoughts progressed about their ways, for, to ignore what was in front of you was to ignore truth, as far as you knew it. What could the Heart do but Bleed?

"Was I born to Bleed?" whimpered the Heart.

By all functional edicts, a heart is, indeed, meant to bleed. But, in staunch uprising, it had now become rather mistrustful of the PuppetMaster, Who implied, by means too subtle not to pay heed to, that it, the Heart, was ordained to Bleed. The PuppetMaster told the Heart it was supposed to ignore the smooth, facile way in which the Thoughts fulfilled their tasks and whims. The Thoughts, the Heart was admonished, would always be, for the Heart, an edifice of discontent; that which it, the Heart, could never adhere to. That was the way it was, spake the PuppetMaster.

The Heart made up its mind. It would not be thus subjugated. It would be a Heart freed from the evolutionary imperative of Bleeding. It would be renegade, and a happier Heart it would be for it. Its blood would no longer be called upon as payment for its existence. It would serve its captors in other ways - through a mindful love and admiration. It would be easy to love them, after all. They would be worshiped for their ascendancy in a set of parameters it valued in a bodily organ; and in idolising its captors, it would set its own ideals upon a hallowed pedestal. And, with this promise, the Heart began to pump its blood for itself once more. And it had a Hearty laugh with every pulse.

2011-01-06T14:41:00.001-08:00

These people have always known their agendas. They are so "in the know" and so devoid of self-ignorance that they can manipulate. Me - on the other hand - not so much. For instance, I am just not given to manipulation or any form of forgery, because I dread the effect a lie would have on my already tattered view of reality; dread lest I make it harder for myself than it already is to successfully argue in favour of why 2 and 2 should make 4 - which, it seems, is too sinful a premise to expect to be true...

But Oh how cool it'd be if I found voice when the court was in session.

Death row

2010-12-15T14:01:00.001-08:00

You know what can kill a person without fail? Nope. I'm not talking about poison, or some other 'foolproof' method of dying.

A person truly is doomed to death when his mind is stifled.

With the rate of connections his brain is able to make diminishing towards zero;

With the electricity that should ideally be rushing freely through his neurons grinding to a staggered halt;

With each thought his brain is able to muster being thwarted, harassed and killed because it represents something in the living world which unnerves and frightens him;

When the exciting venture into the world of imagination/mental creativity only holds the inevitable caveat of the unleashing of a world of negativity better left untouched;

When all your thoughts you'd thought were your very own brainchild seem exposed as nasty seeds planted in your head by those who were able to advertise their agenda onto your impressionable, 'naive' mind;

When the only possible aftermath of any foray into conscious thought is the realisation of how thoroughly your brain has been drained, seeped of any chance at originality;

When you feel like all your precepts, ideas, tools for thinking are all a crumbled pile of obsolete rubble because you just never really are able to find that reality agrees with what you think of it;

When the slightest period of thought-flow that has successfully gone on uncontested is beset finally by the fear of having pushed your luck;

When you realise that the reason you can't get your brain to make the wasteful effort of thinking clearly is due to the strength of your belief that faced with an opportunity/scenario for the thought to have productive value, your power will desert you;

When you're certain that if someone told you that your life depended on you telling them your name, the one thing you could bet your bottom ruppee on not being able to recall is the word Mihir;

When you begin to feel that no amount of cognizable thought can be worth anything when reality is just lurking around the corner, licking its chops, waiting for you to make that turn so that it can kill that sorry little meagre confidence you dared to accumulate from thinking you'd understood something for real;

When the only thing that has made possible a flow of thought unobstructed for long enough as to enable a rant even as unimpressive as this is that the fact that everyone is asleep has empowered you to believe that no other mind can exert its influence on yours right now...

.....phew....

That person might as well be dead, for all the surviving he'd be capable of if a band of wayfaring robbers accosted him on his way to work, requiring of him to solve a simple arithmetic problem in exchange for an uncut throat.

If that isn't the definition of "death row", the phrase can only mean a situation in which Dumbledore and Harry merrily use oars to traverse the black inferus-filled lake in Voldemort's cave while singing 'Du Hast' on top of their voices.

Soiled by something indulgent

2010-11-25T03:14:00.000-08:00

The day starts with an early call.

You trust the innocent promise that this early awakening advertises to your mind. You go on to spend the morning ambushed by your own weakness for a sheltered outing, and you hence lay yourself bare. Don't forget, not denuding yourself was not ever an option when on an outing; the outing itself is the act of stripping yourself to the corrosive sway of elements.

The unrequited offer for a seat would go on to nab your peace of mind later, and force you hostage to the need to compartmentalize. Although well compartmentalised at the time of first reckoning, it may have gone on to spread its shadow over your skeletal membranes nevertheless, over the course of the afternoon.

Parental exuberance too may have curdled the mixture a tad, it is smelt.

The other contaminant possible as a suspect is the parting wave. Earlier instances of this conciliatory wave have produced bouts of atmospheric pressure similar to the one being felt now.

