On one such highly romantic evenings
I will be walking down the most romantic street
Singing my favourite love song
Old Joe’s, the karaoke bar, the brothels, the cemetery
Walking past all the places made famous for love..
Walk until I reach the river edge
I shall dip my legs in the water, sit there for a while
Thinking of you as you live in another continent
Picture you, stooping over books or moving from one room to another.
And as the city lights fade,
My romance will come to a close
And i shall see sparks in heaven..
12/21/08
And I have been waking up every morning with a feeling that
This world would come to an end. that all would be lost and gone.
It’s distressing at bang though but things change, things pick up as the day picks up.
Once I met a girl who said she was a rock star. Said she put on black pants and black paint and wore her black wonder bra in each of her rock concerts
Although blue was her favourite colour. Although black she thought made her sexy.
Then she spent the next half hour and also the only half hour of us knowing each other in convincing that she was for real.
The other day at an art gallery with ‘abstract art’ on exhibit... i wondered.
I saw those bold, inexplicable colours, brush strokes, hand paintings... and i wondered that even if it didn’t need meaning, how does the artist decide where to begin and where to end.
With things that are solely beautiful and meaningless otherwise, how does one begin and end with these things.
And then I equated Art with Love. Found them both absurd and rash.
And these are random thoughts thought at various times of the day or may be the week.
Sometimes I wish that i didn’t try so hard. that I came out of this spell of constant sense, reasoning and defending. That I lost my mind once in a way so I cant remember any. Not even my name.
Then I think how ridiculous you are, and how ridiculous I am in loving you.
And it’s something that I find oddly and darkly comic.
This world would come to an end. that all would be lost and gone.
It’s distressing at bang though but things change, things pick up as the day picks up.
Once I met a girl who said she was a rock star. Said she put on black pants and black paint and wore her black wonder bra in each of her rock concerts
Although blue was her favourite colour. Although black she thought made her sexy.
Then she spent the next half hour and also the only half hour of us knowing each other in convincing that she was for real.
The other day at an art gallery with ‘abstract art’ on exhibit... i wondered.
I saw those bold, inexplicable colours, brush strokes, hand paintings... and i wondered that even if it didn’t need meaning, how does the artist decide where to begin and where to end.
With things that are solely beautiful and meaningless otherwise, how does one begin and end with these things.
And then I equated Art with Love. Found them both absurd and rash.
And these are random thoughts thought at various times of the day or may be the week.
Sometimes I wish that i didn’t try so hard. that I came out of this spell of constant sense, reasoning and defending. That I lost my mind once in a way so I cant remember any. Not even my name.
Then I think how ridiculous you are, and how ridiculous I am in loving you.
And it’s something that I find oddly and darkly comic.
12/9/08
This silence which fills this room, this house and me
Is not the wretched or the mourning kind
It’s a quite life, an animal with soft paws.
There’s so much of you to think of, so much to remember and keep remembering
That these walls, the air and me…meditate
be still, without movement
So that you come afloat and stir within us…
Is not the wretched or the mourning kind
It’s a quite life, an animal with soft paws.
There’s so much of you to think of, so much to remember and keep remembering
That these walls, the air and me…meditate
be still, without movement
So that you come afloat and stir within us…
12/3/08
If I ever crack what love is….
I will run looking for you… once when I find you… I will tell you all about it.
You will be busy doing your regular chores of the day…
I will flock behind you like a trail suspended in god’s space.
And I will tell you all about it. all day long, all night long...
My eyes will roll, I will lift my hands up in the air,
Go on and on with shrill pitches in my voice.
You may listen to me, respond to me in the beginning
And later on ask me to stop with mild resignation,
But I will talk, trailing behind you, watching you do your chores
and my eyes will roll, my hands raised in the air….
I will run looking for you… once when I find you… I will tell you all about it.
You will be busy doing your regular chores of the day…
I will flock behind you like a trail suspended in god’s space.
And I will tell you all about it. all day long, all night long...
My eyes will roll, I will lift my hands up in the air,
Go on and on with shrill pitches in my voice.
You may listen to me, respond to me in the beginning
And later on ask me to stop with mild resignation,
But I will talk, trailing behind you, watching you do your chores
and my eyes will roll, my hands raised in the air….
12/2/08
Like the smell of cinnamon
Or the smell of home grown mangoes spread underneath the bed for ripening.
like the calm settling and the dust settling at dusk.
the game of Ikir-Mikir.
like the first knowledge of Boy love Girl stories.
a collection of New Year and Birthday greetings.
Like a picture of deep, sleeping fishes of the aquarium which never sink.
I want to feel some real beauty. I want to write some real pleasure.
Or the smell of home grown mangoes spread underneath the bed for ripening.
like the calm settling and the dust settling at dusk.
the game of Ikir-Mikir.
like the first knowledge of Boy love Girl stories.
a collection of New Year and Birthday greetings.
Like a picture of deep, sleeping fishes of the aquarium which never sink.
I want to feel some real beauty. I want to write some real pleasure.
11/23/08
It’s been a long time since I have written in complete sentences. In wholesome and plausible paragraphs about something relevant.
I don’t know why I do things I do. Why I pick ways, stick to them unnecessarily and then one day, drop them.
Life today is good. Not very indulging, not very aimless.
Yet I don’t know why I keep writing about it and nothing else.
Doesn’t anything else matter?
Some days back I was reading an article on Narmada by Arundhati Roy.
It was fact based. But was written with so much of passion.
Her passion gleamed through the words.
And I thought to myself…..
“ Poor little writer girl…. Trying to save the world in red and blue tights”
I wondered if saving a human settlement around a river would ever give me sleepless nights!
If 50 million displaced, homeless people ever mattered.
Will nuclear armament be as relevant as losing my virginity. Though the former could kill us all, and the latter a harmless progression in emotional and sexual life.
You know one of the most difficult things in the world is to come to terms with your own self. Both your greatness and your weakness. And sometimes when you cannot feel enough, just because it doesn’t hurt you.
I don’t know why I do things I do. Why I pick ways, stick to them unnecessarily and then one day, drop them.
Life today is good. Not very indulging, not very aimless.
Yet I don’t know why I keep writing about it and nothing else.
Doesn’t anything else matter?
Some days back I was reading an article on Narmada by Arundhati Roy.
It was fact based. But was written with so much of passion.
Her passion gleamed through the words.
And I thought to myself…..
“ Poor little writer girl…. Trying to save the world in red and blue tights”
I wondered if saving a human settlement around a river would ever give me sleepless nights!
If 50 million displaced, homeless people ever mattered.
Will nuclear armament be as relevant as losing my virginity. Though the former could kill us all, and the latter a harmless progression in emotional and sexual life.
You know one of the most difficult things in the world is to come to terms with your own self. Both your greatness and your weakness. And sometimes when you cannot feel enough, just because it doesn’t hurt you.
11/12/08
I read it once, I read it twice.
I tried to memorise it in a way I had never done to any of my history lessons.
Then I gave up.
I tried to reason with my self. I tried to rebel with it.
I questioned in a way I never had to any of my lovers.
I gave up on it too.
I realised that both, being me and loving the things that I love are beyond my keeping and knowing..
Now, this moment, I am tying words… and my favourite song is playing in the background.
And may be this is far less than being able to do things.. but it does suffice.
It does suffice.
I tried to memorise it in a way I had never done to any of my history lessons.
Then I gave up.
I tried to reason with my self. I tried to rebel with it.
I questioned in a way I never had to any of my lovers.
I gave up on it too.
I realised that both, being me and loving the things that I love are beyond my keeping and knowing..
Now, this moment, I am tying words… and my favourite song is playing in the background.
And may be this is far less than being able to do things.. but it does suffice.
It does suffice.
11/5/08
Love God For The Poor Soul
“ I don’t like too many things hanging on the wall, I don’t think its fancy.
I would hate it if ever my home had those kind of walls...”
“ Besides I keep wondering from time to time why so many artistes have sung
Leaving on a Jet Plane in their voices again and again. Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell so many of them. It gives me the creeps, why cant they leave Denver’s alone?”
Harry spoke while he ate his subway. His fingers digging into the sandwich and spilling the contents. The sauces were all over his face and on the napkins which were supposed to be used to wipe and clean.
So you made love to a blue coloured woman with waist long hair and ten hands? I asked.
Like I told you, he said.
I looked at him, watched him eat.
He ate his sandwich. Ate every bit of it, in slow and in love. He bit off the crust and the sides first and kept the centre for the next bite.
And…As he ate the olives, he closed his eyes.
I would hate it if ever my home had those kind of walls...”
“ Besides I keep wondering from time to time why so many artistes have sung
Leaving on a Jet Plane in their voices again and again. Janis Joplin, Joni Mitchell so many of them. It gives me the creeps, why cant they leave Denver’s alone?”
Harry spoke while he ate his subway. His fingers digging into the sandwich and spilling the contents. The sauces were all over his face and on the napkins which were supposed to be used to wipe and clean.
So you made love to a blue coloured woman with waist long hair and ten hands? I asked.
