Macbeth was wrong.

A few hours back I read an essay written by a Sri Lankan journalist/ lawyer  who got assassinated back in 2009, and that got me conversing about the situation here in our Union. The following thoughts are borne from that conversation. (You can read the essay here.) 

…

"The sacrifice, David. That is how mankind overcomes the Babel threshold. Our little tribal circles, bound by social contracts and selfish mutual need. Everyone working in their own greedy, self-interests and huddling together with their tribe, at war with all those outside who they regard as barely human. What breaks a human mind out of that iron cage of mistrust is a sacrifice. The martyr who gives up everything, who abandons all personal gain, who lays down his very life for the good of those outside his group. He becomes a symbol all can rally around. So instead of trying to make a selfish, violent primate somehow empathize with the whole world, which is impossible, you only need to get him to remember and love the martyr. As one is forgotten, another must replace it. Unfortunately, as I feared, today that is to be us."

-          David Wong, This Book is Full of Spiders.

I have to start by saying that the essay was indeed unlike anything I have read in recent memory. It squarely hits so many thoughts running through my head in recent days, primary amongst them, where we are as a nation. In soft discussion held with close friends and colleges, bosses and clients, I cannot help but conclude that the state of our union is in some need of some urgent repair, and that it’s presently being held together by some magic and the sheer will of the masses to not let the world slip from their shoulders. Any day this glue might burn up and I shudder to think what lies beyond that veil.

            I do  not have any answers and solutions here, just a bunker full of questions and maybes.

The point that struck me most was that in this sordid scenario, Late Mr. Lasantha Wickramatunga, in the Sri Lankan context, is a martyr. It’s the martyr Sri Lanka needed then and he’s the martyr it needs right now. He will hopefully tower as someone who acknowledged the need of the masses outweighs the safety or security of those in his ‘monkeysphere’ of 150 and knowingly laid down his life for it. It was the sacrifice that country needed. But, four years hence, and many posthumous awards and accolades later (UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize; the Louis Lyons Award for Conscience and Integrity in Journalism of Harvard University's Nieman Foundation; the James Cameron Memorial Trust Award, and the American National Press Club's John Aubuchon Press Freedom Award; he was also declared a World Press Freedom Hero of the International Press Institute) where is Sri Lanka now? Has it made a difference? I believe it has. I believe his death will prove to be the slow churning ballast that will finally string the beleaguered nation together. And If (hopefully when) positive change comes in any acceptable form to the island nation,  its people will turn back and see that the morning of 8^th January, 2009 was when the nation found its courage.

A similar question was asked by  Emil van der Poorten in his piece “Chamorro And Wickrematunge – Decades And Continents Apart But …!”  , where he asks :

 “  Can the history of Sri Lanka’s Sunday Leader, the death of Lasantha Wickrematunge, its founding editor,  and the events leading up to it play a similar role in Sri Lanka’s future?

I believe it will, even though the national euphoria attendant on the defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE/Tigers) and the annihilation of the vast majority of its leadership in the final battle has tended to distort and obscure, in the short term at least, the significance of Wickrematunge’s assassination.”

(On a side not, I love Niemoller’s poem Wickrematunge reminds us of in his posthumous essay. It is a subject I have debated endlessly, should people stand up for their neighbors when they are being snatched away from their homes. I know they seldom do, and seldom will, self-preservation is a strong motivator of actions oft contra to our own morals.  Such is the enigmatic human condition. The need (or will) to protect the immediate few will always outweigh the urge to protect the faceless many.  And thus we label one who puts the need of the many over the needs of the immediate a ‘Hero’ and if he dies, a ‘Martyr’. Maybe we expect too little from ourselves and I have a much too dim view of our global tribe.  Wickramatunga gives me hope. He fought for others so that other might fight for themselves and hopefully others. So that the wronged are not left out in the open, exposed, sans allies like Niemoller)

…

            So, I got thinking what about us, here in India? I firmly believe we are fighting a war too. You probably are aware of it . You have felt the angry glances from absolute strangers, the needless shove from a passerby,  the endless angst on the roads, the frothing nature of the multifarious gatherings, people vs people, people vs the regime, regime vs regime. The hot streets seem to be boiling. Right now, look outside any window, and you will see that Mr. Fresh Prince of Indian politics is wrong, we are not bees, we are hornets. And someone is going to feel the sting of a collective echo. Today, tomorrow or later, a levees gonna break, somewhere, anywhere. It might be the death of one or many, a student or a soldier, a lawyer or a lawman, a politician or his goon, an innocent is all it will take.  