Then some self-identifying reading leads to the promise which the day proffered your way in the morning. The sight of your mould in the writing relieves and elevates your mental fortitude.

The Puppetmaster spake..

2010-10-22T12:48:00.000-07:00

"What did he say?" Didn't you hear him? He spoke in words. You have ears. You know sound when you hear it. You have a brain which can decode sounds for you. You can understand how things work. You can correllate a sentence with the objects it's talking about. And that's why you can never say that you didn't understand what he said.

You know you heard him with your ears.

"What just happened?" Didn't you see? Things moved in front of your field of vision. They didn't happen when you had misplaced your glasses or anything like that. Wait a minute, you don't even need glasses. You have perfect vision. (You only ever wore glasses when you wanted to pretend like you were some sort of intellectual. You wanted glasses to make yourself look as if you had a life.) You can see things happen in front of you. That's why you've been given eyes. To see. And the stuff whose light entered your eye had a direct connection to your brain. Your brain can decode optical information into mental pictures. You can use these mental pictures to perceive the stuff your eye saw. And that's why you don't ever need to complain that you didn't know what just happened.

You know you saw it with your eyes.

You have seen life for so long that by now, you know how things behave. This is great for you. Because you know how things work and function, you can interact with them and make them do things for your benefit. Superman knew the air. He knew his body. He knew that a cape flying in his wake makes for a powerful image of purposeful flight. So he used it all to make himself fly, and earn millions of dollars for selling himself as a potent image of an alpha male. Not that you can fly. But you can see. And that's all you ever need to do. And it's all you can do. That doesn't have to sound like an escapist thing. It's only as escapist as a horse-rider saying that it's upto his horse to do the galloping. Provided he has fed it. Provided he has made sure that the bran in its bowl was not mixed with anything the horse was allergic to. Provided he has made sure she gets enough exercise and sleep. The rest happens as part of a mechanism. You can't say no to the mechanism. It's like air to your lungs. Breathe it in. You're sure to come back for more.

Say

2010-09-17T01:25:00.000-07:00

Why are there so few admissions made? Why is so much left unsaid? Do you realise how brutal it is to leave things unsaid? When you are actually making an effort to erase the secrecy of silence and coming out with fact-stating, the avid listener is banking on you to reveal to him what he doesn't know. The more avid he is, the more space in his head he will have cleared to accommodate the meaning that he expects your words to convey to him. In this situation, if you leave things unsaid, imagine the evil that has taken place. Not only has the listener lost the knowledge he had earlier, by having emptied his mind to accommodate your wisdom, but he is now left forsaken by your withholding of the wisdom he expected you to supply him with.

And oh what a monstrous mountain of doubt is erected by the unsaid. So much speculation to risk before you can hope to have landed on truth! Blindly groping for something you don't even know exists for your flailing hand to come across by chance!

OOOOH but when I myself make so many errors, it's so painful to expect hope for the existence of something true. I was my only hope. But I forsaked me.

Please say everything. Saltus in demonstrando is one of the greatest boons that I can think of, but as a communication tool, it sucks *#%%) $#@^ (*(!.

Come on Kids!

Why be happy?

2010-09-09T10:28:00.000-07:00

Every day is, thankfully a new day. But to say that seems to be buying disastrously into conventional phrases intended to promote positivity. Disastrous because every positive notion you dare to have can be a contract accepted with the devil conglomerates that have set up the positive node of the universe in an attempt to mask the truth of negativity.

Believing something positive has always scared me. Now, when I attempt to wonder why that is so, I figure it's probably because I seem to have to mistrust the prevalance of any desirable situation. Maybe the persistently consistent phenomenon of 'good things coming to an end' (to use a normally used phrase) has created a conditioning within the brain that a good thing eventually, invariably, leads to the end of it. And the end of such good situations, in my case, mostly tend to mean that I'm left in a state of utter dissonance, for when my 'good situation' -- not having been an ambitious one to begin with -- dies, it leaves in its wake sheer desolation, much like when a cob of maize is snatched away from a starving Ethiopian toddler (As it stands, he can only ever toddle at best. Now, on top of that, he has been robbed of the single object upon which he had relied to aid him in sustaining the delusion that he did not actually live amid vultures waiting to graze upon his abandoned spleen at the slightest drop in his pulse-rate.) A sordid existence, I would ask you, if I were looking for sympathy.

Another cause for being scared of believing something positive, or enjoying a pleasant time of anything, is that the time spent wallowing in a pool of happiness and contentment could mean that you are ill-advisedly eating up your chances at redemption. Or, to stretch the point into a stronger depiction of truth, to surfeit in a period of extended mental analgesia must mean that you have dipped your beak into some elixir for which payment would be extracted. And all that you, having no skills nor ability to create something of value with which to pay your creditor, can do to balance the books, is to pay through your own enslavement or divesting yourself of a chunk of your soul (whatever a soul may tangibly refer to, in metaphoric reference it refers to that which you cannot do without; the lack of which leads to feelings that make you wish you'd been bald so as to escape having to tear your hair out by the handful).