Like I told you, he said.
I looked at him, watched him eat.
He ate his sandwich. Ate every bit of it, in slow and in love. He bit off the crust and the sides first and kept the centre for the next bite.
And…As he ate the olives, he closed his eyes.
10/30/08
“I am counting my breath, in numbers one to hundred”
You said.
Today a thing happened. Nishi Nath died. Which my mother corrects “ Say Nishi Nath passed away”
His body was a pack of bones, his face looked like a woman’s. No hair left anywhere. Death looked painful and scary.
“Each time we do something sinful, an hour or so is lessened from our lives” and you believed in it so much.
On new year’s eve ten years ago, at Pom’s terrace as we kissed and we were twelve
In that moment of silence so awkward, you said the exact thing.
“I am counting my breath, in numbers one to hundred”
And I didn’t know what to make of it.
As I saw Nishi Nath dead today. As death looked painful and scary.
I finally got it. And I smiled.
You said.
Today a thing happened. Nishi Nath died. Which my mother corrects “ Say Nishi Nath passed away”
His body was a pack of bones, his face looked like a woman’s. No hair left anywhere. Death looked painful and scary.
“Each time we do something sinful, an hour or so is lessened from our lives” and you believed in it so much.
On new year’s eve ten years ago, at Pom’s terrace as we kissed and we were twelve
In that moment of silence so awkward, you said the exact thing.
“I am counting my breath, in numbers one to hundred”
And I didn’t know what to make of it.
As I saw Nishi Nath dead today. As death looked painful and scary.
I finally got it. And I smiled.
10/25/08
Dear Firefly....Beneath the old wooden bar and the water leaking ceiling which gives away to a patch of the autumn sky…
In that aging house with old, broken walls.. the plaster coming off in places
In that old bed with iron rods where your grand father breathed his last.
As U n I lay…with our tummies big and bare..
After a wholesome Bengali lunch..
As we giggled like we always do.. over silly things…
Like who had a better back or a bigger bust, who fell in love first,
Whose stomach tied a knot on being kissed on the lips?
I realised how much u loved that fellow who’s gone away now and how much you loved me.
And each time we moved the iron bed creaked, such obnoxious noises.
Silly girls
In that aging house with old, broken walls.. the plaster coming off in places
In that old bed with iron rods where your grand father breathed his last.
As U n I lay…with our tummies big and bare..
After a wholesome Bengali lunch..
As we giggled like we always do.. over silly things…
Like who had a better back or a bigger bust, who fell in love first,
Whose stomach tied a knot on being kissed on the lips?
I realised how much u loved that fellow who’s gone away now and how much you loved me.
And each time we moved the iron bed creaked, such obnoxious noises.
Silly girls
10/21/08
As we lie awake in this night.
Lets leave this bed, get up and set off in our little red jaguar.
Lets drive until we reach the end.
At the tip on the mountaintop, lets sit with our feet hanging.
Lets sit and cry and cry even more.
Cry for all the woes of this world.
All sorrow and loss.
Cry for the dead people, poor people, mad people, deaf, dumb and blind people.
Cry for the American war. Cry for Lady Di.
Lets not brood or be sullen of these things. Lets genuinely be sad.
For how one life was never enough for love, brotherhood or hate.
Lets hold each other.. comfort and ease each other.
For our inadequacies, for our indifference.
Both to one another and to every thing else.
Lets confess that we lied when we said that we loved ourselves,
When we said
lets say we didn’t care to love enough, we didn’t love enough to care.
Both this world and we in it.
Lets cry for us.
Lets drive away with the radio on full blast. It’s nicely quite now.
Lets not smoke our cigarettes tonight.
Lets not contemplate, lets not reflect.
Lets not lie awake.
Lets leave this bed, get up and set off in our little red jaguar.
Lets drive until we reach the end.
At the tip on the mountaintop, lets sit with our feet hanging.
Lets sit and cry and cry even more.
Cry for all the woes of this world.
All sorrow and loss.
Cry for the dead people, poor people, mad people, deaf, dumb and blind people.
Cry for the American war. Cry for Lady Di.
Lets not brood or be sullen of these things. Lets genuinely be sad.
For how one life was never enough for love, brotherhood or hate.
Lets hold each other.. comfort and ease each other.
For our inadequacies, for our indifference.
Both to one another and to every thing else.
Lets confess that we lied when we said that we loved ourselves,
When we said
lets say we didn’t care to love enough, we didn’t love enough to care.
Both this world and we in it.
Lets cry for us.
Lets drive away with the radio on full blast. It’s nicely quite now.
Lets not smoke our cigarettes tonight.
Lets not contemplate, lets not reflect.
Lets not lie awake.
10/14/08
Life has a ridiculous way of putting two and two together. Each time you set out to do something different, you fall all the more into its grand spell of classic clichés.
There are scores of men in this planet, black, white and brown; chauvinistic, humanitarian and paranoid. Successful, overtly successful and self-acclaimed disasters! Yet you wind up falling in love with that one man you cannot have, who does not fit into your life or your choices! You land up being the exact sobbing, winning spinster of the bloody mills n boons you so hate.
The most notoriously sentimental, overtly emotional films make you cry. Though you know it’s a marketing gimmick, intentionally playing upon your tear buds, but you just cant help yourself even if you think of a horse or an elephant while watching it. You still hate it, it still makes you cry.
On the perfect days of the month when you in all probability are supposed to be getting your period, you decide to wear a white skirt! and to make matters even better you set out on a eventful day without the slightest clue and absolutely unarmed. The mother of all foolish acts old and contemporary.
“Dream….when I want you in my arms, when I need you and all your charms, whenever I want you all I’ve gotta do is ….dream..”------- The darndest song could never be done away with. Your great grandmother too perhaps had her romantic fantasies singing along this song. And there are countless such mushy dimwitsadded in your list of favourites. John denvor, floyd, louis Armstrong.
Day by day you develop this sullen love for poetry. In your escapade You invariably sift through the one which reads “ Grand Collection of Classic poems.”
The poems are hideously romantic, and their ideas have innumerable poor offsprings in other novels and poems less creative. Stale, worn out and painfully long… aah not to miss the difficulty of language. And yet you dig into them like worm does in a book…as if you couldn’t have enough of it.
You read of Tagore and the women in his verses, of Keats and how he died young loving and writing most of his poems for this one woman who was blunt and knew nothing of poetry or art neither paid any heed to his love. You see a Satyajit Ray or a Stanley Kubrick classic, read about their craft n their vivid imaginations, google their images…stare at them for hours together… getting gooseflesh at sights of what they’ve created…. thinking… Yes these were indeed the brightest that ever shinned.
All this and much more…so much has been said, so much has been done… yet you wind up learning of their existence in your own discovery and loving them all the same, thinking what different have you….from the rest. As for me.. I believe that truly I am a master of clichés.
There are scores of men in this planet, black, white and brown; chauvinistic, humanitarian and paranoid. Successful, overtly successful and self-acclaimed disasters! Yet you wind up falling in love with that one man you cannot have, who does not fit into your life or your choices! You land up being the exact sobbing, winning spinster of the bloody mills n boons you so hate.
The most notoriously sentimental, overtly emotional films make you cry. Though you know it’s a marketing gimmick, intentionally playing upon your tear buds, but you just cant help yourself even if you think of a horse or an elephant while watching it. You still hate it, it still makes you cry.
On the perfect days of the month when you in all probability are supposed to be getting your period, you decide to wear a white skirt! and to make matters even better you set out on a eventful day without the slightest clue and absolutely unarmed. The mother of all foolish acts old and contemporary.
“Dream….when I want you in my arms, when I need you and all your charms, whenever I want you all I’ve gotta do is ….dream..”------- The darndest song could never be done away with. Your great grandmother too perhaps had her romantic fantasies singing along this song. And there are countless such mushy dimwitsadded in your list of favourites. John denvor, floyd, louis Armstrong.
Day by day you develop this sullen love for poetry. In your escapade You invariably sift through the one which reads “ Grand Collection of Classic poems.”
The poems are hideously romantic, and their ideas have innumerable poor offsprings in other novels and poems less creative. Stale, worn out and painfully long… aah not to miss the difficulty of language. And yet you dig into them like worm does in a book…as if you couldn’t have enough of it.
You read of Tagore and the women in his verses, of Keats and how he died young loving and writing most of his poems for this one woman who was blunt and knew nothing of poetry or art neither paid any heed to his love. You see a Satyajit Ray or a Stanley Kubrick classic, read about their craft n their vivid imaginations, google their images…stare at them for hours together… getting gooseflesh at sights of what they’ve created…. thinking… Yes these were indeed the brightest that ever shinned.
All this and much more…so much has been said, so much has been done… yet you wind up learning of their existence in your own discovery and loving them all the same, thinking what different have you….from the rest. As for me.. I believe that truly I am a master of clichés.
10/7/08
I cannot find the tombstone for you
I can tell you where to look for it.
Macabre died at the age of 90.
And the tomb of macabre lies where he was born.
At least that’s what people speculate.