So far we suffer the distinct misfortune of not knowing our enemies. This is yet an shadowy and opaque war. No clear ‘us vs. them'. It’s much more subliminal. It holistic It is a war that I feel has already begun in many factions, but it’s just not being fought out in the open. A civil war of the cold nature, if you will.

For the first in recent memory, we have two undeclared PM candidates battling it out in the media-sphere, creating theater, where the Fresh Prince bumbles his way into an incoherent speech that is half rhetoric and half school boy philosophy. And the other, the Godra man himself, seeking to shed his image of Christmas past, quips IT + IT = IT. What is that you ask? Very proudly he declares: Indian talent + Information Tech. = 'India tomorrow'. Ya! He might just win too. That’s his winning formula.

            So the question I ask my self is this: who is are the victims of this war? We have our  concentration camps for sure, where people are held. From where they cannot escape. Where there is abundant hunger and suicides a-plenty. Be it the Indian hinter land or Maharashtra or Orissa or Manipur. Be they farmers or students, skilled workers or laborers, or just normal every day citizens trapped in their own city under oppressive laws (read AFSPA) or military junta barricades. These camps might not have gunned walls but they have clear demarcation. They exist because someone, something, created circumstances for their existence. Somebody always benefits from the misery of others. It’s just very hard to tell who.

But what if we knew?

On the way from Bilaspur I saw what appeared to be an endless sea of tarp tents covering something. It extended as far as the eye could see on either side of the Highway.  Turns out, it was grain. Unimaginable  tons of it. Left on the ground. Not even a warehouse to protect it. Apparently it has been lying there for a while. It does not take much cerebral magic to realize that an open field is not really very conducive to grain preservation. We have insects, rodents, and other inedible pleasantries to protect against. A decision such as this seems more deliberate. Someone, somewhere has chosen to be apathetic to the  plights of the hungry. Shortage creates hunger. The hungry are easier to control (up to a point).

Such decisions create shackles.

Or maybe, the war is being fought against the struggling migrant laborer, in Delhi and Mumbai, living in sub human camps on the streets, washing their clothes in the dirty Yamuna or the open Sea, eating vegetables contaminated with God-knows-what! and a cocktail of other contaminants, grown off soiled lands on polluted river beds, working for sums barely enough to buy a loaf of bread.  I wonder if they think to themselves, that though they are meant to be free, they were never really born as such. Illusions can be a tricky thing. Do they wonder, as they lie down to sleep every night, tired, hand calloused from the tilling harsh concrete, in those wispy moments before retiring to their kingdoms of choice:  this cannot be freedom. Am I a fief and is this is a fiefdom. How am i am bound by the shackles of my circumstance, and who has shacked me? Who is my liege? Is it the same faceless decision maker, who stockpiles grain on the highway for rotting? 

            If one really sits down to wander into the minds of the sleeping men and women of this country, one will undoubtedly realize that a War is on. It is the oppressor versus the oppressed. Whoever or where ever they might be. And is it possible the oppressors might not even realize that they oppress.

            We need a martyr today, not to win the war but to expose the fact that a war is waging on.  But who will he(or she) be and what shall be his (or her) sacrifice?

            In the end, I recall the Selina Kyle whispering in Batman's ear : "There's a storm coming, Mr. Wayne. You and your friends better batten down the hatches, because when it hits, you're all gonna wonder how you ever thought you could live so large and leave so little for the rest of us."

          

             So, are we the oppressed or the Oppressors ? And is it possible that we are neither ?

…

 But maybe I am wrong. Maybe there is no war. Maybe this is just an attempt to make sense of the illogical. Creating Thor to explain thunder. Maybe there is no explanation, and no levee will ever break and we will continue foaming and frothing till we are exhausted. Resignation will cover us once again. Is nihilism the way to go? Is it possible that a war will never happen because we are fighting against ourselves? Fighting to escape the boiling streets and into the air-conditioned atriums, in the wake of our desire, creating the conditions of an invisible holocaust.

Maybe we’ll discover or award ourselves a martyr. Maybe we won’t. Maybe it will never come to that. Life is feeble and life is weak. We live, we die. On the way we try to do right, often do wrong, we seek redress, we beg forgiveness. We remember and we forget.