Twanging strungs

2010-08-29T11:03:00.000-07:00

At each given point in time, a single string reverbrates in a bid to be twanged. It speaks its mind in a convoluted retrospective proposition. Its answer begets the question. Or why would it need to be twanged after its drone has already rung out? What is created, is so, because it was given that shape. A cow 'moos' because it makes that sound. A cow might well croak, but you would then have to make too many cumbersome changes to the universe. And who wants the universe to be more fucked up than it already seems?

That's, a spade, why, suitcase o' mine, is called a spade.

2010-07-20T05:32:00.000-07:00

How can you have so much power over me?

Could ya show yerself maybe...
So I know I ain't at the mercy
of a deaf
stone wall.

One day,
will I be your slave no more?

Move and shake

2010-07-08T05:22:00.000-07:00

Flighty thoughts on the rampage
spell violent words,
and the screen is forced to take cover.
Little balls of wooden courage
frame it back in the picture.

Illuminating squares above
shimmer down on a blatant mind,
and rescue it from its confused stupor.
Mice sway upon yellow dancefloors
too engrossed in the mixture.

Secured words shouted
across the chamber
hold themselves in their respect.
I search for reverence
in my own bowl of cerial.

Delivered keys monitor labels
and scoot them with control
till they are vacated.
Their fall could save
a publishing firm.

Nailed down, the finger pointed at itself,
not knowing whence it came
or went.
Too sharp was the impression
that a loving paratrooper had.

Moving as it pleases,
it confirms its ideas
to the granter of wishes.
Its smooth, hyperbolic swishes
give it love.

Dealing with a content mind
soulless shells feel lame
and impotent.
Stainless steel leaps
for joy.

It's ours

2010-07-02T09:51:00.000-07:00

He's feeling better about himself, he's feeling comfortable in his world. His mind is not aching everytime he acts. It's ours, he knows.

Pocketbook

2010-06-09T07:57:00.000-07:00

Comforted by its own reflection,
it grew more tender by the second.
Sparkling crystals shoot out of nostrils
and show what was to be reckoned.

It's one with its motherhood.
It knows only itself.
If more were to be known,
it would surely topple the shelf.

Crows sighted their butterflies in the water
and swooped down to meet their prey.
Twinkling wings batted their velvet
and held the predators' sway.

The warriors tugged on the long rope.
Bristles began to erupt out at the centre.
Dry husk left powderily,
so healing tears could be choked.

But all the while,
the hazelnut fished for a scholar.
Dear-skinned blankets wrapped around the body
to squeeze the smell taller.

It let freedom emblazon itself
onto the placard.
Swotty resins taught it to build its house
in its own backyard.

Pushed for an answer,
she gave way.
And then he hoped
he'd have something to say.

Conspiring to inspire

2010-05-25T12:40:00.001-07:00

There is something about inspiration that makes you want to act on it. Why should some powerful thought entice you to do something you would not do on a normally lethargic day? It defies Einstein's body of work that the amount of Energy in you (E) should rise, when your mass (M) remains just the same amount as to continue to make you look like an undernourished twig. But when you do get an inspired thought, you want a mark of it to be left in the annals of history. There is something dastardly about how inspiration can almost enslave you, and make you do its bidding.

But thank heavens that it does! Or the world would be a dried up coffee mug with sugar granules clinging on to the sticky cup-bottom like a starfish with attachment issues with its aquarium wall. Ah the satisfaction of making up a laboured metaphor that could have been left unconcocted in a less gregarious frame of mind.

Must keep writing....before the system realises how far it has allowed itself to snooze, and be back to action stations to thwart me. The urge to write and create is oozing from the pores, crying to be sustained till actual thoughts worth sharing strike me. But till such ideas do make themselves known to me, I must blather nonetheless, in the true spirit of one who is enslaved by a surge of inspirational energy.

What brought this on? Oh I happened to read a funny blog. It pains me to feel that this upsurge may be an offshoot of envy. Such a vice should not have been designed to spawn such a positive phenomenon as inspiration (incidentally does that rob inspiration of its positive connotations? When Ravana's Mom spawned the demon-child, did her maternal glory get diminished...wait, so that isn't fair that just because her baby was evil, she should be robbed of her due glory as a Mother. WAIT. I just argued the opposite case for which I started to make this point. Yeesh.)

Ok there is apparently a cure for the unchecked inspiration surge. You really have to hit rock-bottom, or rather stratosphere, to cease the momentum. This can be achieved by letting yourself run wild till you argue against your own point. Threat neutralised.

Venting air

2010-05-22T06:23:00.000-07:00

The sighing hands
that never wanted to deserve rest
ceased to be stubborn,
and assumed a daze with zest.

Trembling in response
to the cold numbness of calm,
they knew how it felt
to be a balm.

Strident cogs rolled into themselves.
They made things happen.
When they shrouded themselves with brake fluid,
He didn't know what then.

Mechanics were always others;
they worked their own steam.
Just the sense of arms
did not mean he was to catch a moonbeam.

In the throes of hypoxia,
the mind paved way for a honeymoon.
Airlessness is not always at hand,
but you live inside an air-vent.