He was fond of yellow marigolds.
“ Strew them all over my cold, dead body”
His dying wish was never fulfilled.
Take some along with you if you can.
Macabre was born an epileptic
His limbs were fragile and brittle
He liked painting landscapes
“ My sky is purple and My hills are pink”
His drunken gibberish.
Paint a little hut on his rugged breast..
Fill it with walnut brown colours…
His tombstone bears great secrets
Perhaps all the secrets known, unknown
Stolen mangoes, hidden treasure boxes smuggled letters, and secret lovers.
He kept them and died with them.
Who knows, Maybe you too will find whatever it is that you look for.
If you do find the tombstone…
And there you spot an envelope with my name written on it.
Don’t read it, I beg you, don’t open and read.
It’s a letter that I wrote to you.
The kinds which we write but never mean to send.
Macabre’s tomb guards it with great concealment.
And god knows what is scribbled in it. What doom shall beget if the contents are ever read…
“Dear, sweets
I harboured a little crush on you, and kept it for quite some time.
But that night as you slipped into my room with my roommate friend
Meekly requesting me for privacy…
A tiny chunk of my heart broke off…
And I have never loved you ever since…”
I can tell you where to look for it.
Macabre died at the age of 90.
And the tomb of macabre lies where he was born.
At least that’s what people speculate.
He was fond of yellow marigolds.
“ Strew them all over my cold, dead body”
His dying wish was never fulfilled.
Take some along with you if you can.
Macabre was born an epileptic
His limbs were fragile and brittle
He liked painting landscapes
“ My sky is purple and My hills are pink”
His drunken gibberish.
Paint a little hut on his rugged breast..
Fill it with walnut brown colours…
His tombstone bears great secrets
Perhaps all the secrets known, unknown
Stolen mangoes, hidden treasure boxes smuggled letters, and secret lovers.
He kept them and died with them.
Who knows, Maybe you too will find whatever it is that you look for.
If you do find the tombstone…
And there you spot an envelope with my name written on it.
Don’t read it, I beg you, don’t open and read.
It’s a letter that I wrote to you.
The kinds which we write but never mean to send.
Macabre’s tomb guards it with great concealment.
And god knows what is scribbled in it. What doom shall beget if the contents are ever read…
“Dear, sweets
I harboured a little crush on you, and kept it for quite some time.
But that night as you slipped into my room with my roommate friend
Meekly requesting me for privacy…
A tiny chunk of my heart broke off…
And I have never loved you ever since…”
9/29/08
9/27/08
9/17/08
You told me you played soccer. Could eat two plates of Kobe sizzlars all by yourself. Were scared of horror films, threw stones from your second storey window at people walking down the street, the street dogs alike. Hated gooseflesh on your skin. Liked poetry and women with round bottoms. Found books boring and mushrooms gave you rashes. Liked the smell of the sea and a lot of chilli in your food.
P.S: I tricked you into eating mushrooms once, in the dumplings that my mother served. I hoped you would catch an allergy and a disease and die of it eventually. And I never had to see you again…
P.S: I tricked you into eating mushrooms once, in the dumplings that my mother served. I hoped you would catch an allergy and a disease and die of it eventually. And I never had to see you again…
9/5/08
when love was love.. and the ones who trode in... fools!..it was then you told me for the first time..and i have been trying to understand ever since.
now wen we have outlived our lives...sailed away with the tides of time... i have been thinking of it again...as you bring it up again... in disquise of a casual comment.
but dear friend....
it is unscrutable. i can feel it with my heart and soul...but never really understand...
9/4/08
I don’t know whether it is pathological or any other kind that I am not aware of… or maybe just a habit in itself…as involuntary and unreasonable as it is meant to be. But my ‘habitual’ act of scribbling in my favourite Ms Word sometimes gets me thinking… is it a talent, an avocation or a dependency?
When I started writing for the first time rather consciously made an effort to write I believed that I had things to say…opinions to state and quite a hand at words to do so… I intended to display. I intended to outshine and show that I had a talent.
I guess we all have this thing about being special… and it cannot be underestimated by being called a wish…its more of a need which mostly becomes an obsession.
But as the times changed… life changed and migration happened. The experiences that I went through, the feelings that I encountered made me see myself in a way I cannot possibly imagine I could have. And it continues to change everyday.
Of all things great and small, I realised that writing had meant a lot more than I thought it did. It came with much simplicity and a lot of ease. It has neither a head nor any hands or feet and most of all was without an agenda. It had no lands to conquer or hearts to win. It is about many things and many people but has got nothing to do with any one else. It isn’t a thing to be bartered or a traded. It isn’t a weapon or a tool.
It is personal and intimate. More for me than any one else.
My true companion and perhaps the only one…
When I started writing for the first time rather consciously made an effort to write I believed that I had things to say…opinions to state and quite a hand at words to do so… I intended to display. I intended to outshine and show that I had a talent.
I guess we all have this thing about being special… and it cannot be underestimated by being called a wish…its more of a need which mostly becomes an obsession.
But as the times changed… life changed and migration happened. The experiences that I went through, the feelings that I encountered made me see myself in a way I cannot possibly imagine I could have. And it continues to change everyday.
Of all things great and small, I realised that writing had meant a lot more than I thought it did. It came with much simplicity and a lot of ease. It has neither a head nor any hands or feet and most of all was without an agenda. It had no lands to conquer or hearts to win. It is about many things and many people but has got nothing to do with any one else. It isn’t a thing to be bartered or a traded. It isn’t a weapon or a tool.
It is personal and intimate. More for me than any one else.
My true companion and perhaps the only one…
8/17/08
The city pressed upon me; shops, cinemas and business houses spoke in unambiguous accents. Only the people said nothing. They bought the evening papers, hurried to a tube station and disappeared. Ceasing to exist.
Move in living images, he said. Rhythms, shapes, colours, forms they are yours. They are all yours. In them is embodied the language with which the laws of the universe brighten existence.
And dance in musical phrases for him who waits.
Nissim Ezekiel.
Move in living images, he said. Rhythms, shapes, colours, forms they are yours. They are all yours. In them is embodied the language with which the laws of the universe brighten existence.
And dance in musical phrases for him who waits.
Nissim Ezekiel.
8/16/08
Mind and Matter
Of all other things that I owe to my bachelors degree in media… this one is far more important and probably my greatest accomplishment as a human being.
It is a revelation in all senses of the term…and I don’t know whether I came upon it all of a sudden or through gradual thought and speculation.
But one day right after my culture studies lecture, after a heavy and gruelling session of cultural debate with Lavanya, my professor. I said to myself:
“ A Thinking Individual is far more powerful than an Opinionated one. An opinion arises from a judgement and judging something that has always been an open ended concept is foolishness”
And everyday that I have lived since then, I have been trying to understand what I had realised that day in class. Its seeping into me grain to grain and leading me to a ( I wouldn’t say better coz I don’t find comparatives relevant enough anymore) but to a more meaningful understanding.
In the 15th century, Rene Descartes, the greatest humanist of all times said “ I think therefore I am”. These words made a lasting impression on my mind. I thought that it is most definitely the wisest thing ever said.
Then I read Karl Marx and he said… Economy determines Human Consciousness!
This statement totally contradicts Rene… it said that something as Involuntary and autonomous as human thought is infact none of these, its not a matter of aesthetics. It’s determined and driven by how one financially operates and makes his or her money.
It was not that difficult to identify the large extent of truth in it.(I deliberately choose not to say absolute truth coz again I don’t believe there is any such thing as it) as the facts lay in front of me.
I, Reema Bhattacharya wouldn’t be here writing this blog if not for the various economic turbulences in my country and inturn in the world which eventually led to social and cultural changes.
Sometimes when I read stories dating back to the Partition of India 1947, I wonder how important a role it has played in my life and in making me who I am. If not for the partition then my grandfather would never have migrated to this country from Bangladesh. Those were such atrocious times, thousands of people killed, women raped and evaded. What if I was in one of those wombs, which were slit open with swords? And yet for this bloody, political upheaval I have the opportunity to be a part the modernised, urban and prosperous India.
I think of Reformation and how it bred the spirit of capitalism. Where everything was thought to be an opportunity to be tapped into and in making the most of the resources one has, lied god’s will.
I think of the Industrial revolution and how it changed the world forever. Made the village folk migrate to cities and become the working class and the rich even more powerful and colonising. And these colonisers inturn came to my country invaded and exploited it but also brought along English education and large-scale production. The industrial revolution gave birth to democracy when the working class gaining economic power demanded rights to vote.
Humanism, feminism, fundamentalism all such ideologies, all great events in the history of the world are all spun in a web and have shaped me into being who I am and what I think.
I belong to a country, which is the oldest living civilization in the world. A country of multiculturalism. A country where each of its regions n parts has a different language, ethic and history. Apart from the freedom struggle the various parts of India don’t really have a common history. A country with no official language ( Hindi is not definitely one) and yet all is unified under the great umbrella of The Grand Indian Culture. And it is a formidable brand worldwide now. I am not criticising it but the whole thing and its paradox intimidates me.