But, it’s important to remember. It's imperative. Macbeth, once warned off the frailty of live and its meaning in death :

“Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.”

            It is imperative to remember the sacrifices of people like Lasantha Wickramatunga. Remember the lives laid down for reasons beyond the immediate. Reasons that make life grand and enduring. For if we go to war, if we recognize its existence, we will need our heroes. And it is at that moment, we will need to prove within and without, that the sound and fury of hornets are significant. That the lives of martyrs matter.

That Macbeth was wrong. 

An Ode to the Self-destructing Kind.

We are the ones who self destruct,
We are the ones who destroy,
The houses we built,
The lives we carve,
We draw blood for the living,
From the joyous, from the laughing,
For, the darkness is what we've seen.,
Where we've  forever been,
In the night we were born,
In the night we clearly see,
Our visions, twisted,
Our fates, intertwined,
Our lives thrashing,
Against the past that we have mined,
 In a tiny corner, of a foreign field,
Where the shadows grow,
Row on row,
The grass does heal,
The old wounds and the
Broken lines.


But, the sun is out now,
We see the light, full of fear,
We see things in the distance,
We never imagined near,
Hand in hand,
we walk alone,
Into the sun,
Where the grass has grown,
Out of the night,
Into the light,
Fighting the flight,
We walk into the sun.

She whispers in my ear,
trembling with fear,
Asking,
"Do we burn?"

Untitled #1

It is the morning  of the day, 

The nights, they have flown away,

Scurried down the alleys,

Letting the sun-light draw its way,

The walkers were awakenings,

Walking their morning walks,

I saw her sleeping,
In the distance of my eye,  

Drawing the curtains to a close,

Breathing deep, in a bee dream,

Busy eyes, flickering in her sleep,

Eyes that have seen the world,

Eyes that have traveled its people, 

Traveled, where I have never been.

She’s like a baby, holding her mind,

Inside the angel, that is her inner side,

She sees a road long, outstretched ,

Above and below,

Binding her hands,  closing in slow,

The ropes are tightening,

She struggles to fight free,

The sun is rising,

It’s fighting with the tree,

The ropes are tightening,

I fight to set her free,

I find the scissors, 

The blades are blunt, 

there is a fading,

In the  strength of my arms   

As I fight to set her free,

Free her from her mind,

Free from her bee filled mind, 

Free from the last song,

Whose words she left behind,

Free from the daylight, free from the night,

Free from the morning sunlight, binding her tight,

I see the ropes are gripping,

I fight to set her free,

I see a glimmer,

I fight to see,

I see fear,

I fight to see, still,

I fight to see the ropes,

I see the ropes are me,

I fight no more,

I finally see, 

Only She can set her free. 

The Following...

Days have been cruel to you,

The nights have stolen from you,

Mornings blind you,

And in these mornings I see sight

In your eyes.

The evenings have lost their light and

shrouded you in darkness,

Dawn lurks too long in the shadows

Perched upon its timely haze,

Dusk is the ancient hour of witching

And it has bewitched you,

Time is running in slow circles

And we around it,

Time is leaving red herrings

And dry patches

You follow it,

And I follow you.

Entry

There is a meeting in a gallery,

A gallery that’s somewhere that’s nowhere at all,

A gallery where full portraits hang from it polished walls,

And fountains spot its hallowed halls,

Portraits of times that have long since

Joined and rejoined,

Its stray rivers, intertwined,

A gallery where the old masters still sing,

A gallery without lost causes

Or lost reasons,

Creaking sounds or rumbling noises,

A gallery where bad taste is the highest treason,

Lead me into this gallery dear,

Hold my hand now; show me the sights now,

Hold my fingers and point them in your direction,

Show me the way to the gallery,

Where I know you’ll wait for me,

Fully embracing this thrust of destiny,

The swift emblem of change,

Lead me into this gallery,

Your gallery, where blindness is a virtue,

Where the light bulbs project movies

Inside of our eyes,

Our every wanting eyes,

Take me to that deep corner

In the gallery where you always sit

And dream of times like these,

Where you sit and pray to your gods of vision,

The changing season,

You pray to be virtuous,

You pray to the gallery gods,

As the wavy drum roll thicken,

I walk towards you,

With fear on my breath,

Whispers clouding my mind’s eye,

I walk with boulders tied to my feet,

My back corroded from the golden heat,

Towards her aura of lilac lilies I walk,

Towards the bliss of her being.