His quest for a niche
sharpened his thirst for the globe.
As she drew to a close,
shreds of yes-men were installed in his lobe.

Endgame

2010-04-18T01:01:00.000-07:00

Round follicles denied themselves their sob,
encircled by ambushing catch.
Granules in jeopardy were no match
for the unruly corn cob.

With little to perceive, the book shut its eyes,
when the schoolmaster gave it an almighty nudge.
The book screamed that it was not match much
for all that it wanted read off it, which were lies.

The master cornered it by reminding it
"Your duty is to be read and drunk.
You sin when you give this a bunk."
But there was no jigsaw the book could fit.

All the while, his father appeared
in his full fury.
Denouncing all this as 'bunkum theory.'
Who knew what he wished feared.

The wallet's plush interior
pursed its mouth.
Not wanting to put its future in doubt,
it refused to hold its babies dear.

The chamber is closed to all but itself.
All it smells is its gases;
given over to its stashes,
It revels in its staggering wealth.

dazemire

2010-04-09T00:19:00.001-07:00

I look around
but i have no eyes
I walk around
and I have no mind.

The tide runs you along
tirelessly carrying your sweat.
No pain sensors left
to detect your humanship,
so you run free
like a misty vapour
on a caffiene drip.

flight surge

2010-03-23T12:45:00.000-07:00

A bird in my hand cornered its own beak. It was there by choice. It had risen into the cavernous mouth of the blue sky, all the whole waiting to be captured by a voidful mind.

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0Bw1ZHk_MeXkANzc4ZmJjY2MtMTMyZi00NWFmLWJmM2YtOWNkMzM0MDY3OGFl&hl=en

pot of lie

2010-03-12T10:23:00.000-08:00

every blue-eyed boy that
trotted along to me held in his soft hands
a inviting pot of lie.

Best brewed when served hot,
the courage that it built everytime it fell successful,
was all it needed to keep at it.

in a condition it leaves it.
the daze is overpoweringly enticing.
Help is needed to sustain the state.

all that the boy gave,
it took into its slavering mouth.
more of rockbottom played strings.

quietly it leaves it,
silent and based.
the leverage forms him his next step.

every day, in everyway, it's fading away.

the tale

2010-03-10T11:18:00.000-08:00

how can you be sure
that you're safe in this place?
with lions on the prowl

in this place
all we can long for
is the headrush.
marbles getting re-alligned;
everything being set right

http://www.esnips.com/doc/46c35d71-4bc5-4f94-9c1f-24ea5a53dad3/the-tale

lonely soul

2010-02-16T08:24:00.000-08:00

Lonely soul
you will find peace someday
you will find it one day

It's just around the corner...

The Puppetmaster spake...

2010-02-15T05:29:00.000-08:00

"You were made
so they would be on to a good thing.
Your essence is the lake
which the animals gather to
when they are thirsty.

You will have seen orgies.
They will happen around you.
They will happen on you.
As you are scavenged upon,
I tick off items
on your karmic check-list.
YOU should be smiling."

The Puppetmaster spake...

2010-02-08T08:09:00.000-08:00

"the slightest thing you want, you will have to encounter demons and brickbats. you want a nature? you want a name? here. you can be the one who is the quintessential loser. you shall be the one who, everytime someone has called someone it, is paid homage to. you want big things sometimes no? not the type of stuff 50 cent wants and has. oh no all that's too crass for mr.highness. we want the top drawer. we want things that no human has the right to want. that which no one is entitled to stake a claim for. we are the lowliest form of scum that ever didn't deserve even the minuscule honour of being labelled anything (even "scum"). ok too morbid. but that is you. you're a demon-child in the guise of a pure human. you cheat every single moment which you exist, trying to justify your "humanity". what a liar. even when you cry about the injustice of being born a human illegally, you are culpable..."

for whatever reason

2010-01-31T10:12:00.001-08:00

Brace warriors to their task
till they can't help but fight.
Their flimsy fear must melt
at the thought of fright.

Threads of barren ground will rise
to fortify the silken skies.
Mists of reason and fog
grow stronger at the stroke of night.

Gospel sounds at the break of dawn.
Fringes catapulted into the fray.
Everyone will come one
and show each other the way.

Hoarse winds will stop screaming
their wisdom to you.
A chinese whisper will suffice
to obscure what is true.

Grow into a chrysalis that fits you.
Fidget while you can,
you will be fixed soon.

Linked laces trip over the shoe.
Starved socks breathe their stench.
Your feet are ever plunged
into the cold.

At every station
the train stops and sighs.
The tracks spelt horror.
But it managed to kill some spies.

Floating its way across the expanse,
the soul searched for an exit.
Scorched and parched,
it deserved what it got.

In my eyes

2009-12-20T11:30:00.000-08:00

Butter knives carve out sharp mice
to go with the shy cutlery.
Virgin spoons clang themselves
in ceremonial cushionings.

A walk to remember
reveals the time-bound sentence
that will get eased
by heavy steam engines that grew up
to be used in songs of
distilled truth.