No matter how much I study, analyse or speculate, I don’t intend to be the knower of all, as I know that it’s impossible to be so.
But there are just somethings that I know for sure, I wont do again.
I would never accept a seat if offered on a bus or train.
I would never be sceptical to talk about sex, politics and religion.
I would try never to be judgemental. I shall listen, understand where it’s coming from and accept.
I would never stare a weird eye to a person with a vernacular accent.
I would never condemn, criticise or patronise anything as if I were passing a verdict.
I would never save up to be a nice woman with a nice job and car to ride in with a well earning and doing husband, children added! Life’s more important than that. I have lots to achieve for myself and for the people who need to be helped.
I shall never settle for any profession or companion who doesn’t relate to my ideologies.
I would never stay in one place forever. The world shall be my oyster and I with my hands shall hold it up and explore it………
It is a revelation in all senses of the term…and I don’t know whether I came upon it all of a sudden or through gradual thought and speculation.
But one day right after my culture studies lecture, after a heavy and gruelling session of cultural debate with Lavanya, my professor. I said to myself:
“ A Thinking Individual is far more powerful than an Opinionated one. An opinion arises from a judgement and judging something that has always been an open ended concept is foolishness”
And everyday that I have lived since then, I have been trying to understand what I had realised that day in class. Its seeping into me grain to grain and leading me to a ( I wouldn’t say better coz I don’t find comparatives relevant enough anymore) but to a more meaningful understanding.
In the 15th century, Rene Descartes, the greatest humanist of all times said “ I think therefore I am”. These words made a lasting impression on my mind. I thought that it is most definitely the wisest thing ever said.
Then I read Karl Marx and he said… Economy determines Human Consciousness!
This statement totally contradicts Rene… it said that something as Involuntary and autonomous as human thought is infact none of these, its not a matter of aesthetics. It’s determined and driven by how one financially operates and makes his or her money.
It was not that difficult to identify the large extent of truth in it.(I deliberately choose not to say absolute truth coz again I don’t believe there is any such thing as it) as the facts lay in front of me.
I, Reema Bhattacharya wouldn’t be here writing this blog if not for the various economic turbulences in my country and inturn in the world which eventually led to social and cultural changes.
Sometimes when I read stories dating back to the Partition of India 1947, I wonder how important a role it has played in my life and in making me who I am. If not for the partition then my grandfather would never have migrated to this country from Bangladesh. Those were such atrocious times, thousands of people killed, women raped and evaded. What if I was in one of those wombs, which were slit open with swords? And yet for this bloody, political upheaval I have the opportunity to be a part the modernised, urban and prosperous India.
I think of Reformation and how it bred the spirit of capitalism. Where everything was thought to be an opportunity to be tapped into and in making the most of the resources one has, lied god’s will.
I think of the Industrial revolution and how it changed the world forever. Made the village folk migrate to cities and become the working class and the rich even more powerful and colonising. And these colonisers inturn came to my country invaded and exploited it but also brought along English education and large-scale production. The industrial revolution gave birth to democracy when the working class gaining economic power demanded rights to vote.
Humanism, feminism, fundamentalism all such ideologies, all great events in the history of the world are all spun in a web and have shaped me into being who I am and what I think.
I belong to a country, which is the oldest living civilization in the world. A country of multiculturalism. A country where each of its regions n parts has a different language, ethic and history. Apart from the freedom struggle the various parts of India don’t really have a common history. A country with no official language ( Hindi is not definitely one) and yet all is unified under the great umbrella of The Grand Indian Culture. And it is a formidable brand worldwide now. I am not criticising it but the whole thing and its paradox intimidates me.
No matter how much I study, analyse or speculate, I don’t intend to be the knower of all, as I know that it’s impossible to be so.
But there are just somethings that I know for sure, I wont do again.
I would never accept a seat if offered on a bus or train.
I would never be sceptical to talk about sex, politics and religion.
I would try never to be judgemental. I shall listen, understand where it’s coming from and accept.
I would never stare a weird eye to a person with a vernacular accent.
I would never condemn, criticise or patronise anything as if I were passing a verdict.
I would never save up to be a nice woman with a nice job and car to ride in with a well earning and doing husband, children added! Life’s more important than that. I have lots to achieve for myself and for the people who need to be helped.
I shall never settle for any profession or companion who doesn’t relate to my ideologies.
I would never stay in one place forever. The world shall be my oyster and I with my hands shall hold it up and explore it………
7/27/08
THE EPITAPH
10 Things I wish I had said to specific people…at various points in my life….(you cannot take names!..)
I had never acknowledged it. I had never known to acknowledge. Or perhaps I was living in denial while it lasted. But maybe the first instance of love in my life was with you. I detest the day you were taken away from me…and I have never cried ever since…now that many years have gone by… and you are no more to be… I still remember you…. You’re my first find….and my first loss! I shall keep you and remember you…hoping that you will come back to me one day but knowing that you wont…
You’re a bastard and you know it better than I do. I am glad…I never kissed u back!
There is no secret handshake to me… there is an ultimate pre-requisite but no secret handshake! Now that I have said it. You should know.
Don’t go away… though I may never come to say it… though I may wave to you good bye…if you choose to leave… but don’t go away..
I will take care of you!.. And isn’t that something I have always done?… then why are you still so afraid. Trust me if you truly can.. it is not an obligation. It’s a choice.. an involuntary choice. And I will choose you over anyone else!
Get over me…. don’t make me your sob story to gain sympathy or make me feel bad about myself!…the truth is you despise me. You always have. But now you cant hide it. I can smell the stench. If I have wronged you…. Then maybe you deserved it!
You are the most remarkable young woman I have ever seen or known. More than anything…I deeply respect you for who you are. If only you believed me… if only you believed me this one time…. Like you do for everything else. I cannot see you like this. You should know. I cannot see you like this. Listen to me. Believe me. If only….
Your shallow. You’re uncouth and ugly. There is nothing you hate or love because you cannot tell between the two. You’re too thick to know the difference. The only thing your good at is lying. And lying blatantly. I have no issues with what you are personally. But stop dragging me to your level. It enrages me more than anything else. I am not like you!. Get that straight!
Stop! Just put an end to it right now! No I cannot reciprocate. I don’t love you! I don’t want to lie to you either.
I really don’t know…. What were you getting at?… what do you try to say each time we speak to each other? I feel this… this extraordinary sense of love and you fill in most parts! But there is this strange divide that keeps me from you and you from me. I really do not know what is it all about!… I cannot deal with it..and I cannot let it be either.
I had never acknowledged it. I had never known to acknowledge. Or perhaps I was living in denial while it lasted. But maybe the first instance of love in my life was with you. I detest the day you were taken away from me…and I have never cried ever since…now that many years have gone by… and you are no more to be… I still remember you…. You’re my first find….and my first loss! I shall keep you and remember you…hoping that you will come back to me one day but knowing that you wont…
You’re a bastard and you know it better than I do. I am glad…I never kissed u back!
There is no secret handshake to me… there is an ultimate pre-requisite but no secret handshake! Now that I have said it. You should know.
Don’t go away… though I may never come to say it… though I may wave to you good bye…if you choose to leave… but don’t go away..
I will take care of you!.. And isn’t that something I have always done?… then why are you still so afraid. Trust me if you truly can.. it is not an obligation. It’s a choice.. an involuntary choice. And I will choose you over anyone else!
Get over me…. don’t make me your sob story to gain sympathy or make me feel bad about myself!…the truth is you despise me. You always have. But now you cant hide it. I can smell the stench. If I have wronged you…. Then maybe you deserved it!
You are the most remarkable young woman I have ever seen or known. More than anything…I deeply respect you for who you are. If only you believed me… if only you believed me this one time…. Like you do for everything else. I cannot see you like this. You should know. I cannot see you like this. Listen to me. Believe me. If only….
Your shallow. You’re uncouth and ugly. There is nothing you hate or love because you cannot tell between the two. You’re too thick to know the difference. The only thing your good at is lying. And lying blatantly. I have no issues with what you are personally. But stop dragging me to your level. It enrages me more than anything else. I am not like you!. Get that straight!
Stop! Just put an end to it right now! No I cannot reciprocate. I don’t love you! I don’t want to lie to you either.
I really don’t know…. What were you getting at?… what do you try to say each time we speak to each other? I feel this… this extraordinary sense of love and you fill in most parts! But there is this strange divide that keeps me from you and you from me. I really do not know what is it all about!… I cannot deal with it..and I cannot let it be either.
7/13/08
DARK GLASSES
Slip into that favourite cocktail dress of yours, once again
Don the jewels that match your emerald eyes,
Puff some rouse and colour those cheeks with splendour
Fair maiden, you look lovely tonight.
Slip into that favourite cocktail dress of yours, once again
Go dancing in the winter rain with charming men by your side
As your high heeled shoes twirl in twirls round the night
And your hair runs loose from its gaited might…
Watch the eyes that follow them, hear the hearts which beat..
Fair maiden, you look lovely tonight.