And when we finally meet,

We stood toe to toe,

Both praying to the same painted gods,

Slicing the demons with our swords,

Praying for the same final answer,

We both seemed to stand together,

Forever,

Praying,

For the promised blindness,

The wreathed whiteness,

It is ours now,

Forever. Forever.

Exit.

-- I --

She stood at the door,

Her silver stance glazed to the floor,

Staring at the distant waves,

Staring at the shore,

She starts to walk out the framed picture door,

Her hands held up to a gentle wave,

The Lapping oceans,

Solemn glimpses,

Kissed teardrops,

All waving back to an addiction,

Born within the gates

Of love and sedition,

The departure of a borrowed time,

Gone, gone forever,

With its solitary ravages and its sun lit fires,

She stood and waved a final sigh,

She waved good-bye.

--II--

There was sand at her feet,

Flight in her eyes,

Within her sights was the frozen beach,

Within her sights lay cities seized,

Within her eyes swam pink rabbits and honey bees,

Run stains scattered across wonton seas,

Still she waves standing at my door,

My eyes are glued to the floor.

There is a soft water that does flow,

From the ducts emerge a hollow glow,

Watching a drop as it falls

To the carpet on the floor,

She still stands there waving, at my door.

So cruel- so cruel- a maiden of ice,

A time- a life- lived full to its size,

Into the oceans, droplets a dime,

Giving birth to the now and now of time,

The lucid halo of a sun that is a rising,

The golden brew in the golden light is shining,

And as she walks out her steps

Steps that are rhyming.

Why do you continue to be gone?

Did you not hear?

The beach is back!

A start has begun,

A river with its hosts,

Icy maidens and their sand driven ghosts,

You and me ,

Silently,

Observing weirdly,

What we could have been,

Our weakness in our words,

The demons in these worlds,

The distance in these clouds,

All silver trinkets,

All silver moons and silver Junes,

And I’ll be back soons’.

The car door shuts,

The engine growls,

A black puff and a floating sound,

I see my feet turning around.

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The Whistling.

Part I: Dropping.

 

We were songbirds in a lost dream,

Somewhere on a beach, between the icy glades,

Siphoning off minute bits of reasoned time,

For the lewd battles that lay ahead,

With sand beneath our feet,

And Sand in our hair,

Sand in our teeth,

Sands' light reflections

Suddenly laid bare.

 

We were drinking and sinking

Into a silver oceanic chalice,

There was wet sunlight everywhere,

Wet sunlight glazing off our skins,

Falling into our eyes,

Dropping onto our tongues,

We could taste it

The sunshine and cyan,

We could surf the paved liquid tunes,

But nothing mattered, not in least

As we walked towards the beast,

Hand In hand and shrinking

All our sensations blinking,

It was our overtime.

 

 

Part II : Floating .

 

There was quiet under the water,

Safety and subtly,

Like in the womb of the sea goddess

We were worshipping then,

While we lay afloat,

Under the blue crush,

The steel rush,

The moon flashing us

Its sensation staligtile visions,

Shooting white arrows at us under the bubbles,

Arrows of light and pastel shine,

Arrows, electric.

 

We were floating,

On currents,

Floating nowhere,

Floating everywhere,

Floating together.

 

 

Part III: Descending

 

There was snow beneath our feet,

Scratching us in recognition,

Of the cold that seeped

Into our minds and sides,

In recognition of the thawing,

Of the descending,

Of the de-peaking.

 

White from below, white from above,

White from the sides, white from the rides,

White forms,

White foams,

White devils and white Gods,

White clouds frothing

Into the white snow,

The light was white,

The light was flying beneath us,

Into a kaleidoscope of colours,

Some dirty, some clean,

Some shimmered,

While some gleamed,

All victims of an

Inverted white magic,

We were preying on the whistling.

 

Part IV : Awakening

 

I heard you take out your wings,

I heard you flutter,

I heard the whistling,

I heard the sizzling.

I heard us sail

Through the moon light,

Through the laced liquid dynamite,

I heard me take out my wings,

I heard me flutter,

I heard the whistling.