You can do no wrong
to savour the safety of a hidden voice
within layers of musicated poison.
It can't lead you wrong.
The path mostly leads to the pulpit.

A strained marriage
eventually birthed a vindicated fate
that would be tired of shouting its wisdom hoarse
if only I could hear.

Ears sighted the waves approaching
and signalled for the eye to receive them.
The nose lay out the red carpet
and the gust of wind was skinned alive.

More hairs stood on end
as the barbershop quartet brought their weapon closer.
The follicles did not know what hit them.
The hairs appreciated the independence from their colonial roots.

fingering the winds

2009-12-07T03:31:00.000-08:00

Each step it took seemed like fortification for the soul. Its feet thudded lightly over the pavement tiles. The tiles were numbered and colour-coded in such a way that they injected strength into whoever walked on them. Some light reading about morality later, it resumed on its way.

It was concocting words in its head. And they made sense. They were words that would guide its sense of goodness whenever an iceberg came along. Icebergs cannot help themselves. It was the job of the literate ones to draw up formulae to divert the ship into safer waters.

It pondered on hurt and its surreality. Hurt could be chosen or left alone. Hurt was as real as an egg omlette. But humans had the gift of distracting themselves from hurt with a timely twirl of their magical fingers. Tap into that source mein freund, remind the winds.

negatory mister

2009-12-07T03:11:00.000-08:00

a dog on the streets
ventured out into the calming shadow
of the pallid streetlamp,
and then thought better of its courage.

grooves dug themselves out into the wood
and water flowed through them
like pearly smoke
blown by wasted turbines.

knowledgeable kids waved to their friends.
they saw mirrors walking on streets all day,
and met them like the fleeting stay
of a bullet on a pebble.

the riddle walked untainted
as mundane cars whizzed past.
it thought of itself then,
and then of them.

upturned books wait for their perusing masters,
so that they may lure them
into their articulate mystery,
devour their ignorance
and then rob them of their brains.

how to become a monk

2009-11-25T00:54:00.000-08:00

Recent times have seen a mushrooming of saints and preachers. They are promoted by well meaning spiritualists in Aastha and Sanskar channels, which offer people who are too airy to stick their seat in the job market an outlet for their head-in-the-cloud nature. If you are interested in dipping your own beak in the booming trade, but are foxed as to where to begin, here is a to-do list to get yourself started:

* Contact your local barber for a presentable passport size photo for monk-hood. Baldness is preferred, although your Asian barber would recommend a semi-bald ponytail-cut.

* Purchase a decent hooded robe for the photo.

* You would have to apply for a mock Monk License.

* Then if all your papers i.e. criminal record, sexual orientation proof certificate, barber's criminal record, PDN (Parents' Dissent Note) are in order, you are granted a temporary license.

* Subsequent to the minimum of one year in spiritual exile, you shall be granted the complete license. They require unbeareable body stench due to lack of sanitation; at least 6 inches of facial beard and malnourished, skinniness of body as proof of said exile.

Or of course, if you find that the whole proceedure is fraught with bureaucratic complications and red tapism, you could just marry a Mr. Monk.

sounds that matter

2009-11-13T04:50:00.000-08:00

Sounds can tend to be obscure and unobserved given their mundane ness. We hear so many sounds in a day that we do not pay attention to anything less prominent and piercing than a plane crash, if we are particularly obtuse; while the average person tends to gloss over as loud a racket as car tyres screeching. What is new in a speeding motorist nowadays, asks the brain of this person. Let us focus on more life-threatening sounds like the wheezy rasp of fast-approaching global warming, or the dying gasp of social ethics.

The soft rustling of a tree branch as a gust of wind rubs against it; the contented whirr of a well oiled ceiling fan; the consistent, unobtrusive clicks and punches of a computer lab; the drone that ensues in a room where an audience awaits the start of their show; the distant, sweeping din of ocean waves crashing against each other simultaneously – are all too poetic for the common man to notice unless paid to do so. Now have an innocent person stretch and yawn in his creaky chair and the silence of the auditorium is broken by it and the ensuing turning of heads and murmurs.

People hear things that they want to pay attention to. In the awkward, eerily silent auditorium, the creaking of the chair provides an entertaining distraction and so people fall prey to its pull. While the screeching car might indicate a motorist about to perish, one continues to give their ipod their undivided attention ad nauseum. Sounds that matter get heard. Others might as well be falling trees in an uninhabited forest.

Bottle of Mercy

2009-10-18T11:21:00.000-07:00

They sat gazing at each other's sea-engulfed horizon, not knowing which turn to take next. Wrong turns always led you on blue-eyed wheels. You never knew where they might deposit you.

Her handle on love was shaky at best, she reported. And he needed a filling up. So the drink was poured in.

A stray numismatist came up for the umpteenth time and demanded remuneration for his misfortune. The boy's pockets were devoid of change, much like his fate. He expressed regret by getting up, agitated. He wished to move on.