Slip into that favourite cocktail dress of yours, once again
The rum looks fine and nice for a lady’s taste
Hold your glass firm and high and Raise a toast to Love and Life.
Though love sickens and life dampens by the day
Fair Maiden they are hidden from your sight.
As wit and humour befail the charming men
As the night progresses into the hollow depth of the night
You sit by the bar; you laugh at all the silly jokes you hear…
And soon its time for the last dance of the year.
As your high heeled shoes twirl in twirls round the night
And your hair runs wild from its gaited might…
Watch your eyes, they droop.. as the kohl melts away
Watch the pallor reappear on your roused skin
Look around you and see those vile men who on New Year’s Eve boasted of their vain love
Lye wasted and drunk…calling on to other women.
Slip into that favourite cocktail dress of yours, once again
You look lovely as you did in all the other lovely nights…
As love sickens and life dampens by the day
Fair maiden, wear your pair of dark glasses again
And Let them be hidden from your sight….
Don the jewels that match your emerald eyes,
Puff some rouse and colour those cheeks with splendour
Fair maiden, you look lovely tonight.
Slip into that favourite cocktail dress of yours, once again
Go dancing in the winter rain with charming men by your side
As your high heeled shoes twirl in twirls round the night
And your hair runs loose from its gaited might…
Watch the eyes that follow them, hear the hearts which beat..
Fair maiden, you look lovely tonight.
Slip into that favourite cocktail dress of yours, once again
The rum looks fine and nice for a lady’s taste
Hold your glass firm and high and Raise a toast to Love and Life.
Though love sickens and life dampens by the day
Fair Maiden they are hidden from your sight.
As wit and humour befail the charming men
As the night progresses into the hollow depth of the night
You sit by the bar; you laugh at all the silly jokes you hear…
And soon its time for the last dance of the year.
As your high heeled shoes twirl in twirls round the night
And your hair runs wild from its gaited might…
Watch your eyes, they droop.. as the kohl melts away
Watch the pallor reappear on your roused skin
Look around you and see those vile men who on New Year’s Eve boasted of their vain love
Lye wasted and drunk…calling on to other women.
Slip into that favourite cocktail dress of yours, once again
You look lovely as you did in all the other lovely nights…
As love sickens and life dampens by the day
Fair maiden, wear your pair of dark glasses again
And Let them be hidden from your sight….
7/9/08
Nonsense’s Muse.
When your heart is empty, your head is empty!… The proverbial cliché inspite of being such a cliché is so darn true! When heart’s empty every thing else is meaningless.
This is not a night of bliss, I am not at peace.
I had a rough day, had a fight with my parents, a cold discussion with a Luke warm acquaintance, struggled my way through crowded trains and buses and the rains added on to make matters worse.
The events of the day have caused me to become refractory and annoyed, I argued, I fought and I complained. Life isn’t fair, there is no acceptance and there is no complacence, I said. But what I face now is a trouble greater than all, the most difficult and distressing..
What I face now is the very dreaded writer’s block, which is again if I am a writer. Considering the fact that my writing has not exactly eulogised nature’s beauty or the futility of human relationships, banished hunger and poverty or changed the world. Neither am I sure whether all writing is intended for that solely. However, though not of the latter but I am sure of it being a block of sorts. See, the thing with me is that I have always had words with me to an extent that I overused them sometimes. Every emotion brought along a splurge of words to describe it. Words were my only folly and in them was my respite.
But today is not like all those days. It seems as if a niche hole has been carved out in my heart and soul and I can clearly look through. Thoughts have not ceased but thinking with words has. So however gravely I feel like expressing my dejection today, I cannot. For some obscure, vague reason, I am not being able to. It’s like going for a funeral of your closest friend and realising that your tears are stuck. They have refrained from flowing and you cannot express your grief. And trust me its worse than the loss by death.
Am I turning into an intellectual lightweight? Or was I always one? Or is this what they call a block? although I don’t trust what ‘they’ say in the first place.
This is all very paralysing. It’s a strange confinement. I feel entrapped within myself. The inability to write, to be inspired to write, to be moved enough to be inspired makes me feel very…. Inadequate. And I hope it changes soon. Changes for good.
I think we all need a Muse, a prompt that stirs you and stirs in you…. Words otherwise are a façade only and the bubble might burst any moment.
This is not a night of bliss, I am not at peace.
I had a rough day, had a fight with my parents, a cold discussion with a Luke warm acquaintance, struggled my way through crowded trains and buses and the rains added on to make matters worse.
The events of the day have caused me to become refractory and annoyed, I argued, I fought and I complained. Life isn’t fair, there is no acceptance and there is no complacence, I said. But what I face now is a trouble greater than all, the most difficult and distressing..
What I face now is the very dreaded writer’s block, which is again if I am a writer. Considering the fact that my writing has not exactly eulogised nature’s beauty or the futility of human relationships, banished hunger and poverty or changed the world. Neither am I sure whether all writing is intended for that solely. However, though not of the latter but I am sure of it being a block of sorts. See, the thing with me is that I have always had words with me to an extent that I overused them sometimes. Every emotion brought along a splurge of words to describe it. Words were my only folly and in them was my respite.
But today is not like all those days. It seems as if a niche hole has been carved out in my heart and soul and I can clearly look through. Thoughts have not ceased but thinking with words has. So however gravely I feel like expressing my dejection today, I cannot. For some obscure, vague reason, I am not being able to. It’s like going for a funeral of your closest friend and realising that your tears are stuck. They have refrained from flowing and you cannot express your grief. And trust me its worse than the loss by death.
Am I turning into an intellectual lightweight? Or was I always one? Or is this what they call a block? although I don’t trust what ‘they’ say in the first place.
This is all very paralysing. It’s a strange confinement. I feel entrapped within myself. The inability to write, to be inspired to write, to be moved enough to be inspired makes me feel very…. Inadequate. And I hope it changes soon. Changes for good.
I think we all need a Muse, a prompt that stirs you and stirs in you…. Words otherwise are a façade only and the bubble might burst any moment.
Imagine a night, a night sky and a night sky dotted with stars.
Imagine looking at the starry, bright lights in the sky…
And you stare at it fixedly, mesmerised yet again…
Quizzing through all the words in your mind, all the words you have ever known, ever learnt, to find the exact one which accurately describes what you feel right now.
And you can’t find it, cant think of it, as always.
The wonder of it all amazes you, and you are lost before you know
Tracing the trails of the stars and your thoughts that follow.
Whenever, I think of Life as an entity and have this sudden urge to sum it all up and to reason it. All heaven and earth, happiness and grief, success and failure, good and bad, war and peace, the rich and the poor, love, hatred and me…. how it all fits and how do I fit in it…this is how I can think of.
Life is like looking at the night sky, seeing the fireworks and watching the great thunder dragons unroll in front of you…
The way you cannot reason its magnificence, you cannot reason your life as well, the wonder and the thrill that it incites in you…. Life does to you the same…
Imagine looking at the starry, bright lights in the sky…
And you stare at it fixedly, mesmerised yet again…
Quizzing through all the words in your mind, all the words you have ever known, ever learnt, to find the exact one which accurately describes what you feel right now.
And you can’t find it, cant think of it, as always.
The wonder of it all amazes you, and you are lost before you know
Tracing the trails of the stars and your thoughts that follow.
Whenever, I think of Life as an entity and have this sudden urge to sum it all up and to reason it. All heaven and earth, happiness and grief, success and failure, good and bad, war and peace, the rich and the poor, love, hatred and me…. how it all fits and how do I fit in it…this is how I can think of.
Life is like looking at the night sky, seeing the fireworks and watching the great thunder dragons unroll in front of you…
The way you cannot reason its magnificence, you cannot reason your life as well, the wonder and the thrill that it incites in you…. Life does to you the same…
THE VERVE......
I have arrived…
Rather, reached…
I can see where it ends now…
I can see the end…
No, it isn’t where I began
Life hasn’t moved in a circle…
A quest you see was not my purpose…
All I saw was a long road ahead of me..
And I took to the road…
I walked it….
There are a million things I had seen,
A million things I have known…
Yet there are questions in my mind….
And I wonder till the day…
There are a million things I had wished for
A million wishes came true…
Some didn’t
Yet I haven’t given up on wishing…
There are things to wish for even today…
I am neither cold nor warm…
I am alone but not lonesome…
I am not the wisest that ever existed..
I don’t feel foolish either..
Life doesn’t seem insatiable
It seems fulfilled…
It feels complete…
I never got to know what it was all about…
But I lived it never the less
And I must say… I lived it well
I can see the end now
It isn’t familiar…
It isn’t home…
But I can see where it ends now…
I can feel what is felt…
A quest you see was not my purpose…
All I saw was a long road ahead of me.
And I took to the road…
I walked it all the way.
Rather, reached…
I can see where it ends now…
I can see the end…
No, it isn’t where I began
Life hasn’t moved in a circle…
A quest you see was not my purpose…
All I saw was a long road ahead of me..
And I took to the road…
I walked it….
There are a million things I had seen,
A million things I have known…
Yet there are questions in my mind….