I heard us whistling…

 

Factory Girl

She walked over to the bar,

A Vodka - tonic please,

Make it large and no ice disguised,

Say words out loud for frustration,

What is this sunshine?

And where is the rain?

Where is my private poison?

 

The drug store turned her out, said she had no prescription.

These Insults of a higher colour,

Faiths in looser hues,

Oh! How she struggled to stay afloat.

 

She always found that place,

She always heard the voice

Those words of yearning and listening

Compounding without loss

All in the songs of a travelling minstrel

She saw it all.

 

The past was like the cold in night time,

Seeping in through the covers, oh so slow,

Inches in time, inches in rhyme

Day by night and night by day,

The cold stole it all away.

 

All she had were words,

These words so silent in its turmoil,

Never reached the gulf of solidarity,

Never bridged these gaps of dreams' past,

Never beyond the summers did last.

 

Here's you poison honey,

Drink it slow,

Let it grow,

Let the smoke rings halo

Remind you of that other fellow

Let it in slow.

 

The days of gleeful siding,

Remember sweetheart

That day in October,

Those sly dances

The burning cold

And escapist dreams of problems old.

 

Drink it slow, let the warmth grow

I'm the bartender and

I'm your friend.

Tell me your secrets,

Your foes; your woes

Here's to another vodka tonic.

 

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Musings…

We are a race consumed by the virility of life. Constantly Consumed, Devoid of, yet races for meaningful signs and naked Gods with naked engravings. Pillars and post have proven to be a failed protest. Running in solitary circles, dooms day advocates predict a dark tomorrow. But most know better. Most believe in faith and reason. We live for it all, the days and nights, the moments and silences, hearts and beats, the virility, the weird and the perfect.

It might be a moot point of action, but I seem to have hit the main responsibility of truthfulness. It's the way ahead, the reason to fight, war worthy. It is the climax of an institution we lovingly refer to as humanity. So what is this great discovery? Why should one commit suicide and not let death consume the body in its natural progression? Why am I going against thousands of years of human experience, norms and mores? The reason is simple. It's all about control. Our frail sense of happiness positively depends on inner and outer, micro and macro control. To control what we do and more importantly what is done to us.

Without these feelings of need and questing jest, the institution is futile. We need to control how we die. Most importantly understand why we die. The only plausible way to do that is death in accordance with our own boundaries. Don't get me wrong here, I do not advocate a repeat of the Cobain's or such like, I am not advocating shot gun in the mouth and bang! All I'm saying is death, as we know it may or may not be the ultimate end. There is really no way to be absolutely positive, so why take chances. We have one birth and sure one limited death. So die a martyr, die for a cause, and die for reason. Death often achieves as much as life, at times even more. So commit suicide, for the cause. Once you have spoken to creator's evil twin, riding the forsaken horse with an empty saddle only for you, die. Don't resist or desist, assist.

I wonder how I ever got to this place. Talking of death in a manner befitting mayhems' sole survivor. How did I get here? What were the turns that betrayed my way? Was I led or mislead? If so, then who do I blame for the recent developments?

Barrages of questions bombard my feeble mind. It troubles me and frustrates my feeling and knowledge of myself. I knew this day was not too distant, but still, fear and disgust over the actual event is deeper than I anticipated. It caught me positively off guard. Knowledge is what is killing me here. Failure looms high and looking ahead is tugging me down. Revelation is not to be sought, reasons I get aren't the ones I expected. So why now, why here and why at all?

Does it all end some day. Will people understand my life and how I lead it? Is wastage acceptable and if so how do I sell it? How do I justify my reasons for not doing what I didn't do? An elegant suicide is of utmost importance. But the first one must not include death. It must not be gruesome and it definitely must not be now. The time will come. Or has it come?

Deeper the deliberatation, louder the questions, softer are the answers. Whispers on time are floating by so harmlessly it causes jealousy in harms eyes. Aspirations are born off it. We are cleared of all doubt. It brings me up to date, holds my hand in an angelic way, caresses my lips and flows into my eyes. It makes me see that the time for beatification is now. To revive, to die, to rise.

 

The War.

The Part of Weapons.

Oh- run, run, from the burning sun!

Feel the light on your back,

Bristling, falling like water...

Over the infested seas.

 

Run, run – run for shelter,

The sun is rising; it might well burn your eyes!