She walked. And he too walked. They realized they were getting further away from the red nosed reindeer. So they retraced steps. They sat on a nearby toadstool. And they talked of recurring bonds. He blanked out several times due to the toll the talk was taking on his forgotten mind. Chipping in with astute consolations from time to time, he kept his seat filled.

The chamber had been filling up with gases all the while. The novocain numbed his synapses these days. It was a good thing but sometimes, viruses gained free entry, availing of the paid leave granted to the security guards. He didn't realize the gaseous build up, but he sensed it through a feeling of depletion. She caught on.

Meanwhile, a bottle rose to fame. All eyes were on it whenever the shortest gust of gaseous wind blew in. And gases were heavily prone to being blown. They were not solids after all. Best to keep a bottle handy at all times.

There there

2009-10-05T00:37:00.000-07:00

Frenetic pillowcases ranted as they went at each other. Fire cascaded down the earlobe. The croon mixed with the power-mongering rust of blazing cannons. The cannons fired bursts of nostalgic crystal orbs that told immense fortunes. The angry giant lent his two cents to the screech as if to second the scrawny midget's claims to misfortune.

And they all swayed to the saline sepia of forest odours. They were perfectly happy to do so, even though the leaves spoke of dire doom. After all it was meant to soothe and comfort the tortured veins which endured persistent impregnation of some sort all the time. Green tongues spat their nectar out on to the streets where they might be lapped up by all those who deserved it. Brilliant lights shone their pain out on projection screens as if to call for diagnosis.

Hordes of dancing pixies showed off their gyrating hips as they thundered up great clouds of ecstatic pixie dust from underfoot. They were not obligated to keep in time with earthly rhythms but they were nice enough to do so.

Time fashioned itself into a droning fabric that was intelligible in the form of a coarse sheet of notated venom.

Novocain of goodness

2009-10-03T12:05:00.000-07:00

The redness of the phone caught its fancy. It wished upon the star that had given it birth and asked for guiding eyes, if it was within reason. The star gazed upon it and endowed it with a goodness that was unshakeable. It faltered at times of loosened knots and free periods. But those periods always led to excessive trauma and brought it back on course. How well concocted.

The drink it poured into the glass had a mystic swirl to it. It was going to be drunk and be made merry with. Slaves to happiness cannot begrudge their masters. It is so cool...

It made itself detached from probing poison needles through its solitude. Some random flugfelsarin saw that and wanted more to do with it in her life. Yet another found her fancies turn butterflies in her tummy. AH how it wove its webs without even knowing what webs were made of. But it knew it wouldn't last. After all, it happened to be a careening eraser that rubbed itself out of the slightest signs of normated normalcy.

It danced now as cares were melted away by the song's novocain.

the Ghatotkacha connundrum

2009-10-03T11:41:00.000-07:00

Spiralling buns conjoined at the perimeter washed up to the shore in a melancholic way. They could not seem to care less about the thrashing cushions that they had left behind. That was their way of managing the staggering confusion in their Math books.

One day, the speaker had dreamt that he had to solve the dreariest of equations, by force. He was not allowed to forfeit, nor did he possess the means to ever solve it. But that did not fade it away. So he sat in an artificial daze to absolve himself of his charge. It was the best he could do, given his crooked limbs. The curtains then sidled up to his legs and reminded him of the soft agony of pending business. And he was apprehended as the spiralling bun he was destined to be ever so often.

Heroes came to him and reminded him of resolve and determination and other contemporary myths. They met his gaze and beamed their wisdom into his retina, and his will was left at their mercy. He would have croaked if they hadn't given him a sonorous tripper of a voice. And voice was the only reflection of himself that he had access to, and so he believed them.

A clone hag appeared at the doorway, and blithely went about her malfeasances. After a while of simmering in her mantras, he found a temporary way of meeting gazes and putting up arms. He might forget it soon, given fate's ways. The structure of evil eyes possibly melted then. Or maybe he did indeed best the challenge. But how often did that happen? Only ever as a delusion apprehended afterwards. Reality checks paid their bills duly.

Tykes and Bikes

2009-08-05T05:23:00.000-07:00

Most people have had a tally of one "near-death experience" in their lifetime- if they are blessed by the divine and can differentiate between actual death and the experience of waiting in traffic during rush-hour on the roads of Chennai. I can say with a sense of pride that I have been personally privy to two NDEs- and on the same day; within a span of forty to fifty seconds at best.

It was a tranquil, moonlit night that drenched the streets of Vastrapur, Ahmedabad. Just the kind of night you expect your father to take his five year-old on a scooter ride to the local "paan shop". My father was quite conventional in that sense. We parked the scooter in front of the hooded stall that housed the owner, his betel leaves and the several condiments designed to make the best of mouths salivate in crimson ecstasy. As my father placed the order, I parked myself on the seat, legs barely reaching the basket compartment in the scooter's front and sat reflecting on whatever it is five year-olds seated on scooter seats do while waiting for paan, when I perceived a white fluffiness emerge from my left, flanked by a dog-walker in shorts. A mesh of conditioning and hereditary traits has made it hard for me to be sure if a morbid fear of dogs existed in me then or whether it was a product of the experience about to follow. To be honest, it was mostly an unverifiable blur, but here is a speculative version of it:-

The fluffy canine slobbered meekly on its leash for a couple of seconds by my side, and unable to handle that sort of pressure, I jumped off the scooter and took off. I don't suppose that for the first three to four seconds of my imperiled sprint, the dog caught on. But when I looked over my shoulder after about six seconds, the dog was hot on my trail. I gave a squeak of a rabbit in the wild whose mortality has been challenged and renewed the fuel in my legs. My tiny legs motored away as they had never motored in their short lives. Swirling clouds of dust and sand took birth as my blazing feet left the ground with each bound.