And I wonder till the day…
There are a million things I had wished for
A million wishes came true…
Some didn’t
Yet I haven’t given up on wishing…
There are things to wish for even today…
I am neither cold nor warm…
I am alone but not lonesome…
I am not the wisest that ever existed..
I don’t feel foolish either..
Life doesn’t seem insatiable
It seems fulfilled…
It feels complete…
I never got to know what it was all about…
But I lived it never the less
And I must say… I lived it well
I can see the end now
It isn’t familiar…
It isn’t home…
But I can see where it ends now…
I can feel what is felt…
A quest you see was not my purpose…
All I saw was a long road ahead of me.
And I took to the road…
I walked it all the way.
There’s a thought for every thought
A word for every word…
There’s a song for New found love
A song for separation…
There’s a story behind each new story
There’s an end that ends every tale…
There are superlatives to describe all passion..
Bob Dylan to speak about the blues….
But the reason why I was born
Is unknown to me…
And loving the lady I am born from
Is infact a greater mystery…
I wonder what it must have felt like to held by her for the first time..
Somewhere deep within my nascent senses and my newly born perception and abilities…. I must have felt something……
When I was born, a mother, in her was born too.
I wonder how she felt
I wonder how it made her look that first instant..
For a young woman who took life as an adventure
Was I a much desired end or the new beginning..
Was she overwhelmed? Was she scared? Was she prepared?
Can you ever prepare yourself for the first glance of motherhood?
What was it, how was it…. I shall never know.
But that moment isn’t lost… perhaps its safer in obscurity..
Just some part of Maa and myself that I cannot reach….I cannot know…
And thus I cannot change…
Love you Maa hopefully just as much as u love me..
To Maa, who taught me not to sleep hind side up, lest I get bad dreams…
I never corrected that habit..She loved me never the less…..
A word for every word…
There’s a song for New found love
A song for separation…
There’s a story behind each new story
There’s an end that ends every tale…
There are superlatives to describe all passion..
Bob Dylan to speak about the blues….
But the reason why I was born
Is unknown to me…
And loving the lady I am born from
Is infact a greater mystery…
I wonder what it must have felt like to held by her for the first time..
Somewhere deep within my nascent senses and my newly born perception and abilities…. I must have felt something……
When I was born, a mother, in her was born too.
I wonder how she felt
I wonder how it made her look that first instant..
For a young woman who took life as an adventure
Was I a much desired end or the new beginning..
Was she overwhelmed? Was she scared? Was she prepared?
Can you ever prepare yourself for the first glance of motherhood?
What was it, how was it…. I shall never know.
But that moment isn’t lost… perhaps its safer in obscurity..
Just some part of Maa and myself that I cannot reach….I cannot know…
And thus I cannot change…
Love you Maa hopefully just as much as u love me..
To Maa, who taught me not to sleep hind side up, lest I get bad dreams…
I never corrected that habit..She loved me never the less…..
5/14/08
Reply:
I really don’t know which is more difficult,
Holding on or letting go
I don’t know which is more important
Holding on or letting go
I do know that both require a lot of effort
And may be I haven’t tried hard enough
And thus I have failed…
I could not hold on to you…
And now I cannot let go….
I will not plead
I will not explain
I did not hold on to you…
And now I cannot let go….
Holding on or letting go
I don’t know which is more important
Holding on or letting go
I do know that both require a lot of effort
And may be I haven’t tried hard enough
And thus I have failed…
I could not hold on to you…
And now I cannot let go….
I will not plead
I will not explain
I did not hold on to you…
And now I cannot let go….
5/13/08
From The girl who loved once upon a time....
Jaake shokole mone rekheche… taake aamar mone nei…
Jaar kobita raatre shuniye baba ghum pariyeche…
Jaar gaan, jaar golpo pore mone hoyeche… ei jiboner mule
Aaj taake aamar mone nei….
Taar kono sriti nei…
Taar kono gurutto nei…
Aamar jibone….
Shotti aami onek dur chole eshe chi…
Bhule gechi tomake…
Bhule gechi aamake!
Happy Birthday neways….
Jaar kobita raatre shuniye baba ghum pariyeche…
Jaar gaan, jaar golpo pore mone hoyeche… ei jiboner mule
Aaj taake aamar mone nei….
Taar kono sriti nei…
Taar kono gurutto nei…
Aamar jibone….
Shotti aami onek dur chole eshe chi…
Bhule gechi tomake…
Bhule gechi aamake!
Happy Birthday neways….
tagged!
8 things I am passionate about:
Self
Life…
Literature…
Religion
Music..
Bike rides..
Dance
Day dreaming
8 things I wanna do b4 I die
Live eight times over each day….
8 things I say often!
Huh?
Fcuk
U suc
Dhut teri!
Indeed
Mora ekta!
Wat nonsense!
Gawd! I swear so much!
8 books I have read recently
Shantaram
Tokyo cancelled
The culture code
Ruskin bond collection of short stories
Unaccustomed earth
Gawd!!... eight nothings!
8 songs I can hear over n over again
Serve somebody ( Bob Dylan and almost all of his… any of his..)
Road tripping ( RHCP)
Imagine (lenon)
A song for u (jack Johnson)
Bad news
Diamond n rust (joan beaz)
Jamaican farewell (harry bella fonta)
Can u give me sanctuary ( doors)
Aamar shonar horin chaai! ( papa's verson of Rabindranath Thakur)
Krishnokoli aami taarei boli ( Rabi Thakur again)
8 things that attract me abt mah best frnds!
Changeability
Caprice
Friends-4-the-momentness
Ex idealist turned I-hate-this-world-wild child turned drunk-philosophers eventually 2 become sobered down-sophisticated-citizens commenting on weather, politics, hunger and global warming!
Da fact dat I no so less…of them
8 ppl who shud do dis tab!
Minakshi
Neha
Rik
Tania
Aamina
Arjun
Self
Life…
Literature…
Religion
Music..
Bike rides..
Dance
Day dreaming
8 things I wanna do b4 I die
Live eight times over each day….
8 things I say often!
Huh?
Fcuk
U suc
Dhut teri!
Indeed
Mora ekta!
Wat nonsense!
Gawd! I swear so much!
8 books I have read recently
Shantaram
Tokyo cancelled
The culture code
Ruskin bond collection of short stories
Unaccustomed earth
Gawd!!... eight nothings!
8 songs I can hear over n over again
Serve somebody ( Bob Dylan and almost all of his… any of his..)
Road tripping ( RHCP)
Imagine (lenon)
A song for u (jack Johnson)
Bad news
Diamond n rust (joan beaz)
Jamaican farewell (harry bella fonta)
Can u give me sanctuary ( doors)
Aamar shonar horin chaai! ( papa's verson of Rabindranath Thakur)
Krishnokoli aami taarei boli ( Rabi Thakur again)
8 things that attract me abt mah best frnds!
Changeability
Caprice
Friends-4-the-momentness
Ex idealist turned I-hate-this-world-wild child turned drunk-philosophers eventually 2 become sobered down-sophisticated-citizens commenting on weather, politics, hunger and global warming!
Da fact dat I no so less…of them
8 ppl who shud do dis tab!
Minakshi
Neha
Rik
Tania
Aamina
Arjun
4/20/08
The adventures of Miss M
[ P.S I am one of those people who are very self conscious or maybe off late I have grown into one.
Everything I say or do has to totally make sense. Be correct]
Andheri station. 7.30 in the evening. People rushing past. One has to see it to believe it. Scores of people. As if the war is over and men are returning home. Just with busy and gloomy faces instead of the happy ones. Me returning from work as well. Dazzled and confused by the over whelming traffic. Wont let it show. Have to look smart and an experienced traveller. Otherwise it’s a cue for the pick pockets. Train’s coming. The lady announces. People go ballistic and scurry past faster. There’ll be another train in less than 5 mins. People go ballistic neways… scurry past faster neways. I don’t . The reason being obvious. I am intelligent. However, I had to show that even I am chasing the train. So I run like I am being chased. What happens next?.. well… I trip and fall… people around me…come to a stand still… “laga to nahi beta…” “are you okay?”… my ears turn red. As they always do whenever I am embarrassed. I get up slowly with some help and avoiding any eye contact. Realise that I have torn my sandals. No one in this world can talk me out of wearing heels. I just wont give up on them. My ears red. My face red. Unable to control myself I break into giggles. My fellow on lookers start laughing as well. Suddenly the gloom from our faces is gone. The exhaustion is gone. I return home with my torn slippers in my hand. Bare feet. Made many acquaintances. I accidentally bump into them once in a while.