Some feel the moon light,

Soothing the wounds of the sun's light,

Over ages of laughing,

At all mans' brave mistakes!

 

The angels came from the loose ground,

Clutching in their hands dirty brown,

Flying over my head, screaming,

Flying around in their golden gowns,

Beaming...

 

I waved goodbye, and

They slid their way into my mind!

 

Through the wafers of the living

And the distance of the deaf

The kingdoms of broken verses

And the leaflets of the bereft

The foot soldiers trample slowly

And the generals follow suit

In armoured cars with a machine guns

And cigarettes burning where their minds begun!

 

Travel long. Travel hard!

Travel- travel- travel

Where the Bombs have fallen

To the lands of loosed gravel

Where the rivers turned still

And silence is a nail screech

Travel towards the blooming poppies,

Into valleys of the bomb breach.

 

Part of understanding.

 

Berlin, where are your men

And Himmler- is the sky green?

Who gassed the masses?

Was it the guilty brasses?

What lies you ensured,

To de-corrupt the men ununiformed.

 

Summon your men to the magic mountain,

And ask them to kneel

Is it the fathers they fear?

Or the touch of their mothers heal?

 

Are there no flags too high?

Or submarines too deep?

To be hidden from plain sight

Unlike the secrets you asked smoke to keep.

 

Will all be revealed?

Like some magic trick

In an amateur magician's chamber,

Where the milk maid is the queen

And the lovers, into the rooms lean

No sleight of hand, or moonlight sonatas

To teach treachery's lessons,

Will all be reaveled?

 

A little longer

A little while longer...

 

 

The Part of Fear

 

Someone whispered in fright,

Of the truths that gossip bring,

The Russians! The Russians!

All pray the power of red!

Tanks with stars and planes with stripes,

Referred to the senders of might,

Creepy feelings, with musty ceilings,

The end begets the peace pipes.

 

Shanti – shanti – shanti –

The last words of poets' great,

The chants of an uncanny peace,

Pieces of hope that cease,

As the levels are grounded

For the walled lease, surrounded

Founded on victories

Pyrrhic and majestic.

Be the flame – not the moth.

“Robert Wright: So you believe that a Buddhist can be saved, can have salvation, the afterlife that a Christian has?

Lorenzo Albacete: Probably faster than I would.

Robert Wright: And what about an atheist?

Lorenzo Albacete: Oh yes, faster than I would in all probability.

Robert Wright: What would an atheist have to do to get into Heaven?

Lorenzo Albacete: Even St. Thomas Aquinas would say, follow his or her conscience. Be honest to your heart.

Robert Wright: But clear moral…

Lorenzo Albacete: Yes but it’s not the morality that gains you heaven. It’s not because an atheist does good things. It is the heart that gets you there. This is very important. Even for the Christian, a Christian can fulfill every damn moral law there is And end up in hell. This is a doctrine of the church. It’s not what you do, it is your stand in respect to otherness. It is your conscience.”

There has been a time for words of love, and an equally long time for hate. Today is an era of neither. The day the realization dawns on me that we only love as hard as we hate, will be a new epoch. Of abundant clarity, simplicity and that searing sensation of being without. The long walks of solitude has coupled with the sprints of passion, the result has been exasperation beyond the comprehension of the long distance runner. Such tiredness, such fierce dances, of fire and ice, magic and colour; he never saw eyes burning so bright!

So sincere, so utterly confused, so out of her mind.

That realm where tears are not for crying, but rather a residue that warmth brings. The fear of loosing that time, knowing it to be the last. Not too unlike slow dancing in a burning room. The music never stopped. The lights went out though. The carpet was the only remnant of a room long burnt, where people often danced.

Drunk and honest, she walked into the sea on her own.

Light in flashes, lightning crashes, all around us, for the world it flashes. Gagged in the manner of speech, I was so happy. I sat down to talk on the table, but I decided to listen instead. Words were spoken, some were true, most were false, but over it all, it just made the room grow small. The science of reason was deemed blasphemous. We had to recede in to the realm of the esoteric.

She spoke, and I spoke some more, till we found, we’d run the same lines ashore.