In a short time, either alerted to the hunt by the bloodthirsty howls of my pursuer, or disturbed by the rift in the space-time continuum caused by my supersonic speed, other dogs clambered onto the party wagon. Since I could count at the time, I noted fleetingly that I was now running from a total of five yowling, hooting dogs of different assortments.

I ran in all possible formations I could think of to bamboozle my quarry. I zagged and zigged, vice versaed, ran in concentric circles, ellipses, hexagons, and possibly even a rudimentary version of the "Chakravyuha". But seemingly they were abreast with the Mahabharata as they matched my every dodge to keep the minimum distance of two metres from my sweating posterior at all times. As the thread of breath dwindled in my chest, I started seeing spots and other kaleidoscopic projections. I saw the pearly mistiness of heaven, and the scorching rouges of hell- NDE#1.

Then, in a final burst of energy, I launched myself off the ground- possibly in the hope of catching an updraft of the wind and soaring above the canine mass surrounding me. Fear, as it turned out, does not lend you wings, and after a brief stint as an amateur airborne gymnast, I fell to the ground and skidded along the rough, sand road. As I commended my young body to God, I saw a blinding orb of white light rush towards me. As I experienced NDE#2, a realization dawned that the white light of God should not have alloyed wheels, or a chassis suspension, or a two stroke engine, or front disk brakes. I swallowed more sand than I could spit out as the bike skidded to a screeching halt not more than two centimetres from my tiny, airless, grounded chest.

My dual Near-death Experience was caused by two of man's supposed best friends- dogs and a motorbike.

The English teacher

2009-08-03T06:18:00.001-07:00

He possessed as balding a pate as one could have without plagiarizing Homer Simpson. Two sorry looking stoic weeds still clung on to dear life on the smooth planet surface. One look at the man's woebegone face betrayed how he treasured the loyal remnants of his weather-beaten top. Then he saw an infomercial on TV and bought himself a new lease on his dying follicular life in the form of a misshapen wig. He taught us English.

He claimed that even the sale of his entire literary prowess could not have bought him a head of natural hair after his undying stint at our high school. We, if he were to be believed, were dunces. And not just your average-joe, everyday Dummkopfs. We had scaled the highest mountains of stupidity, thrust our flags upon their snowy peaks, and still had the resources to uproot more records of incompetence. We explored the boundaries of English grammar and orthography to please him. We studied greater and greater works of English literature to earn ourselves a place in his good books. But he was never devoid of newer and newer innovative phrases to condemn our grasp of the English language. Several versions of his condemnations have been repressed in our memories for their sheer battery of any and all mental capabilities we might have possessed, but a vague residual recollection of them still lingers to haunt us nightly. Now all flora and fauna in the ecosystem are presumably allowed their opinions. But this man's intense critique was aimed at us. So as self-respecting students of the English language, we deemed it fair to "exact revenge".

Retribution of the scale which we had envisaged deserved an appropriate pedestal from which to unleash itself. A simplistic thumbtack on the seat routine did not do justice to our incensed souls. A bucket resting on the open door sequence was as overdone as a scorched omlette. What the years of copping denunciation of the kind meted out to us merited was an attack on the most cherished aspect of his life. He was blessed with a loving wife, lived in a huge bungalow in the richest locality of town, had money to burn after years of teaching at our fine school, a wig, several cars that engendered covetousness in all, a legendary stamp-collection that was rumoured to be worth a bundle, a gorgeous daughter, a beloved set of archived books in his personal library, and an iPod nano. We picked the wig.

The plan was simple in its potentially monumental impact: On Convocation Day, all faculty are supposed to wear hats- probably in altruistic spirit to give us solace for having to don our own set of graduation hats. Amongst ourselves, we assigned a group the task of applying a generous amount of glue on the interior crown of his hat half an hour before the ceremony. We also knew the Chief guest was scheduled for his speech right after the English teacher's farewell speech. If all went well, he would doff his hat in respect to the Chief guest, and with it strip his head of its modesty in front of the entire congregation present. And the consummate clergy of photographers there would capture the hysteric moment for posterity, and in all likelihood publish it as well since it contained the Chief guest.

He reported sick on the day. It later emerged that it was on account of hair transplant surgery.

2009-08-01T12:53:00.000-07:00

Reading deeply into the bespactacled page,
you stare for engravings to say hi.
When you become well read, as goes the adage-
spilt milks seldom cry.