[P.S The people who know me… know that there are very few occasions when I do things right. And that I make the sweetest clueless faces when I goof up. Whenever I goof up]
Everything I say or do has to totally make sense. Be correct]
Andheri station. 7.30 in the evening. People rushing past. One has to see it to believe it. Scores of people. As if the war is over and men are returning home. Just with busy and gloomy faces instead of the happy ones. Me returning from work as well. Dazzled and confused by the over whelming traffic. Wont let it show. Have to look smart and an experienced traveller. Otherwise it’s a cue for the pick pockets. Train’s coming. The lady announces. People go ballistic and scurry past faster. There’ll be another train in less than 5 mins. People go ballistic neways… scurry past faster neways. I don’t . The reason being obvious. I am intelligent. However, I had to show that even I am chasing the train. So I run like I am being chased. What happens next?.. well… I trip and fall… people around me…come to a stand still… “laga to nahi beta…” “are you okay?”… my ears turn red. As they always do whenever I am embarrassed. I get up slowly with some help and avoiding any eye contact. Realise that I have torn my sandals. No one in this world can talk me out of wearing heels. I just wont give up on them. My ears red. My face red. Unable to control myself I break into giggles. My fellow on lookers start laughing as well. Suddenly the gloom from our faces is gone. The exhaustion is gone. I return home with my torn slippers in my hand. Bare feet. Made many acquaintances. I accidentally bump into them once in a while.
[P.S The people who know me… know that there are very few occasions when I do things right. And that I make the sweetest clueless faces when I goof up. Whenever I goof up]
4/19/08
4/16/08
So much for Happieness…
Well… lets see
Way past midnight..
A bed
A book
Preferably fiction or fantasy
Dim lights…
Or
Ms word
Pen and paper would do also
Pensiveness
Aloofness
And beautiful words to express it
Summer…
Stormy and rainy afternoons of summer…
A favourite song
Bob Dylan would be wonderful
Any other good song would be great as well..
Journeys
A window seat fought and elbowed for..
A view
Concrete or Green
Moving and changing shapes every moment
Favourite street food
Unhygienic and full of germs..
Love
Purely strange
Partly stupid
A lot of indulgence
Lacks understanding leaving most to imagination
Well lived
Never regretted…
Even at the loss of it….
So much for happiness…Every year thousands of people kill themselves thinking that they are not happy.. well I could say that I am happy…
Way past midnight..
A bed
A book
Preferably fiction or fantasy
Dim lights…
Or
Ms word
Pen and paper would do also
Pensiveness
Aloofness
And beautiful words to express it
Summer…
Stormy and rainy afternoons of summer…
A favourite song
Bob Dylan would be wonderful
Any other good song would be great as well..
Journeys
A window seat fought and elbowed for..
A view
Concrete or Green
Moving and changing shapes every moment
Favourite street food
Unhygienic and full of germs..
Love
Purely strange
Partly stupid
A lot of indulgence
Lacks understanding leaving most to imagination
Well lived
Never regretted…
Even at the loss of it….
So much for happiness…Every year thousands of people kill themselves thinking that they are not happy.. well I could say that I am happy…
A song for my song
Days
Happy days and sad days…
Good days and bad days…
Days of great achievements..
Days, which sink to the puddles of the commonplace…
And all through…
It ain’t a lover to love.. or a friend to understand…
A song is what we need…
A song is what we have…
Songs
Hum them while you’re driving…
Hum them when you’re bored…
Hum the romantic ones while you flirt..
Hum the beautiful ones when you’re alone…
Sing them when the dawn brakes…
Sing them when dark clouds gather…
Leave the old on a singsong note…
Only to begin another…
Later on play the old rhyme again…
Reminds you that you have memories…
In the voice of the one who leads
In the voice of the one who follows
Pied piper or peter pan..
The dictator or the democrat…
All and anon…
Have their favourite songs…
Favourites…
The better shall always be…and shall always remain..
Varied moods, varied emotions and varied lives….
A favourite for each varied one..
So this is ode to all my favourites songs…. The songs that have kept me going all through and the ones that linger in my mind always. The songs I deeply love….
Thank you…
Happy days and sad days…
Good days and bad days…
Days of great achievements..
Days, which sink to the puddles of the commonplace…
And all through…
It ain’t a lover to love.. or a friend to understand…
A song is what we need…
A song is what we have…
Songs
Hum them while you’re driving…
Hum them when you’re bored…
Hum the romantic ones while you flirt..
Hum the beautiful ones when you’re alone…
Sing them when the dawn brakes…
Sing them when dark clouds gather…
Leave the old on a singsong note…
Only to begin another…
Later on play the old rhyme again…
Reminds you that you have memories…
In the voice of the one who leads
In the voice of the one who follows
Pied piper or peter pan..
The dictator or the democrat…
All and anon…
Have their favourite songs…
Favourites…
The better shall always be…and shall always remain..
Varied moods, varied emotions and varied lives….
A favourite for each varied one..
So this is ode to all my favourites songs…. The songs that have kept me going all through and the ones that linger in my mind always. The songs I deeply love….
Thank you…
3/23/08
Last act...Last scene
Lady : I think its going to rain today…..
Gentle man : how do you know..?
Lady : The sky…
Gentle man : The sky…?
Lady : uhuh…
Gentle man: those are drifting clouds mah lady… they wouldn’t pour here….
Lady : but see how the sky looks…. hefty and so full of itself…just the way it does before
It rains…..
Gentleman : drifting clouds Marie…deceitful drifting fellas….
Lady : deception is a tool more handy to man….than to nature…
Gentleman : man is what he is at nature’s behest…
Lady : That’s an excuse more than an explanation….
Gentleman : it ain’t
Lady : it is…. It is cynicism
Gentleman : big words!… quite capture the imagination…don’t they…
Lady : big words when used correctly…quite capture the imagination…my dear
Gentleman : so you know all about words and their meaning
Lady : I know what I know…and I hope to know more…
Gentleman : if you know all then why do you leave things to hope?
Lady : I have no liaisons with hope… it ain’t a mortal counterpart you see..
Gentleman : then what is it…?… a convenient escape route?
Lady : it something as opposed to knowing….higher than believing and weaker than
Desiring…..yet sometimes knowing and hoping become the same…
Gentleman : Dramatic Romanticism….
Lady : No I ain’t romanticising, I am just hoping that It rains today…..and I know
That it will…..
3/20/08
2/20/08
2/19/08
What we call Reflections
They say that all happy stories are the same but every unhappy story isn’t… it always has a new thing to say… a different point to make….
But don’t all stories begin on an unhappy note and end on a happy one…
Isn’t the unhappiness only to add the element of difference to each story…
Isn’t it in the nature of grief to eventually transcend into joy?…
Many would agree…Many wouldn’t.
For the past few days this is what I have been thinking about but even amidst my deepest thoughts and to my best judgement I cannot come up with anything… or rather something close to satisfactory…
“ Words are meant to express oneself…to bring out the ambiguous world inside of you.. Speak them with clarity, write them with truthfulness and honesty, be humble and believe in their humility…Reema..
Don’t twist and turn them, don’t complicate them unnecessarily….
You hide behind your words my dear….
But a day will come when your seemingly wise words will deceive you instead..
And you will be lost behind them forever…
Don’t be a writer of words Reema…. Be the storyteller you always wanted to be….
A delightful storyteller…. that’s what writing is all about…” said a certain Mrs Canteenwaala who happens to be my lit teacher and my most loved lady… when she read a piece of mine….
What she said was not merely an analysis… it had meant much more to me… it had trickled deep down and triggered a volley of emotions in me…
Her comment given with the events that took place in the past brought out a different kind of realisation in me…a kind I was not aware of….
And I questioned myself…
What has my rationality given me?
Hasn’t it taken away much more?
Isn’t all this articulation mere pretence?
O how conveniently I lie to myself… how nicely and skilfully I pacify and make amends… make compromises pretending to myself that I don’t.
I am indeed a make believer… and my own illustrative and extravagant words have made an unfailing irony out of me….
And this façade of poignancy that I put up…
it is no more than a folly..
And today at the event of a distant some one being ill and going through a lot of pain..
At the sight of a dear one shedding tears of grief and hope for her beloved…
I would say that I am sad…
That this melancholy has taken over me and I am overwhelmed…
It has invoked in me…. my inner disharmony, my inner conflict with the choices that I have to make and my reluctance in making them…..
I am confused with disbelief, my hypocrisy stands right in front of me…. staring at my face accusingly.
From the time I was born…I have been told that whether its virtue or vile…. I need to believe in either one of them… as I grew older I came to realise that it actually didn’t matter much as to what I believed in…as long as I had a belief! That it is all what is required of me….. and in the process have I built this canopy around and over wherein I have made both sorrow and joy impervious to me…wherein I sit silently... calmly sipping my cup of coffee over great loses and telling the rest of the world and myself that “ it doesn’t matter”. Reading out to myself lofty and fervalent poetry to disillusion myself …dissuade myself from acknowledging that fact that I am heart broken..that I have lost out on love.
Yes I do have a belief…and my belief is that I can fix everything, that I shall never let go of my disposition that I will always do what needs to be done…..
But now all I can see in myself is a void….an ill-fated void in the name of belief !…
And this void stretches far beyond me….it reaches to each and every one who is aggrieved tonight….
Probably that is why I see the same plea of helplessness in the eyes of my dear friend as I see in mine…
I hear similar cries of denial from that distant acquaintance as I put mine to silence.