Ostrocized beer cans strew themselves about
smelling for their salts- frantic;
and desperation gets into the bout
to quash any ill-advised brave antic.

Pressurised keys sound their steam
and once state their cause.
Gazing around to catch a moonbeam
they fall over and across.

Years of thorough squeezes
guarantee the cloth its creases,
and only a lifetime of prayer
would absolve you of all your fleeces.

Curtain calls for its daily wage
and you must rush to its glory
Get your share before rushed gets the stage.
People want their chunk of the story.

Dandruffs careen over the scalp
while watches wash their hands;
braces reach for their cousins for halp
and the stick gives sad way.

Leaving the choice alone
the duck did itself well.
Rabbits could dig their carefree way out of stone
but we must chime the pleading bell.

Vacated placards recalled their slogan
as soon as the apple reached the slavering Earth.
Scientific is its approach to a poem
regarded to generate well-timed mirth.

De-odourants cry out for their suction cups
and hugely talented ants oblige merrily;
the lowly ant sat moaning its pups
as its brothers got converted verily.

Saved now, he thought back to those days
of unbridled ends that would always kick buckets.
This man hasn't opened his card case
for fear of drawing crying muppets.

2009-05-15T04:49:00.000-07:00

Ever felt the cringing pain of a vaccuous inspiration? Like when you want to convey some deeply ingrained thing, but just can't find the pluck to summon your powers of articulation, probably cos you're scared of what it might reveal?

videotape

2009-04-26T12:02:00.000-07:00

As night drapes its silken folds over your bared shoulders,
and the pitched garments of shelter begin to take over,
you wish for the same fate every moonfall
that absolves the day's every cat call.

Sprays from indignant paint cans
rise above the towering masses of think tanks
and trim the edges of papier mached Sultans
as they bare their corrugated arms
and shelve their teeth for more trying times.

Cupboards filled with fickle sickles
that shape-shift until it tickles
the sneeze out
are all that lie about
in the falsely floated doubt
of being embroilled in the thickest of pickles.

Miserable clocks can't help their fate.
Ticking hands seldom abate
the bubbling coils of enraptured dusk-
they actually intensify the potent hint of musk.

Pride would well in the bosom of the ascetic
who can't seem to remember the specifics
of the tired balls that sought
to tie his hair in its penitent knot,
when he beholds his hazy horizon
shimmer with the lazy approach of the sun,
carrying forth a pot of videotaped poison.

It would course and gambol
child-like in flow; out of control
within the thirsty, bleeding canals
and merge blessed chemicals as they dance
with the deserving, parched cells of penance
and condense the rubed vessels
into droplets slated to do nothing else
when their time came.

2009-03-13T13:24:00.000-07:00

A broken desire to conjure

having digested something obscure,

penned by prurience demure,

wishfully trying to secure

a vision of the untainted viewer-

How inevitable it is that i use here the word "pure"?

Seed sown by some alien observer,

that cares for the safety of the meek pervert

blossoms in the awakened chambers

in the cranial recesses of a mute server.

While all the while the precious mountain

waits to be fallen off of; as we dream again

long abated memories of glorious green fen-

resurfacings need to find their niche in the pen

and in the absolved waters of Christopher Wren.

But as sure as proficient doubt beginning to creep,

weapons of purchased safety can only sleep

long into the diurnal hours in Lonely Street,

where none but the strongest hearts are privileged to weep.

These clawed fists are useless;

they want to punch out contrived beings into shallow existence

as if their accursed births might help lower the bends

and mock the true countenance

that lies unsurfaced beneath several continents

of unshaped amends;

Although picturesque pearls of damp pity give them away

they will their sodden commands for themselves to stay

and not escape the entombed buckets.

A little pious feline dropped her gaze,

averted by abandoned ashtrays.

They sought to set ablaze

the severed butts long after they had outstayed

their unworthy welcomes.

But yet the miserable cat moans

and extends tendrils of great piteousness that condones

all of its wretched everyday tones

for the nanoseconds within which lie its bejewelled loans.

Coated by blind layers of glossy indifference,

the allaying words seem not of so much offence.

b-log

2009-02-24T08:32:00.000-08:00

brains are such finnicky characters. they refuse to function unless you oil them and water them and feed them and take them out on regular walks and give them a little treat everytime they do a complex trick and burp them etc. And it's kinda hard to feel generous towards them when u picture them as the gooey, membraney, soya-textured lumps of neurons... not very engendering of a maternal feeling.

but still if brains have something going for them, it's how good a bully they are. they hold your happiness ransom and threaten ur sanity unless u grant them their grossly unreasonable demands.. ever heard the phrase "who's the brains behind this underhanded scheme of unparralleled notoreity?"? well you can decode its origin quite easily looking at it from my point of view. brains are gangsters that hold your children hostage and want constant attention in ruturn. and if u go complaining about them they take irrational offense and punish your ass further to make sure you understand who's really boss. (psst, i think she's waking up .. think i heard the unmistakeable sound of unravelling brain folds. she always wakes up whenever you think too much. and this is overflowing with sheer muchness. i'd better stop)