So as I suffer silently
He does too
And she does as well…
Perhaps we all do
Perhaps this is how we are all built…
This grief is heavy, this grief is hard but it is also Healing….. This storm will die down like all others…. And all what is lost shall be found again….
It will bring along with it acceptance and deliverance.
The hatred, the anger and the fear will perish
And eventually everything will fall in its right place, everything will be fine… we will live and we will learn...…
And “ The happy ending” no matter how cliché it becomes with time … will always remain the undying favourite….
Then one day perhaps when I will be able to live as boldly as I laugh…. Love as vividly as I dream….
I shall remind my self…. That it is indeed in the nature of unhappy stories to end on a joyful note…
That unhappiness is momentary and is used to add the element of difference in our stories…..
Love
Reema
But don’t all stories begin on an unhappy note and end on a happy one…
Isn’t the unhappiness only to add the element of difference to each story…
Isn’t it in the nature of grief to eventually transcend into joy?…
Many would agree…Many wouldn’t.
For the past few days this is what I have been thinking about but even amidst my deepest thoughts and to my best judgement I cannot come up with anything… or rather something close to satisfactory…
“ Words are meant to express oneself…to bring out the ambiguous world inside of you.. Speak them with clarity, write them with truthfulness and honesty, be humble and believe in their humility…Reema..
Don’t twist and turn them, don’t complicate them unnecessarily….
You hide behind your words my dear….
But a day will come when your seemingly wise words will deceive you instead..
And you will be lost behind them forever…
Don’t be a writer of words Reema…. Be the storyteller you always wanted to be….
A delightful storyteller…. that’s what writing is all about…” said a certain Mrs Canteenwaala who happens to be my lit teacher and my most loved lady… when she read a piece of mine….
What she said was not merely an analysis… it had meant much more to me… it had trickled deep down and triggered a volley of emotions in me…
Her comment given with the events that took place in the past brought out a different kind of realisation in me…a kind I was not aware of….
And I questioned myself…
What has my rationality given me?
Hasn’t it taken away much more?
Isn’t all this articulation mere pretence?
O how conveniently I lie to myself… how nicely and skilfully I pacify and make amends… make compromises pretending to myself that I don’t.
I am indeed a make believer… and my own illustrative and extravagant words have made an unfailing irony out of me….
And this façade of poignancy that I put up…
it is no more than a folly..
And today at the event of a distant some one being ill and going through a lot of pain..
At the sight of a dear one shedding tears of grief and hope for her beloved…
I would say that I am sad…
That this melancholy has taken over me and I am overwhelmed…
It has invoked in me…. my inner disharmony, my inner conflict with the choices that I have to make and my reluctance in making them…..
I am confused with disbelief, my hypocrisy stands right in front of me…. staring at my face accusingly.
From the time I was born…I have been told that whether its virtue or vile…. I need to believe in either one of them… as I grew older I came to realise that it actually didn’t matter much as to what I believed in…as long as I had a belief! That it is all what is required of me….. and in the process have I built this canopy around and over wherein I have made both sorrow and joy impervious to me…wherein I sit silently... calmly sipping my cup of coffee over great loses and telling the rest of the world and myself that “ it doesn’t matter”. Reading out to myself lofty and fervalent poetry to disillusion myself …dissuade myself from acknowledging that fact that I am heart broken..that I have lost out on love.
Yes I do have a belief…and my belief is that I can fix everything, that I shall never let go of my disposition that I will always do what needs to be done…..
But now all I can see in myself is a void….an ill-fated void in the name of belief !…
And this void stretches far beyond me….it reaches to each and every one who is aggrieved tonight….
Probably that is why I see the same plea of helplessness in the eyes of my dear friend as I see in mine…
I hear similar cries of denial from that distant acquaintance as I put mine to silence.
So as I suffer silently
He does too
And she does as well…
Perhaps we all do
Perhaps this is how we are all built…
This grief is heavy, this grief is hard but it is also Healing….. This storm will die down like all others…. And all what is lost shall be found again….
It will bring along with it acceptance and deliverance.
The hatred, the anger and the fear will perish
And eventually everything will fall in its right place, everything will be fine… we will live and we will learn...…
And “ The happy ending” no matter how cliché it becomes with time … will always remain the undying favourite….
Then one day perhaps when I will be able to live as boldly as I laugh…. Love as vividly as I dream….
I shall remind my self…. That it is indeed in the nature of unhappy stories to end on a joyful note…
That unhappiness is momentary and is used to add the element of difference in our stories…..
Love
Reema
2/11/08
Of evenings unnamed
… It was a moonlit night
Stars shining
Breezing
Windy cold winds
An unexpected winter in a city unknown to seasons
The city
A lovely city
Establishments..
Monuments..
And Achievements…
A city where the night fires never burn out
Of travels and voyages..
Pilgrims
And Sinners
Immigrants
And Dreamers
Two lost souls
Obscured in ancience
What is to be?
Of what has become
Oblivious of both
Of what binds them….
Of what separates…
Of what is lost…
Of what remains….
Unknown …
All of it unknown…
One speaks of the Rain..
Ceaseless
And endless
Clouds….
Dim
Silent
Immense
He speaks of lands
Far off lands..
Grassy
Vegetative
And green
He speaks of the dust
Of the cowboys
Their stories
Legends..
And myths
He speaks of forbidden love
And of forbidden women
Sinister glances
And expressions….
Love..
Their love…
Unabashed love..
Uncontrolled love
Fake love..
Fickle love..
Stale love…
Passionate fakeness..
Passionate love….
Yet there’s the love we all look for…
Yes there’s the love forever…
The other one speaks of the city of temples
Of sculptures
And sculptors..
Artisans
And Courtesans …
Musicians
And poetesses..
She speaks of the chandeliers..
Tinkle tankle..
Shapely
Neatly
Glass cut sounds of crystal
Unmatched in clarity
Grandeur
Burning bright
Immaculate magnificence.
She says…she likes looking at them
Staring at them for hours..
She says she likes the flute
It reminds her of something
A song probably..
Old
And cherished
A memory that fades not.
She talks of dreams
Her dreams
Vivid ….
Blurred….
Hated ….
Coveted ….
Dreams of deep slumber
Dreams of wakefulness
He says he cheated his lover
She says love in turn deceived him
Therefore he looks for what he had found already
She says
Its proposition
A manoeuvred tragedy
His watchful eyes cannot see
Every day that ends
Every moment that passes by
Love deceives
Future conceals
And life teaches..
And we…
We yield to each and every
We yield to all..
A moonlit night it was…
Stars shining
Two lost souls
Unknown to the world
And to each other unknown
Star gazing
And Conversing
Parallel conversations..
Seamless
Loveless
And luckless…..
Dedicated to a splendid evening spent with a dear friend on the gliding rocks of Nariman Point.
Stars shining
Breezing
Windy cold winds
An unexpected winter in a city unknown to seasons
The city
A lovely city
Establishments..
Monuments..
And Achievements…
A city where the night fires never burn out
Of travels and voyages..
Pilgrims
And Sinners
Immigrants
And Dreamers
Two lost souls
Obscured in ancience
What is to be?
Of what has become
Oblivious of both
Of what binds them….
Of what separates…
Of what is lost…
Of what remains….
Unknown …
All of it unknown…
One speaks of the Rain..
Ceaseless
And endless
Clouds….
Dim
Silent
Immense
He speaks of lands
Far off lands..
Grassy
Vegetative
And green
He speaks of the dust
Of the cowboys
Their stories
Legends..
And myths
He speaks of forbidden love
And of forbidden women
Sinister glances
And expressions….
Love..
Their love…
Unabashed love..
Uncontrolled love
Fake love..
Fickle love..
Stale love…
Passionate fakeness..
Passionate love….
Yet there’s the love we all look for…
Yes there’s the love forever…
The other one speaks of the city of temples
Of sculptures
And sculptors..
Artisans
And Courtesans …
Musicians
And poetesses..
She speaks of the chandeliers..
Tinkle tankle..
Shapely
Neatly
Glass cut sounds of crystal
Unmatched in clarity
Grandeur
Burning bright
Immaculate magnificence.
She says…she likes looking at them
Staring at them for hours..
She says she likes the flute
It reminds her of something
A song probably..
Old
And cherished
A memory that fades not.
She talks of dreams
Her dreams
Vivid ….
Blurred….
Hated ….
Coveted ….
Dreams of deep slumber
Dreams of wakefulness
He says he cheated his lover
She says love in turn deceived him
Therefore he looks for what he had found already
She says
Its proposition
A manoeuvred tragedy
His watchful eyes cannot see
Every day that ends
Every moment that passes by
Love deceives
Future conceals
And life teaches..
And we…
We yield to each and every
We yield to all..
A moonlit night it was…
Stars shining
Two lost souls
Unknown to the world
And to each other unknown
Star gazing
And Conversing
Parallel conversations..
Seamless
Loveless
And luckless…..
Dedicated to a splendid evening spent with a dear friend on the gliding rocks of Nariman Point.
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