Chess was played. Some games played by the Gods and some by the angels. We cleared the pawns and the horses, hoping we learn to play the game too. The statue of the king stood eight feet tall, and that’s when we knew he’d never move. History had dealt us the deaths kneel. As I stood with my swords drawn, the spears sharpened, all that greeted me was a battle field of hollow voices of dissent and misunderstood truths. Taken into the strides of time, the age of love-hate-and all things seldom said reaches its conclusive bend and no one wants to accept responsibility. Some say it’ll end, most say we are simple fools conducting a stereotypically foolish orchestra, digging its toes deeper and deeper into the quagmire. Someone throw us the lifeline please, ‘cause else, we’re so going down!

Sadness is seldom a cause for sorrow, I said.
What if I was wrong? She inquired.

Colourful Greed.

Feed live colours to the sea, pure child,
Carry white laughter in your hair,
Wild violets within your feet,
Rum stains in your eyes,
Gleaming, In the half light,
Of this misty, orange morning.


Run and slide to see,
The silver mind, the remedy,
Wreathed in greenish notions,
Loud, shaded, striped-potions,
And light air sequences,
Losing sight in your blue mind,
Rising tides, rising tides,
Of some misty mornings' paper sides.

That last journey is not end,
Those era songs yet not sung,
Though all mercy is forgiven,
And those words forever given,
Rising tides, rising it rides,
Into all the wishing sides.

A Lack of Name?

Come directions, in the far sided levees. Replete but yet so honeyed. Argumentative bees fighting for benign supremacy, of the religious flowers, flowering. They arise in swollen shapes of raging man-made rivers. Thousands of flapping wings, flowing in their respective alleys in search of the Grammatik stand-off.

Who was the regions last long distance rider? Did he finally marry the goldsmith’s daughter? Why not? Aah! That balloon of a man finally did meet a dismal lady of his dreams. My pessimism is well founded; the collector’s daughter is privy to that sly reasoning.

The bees dressed up in gold? Never could wear the sunlight, could they? Suits the queen, I presume. A bit over weight though, birth of a colony is the causal culprit I recon. Do I speak for the other too? Not to my Gnostic knowledge. Fat filled flowers? Not the colony? That is for the dietitian to decide. I’m forced to plead ignorance to that science.

Laughter!

There were champagnes’ from all chateaus of the region and rice beer too. But the invitees of dignity sipped their personal liquors of choice. The marriage was a rape of the traditional beliefs and mores. Never had the quarter of a generation waited for the eventual marriage of such an uninspiring family to the goddess of visions and rebellion. Not to me in the direct sense of personality of even harm, but simply the attitudes of the beasts in the neighboring ocean-villas flopping about in their ideas that grind my bones to silly irritation. Man and women of desertion.

Shocked!

Then a cloud of shocking evens ensued: autumn arrived in its abundant splendors to press the fully cloaked bees to the wall. A marriage was announced. Some lonely two legged creatures decided to please the world. Food was ordered and a fire was started. The previous union had left the galleries of the chefs depleted, and hunt began for the remaining autumn flowers. With singular silvery motions, one to another, the flowers bleed and fell to the hands of the ceremony of love. Elixirs flowing into the tea pots for flavoring of the dried cousins. The beauty was killing the guests off penury.

Sniffs!


Too young, the maids of honor were to even understand the words being spoken. But they did understand the tones though, the tough parts from the romantic, the pristine from the jaded. It rained red and white the proceeding jabs. Complete in its visual antics. Designers of a lost kind, the traditional! All the way, from the next complete room. The vows ensued. The lovers renewed their recent commitments. “You may now kiss the bride.”

Cheers!

The noise was deafening. That clanging shrill! Spoons on glasses of wine. And the dignity of champagnes filled, the hive with jealousy! The thin green candle was lit! Happiness at such moments is the foreplay to dawn’s glowering secrets. The bees missed the invitation to the gathering. No alembic lines to interpret. No directions in tow of the decadence. No reason to watch from trees up in the realm of smoke. So silent. The queen was in a deep thought. The slivers of nature were rubbing shoulders with the cloaked insects of the sweet day. Images and images.

Descends!

A furore in the trees above was noticed by the young, first time caterer, towards the cynosure of all activity, a colored mass descended. A million stings were felt and cried out for, slapping of the wrists in a ditch attempt of safety. Silting slowly in the torrid zone of shouts and wails, a marriage was broken. The first dance.

Cream!

All the willowed pieces, all the hefty agents. Dying, dying, all along the old vine, borrowed. Random acts of flight, an attack on the wanton acts of the parties. The surrogacy was complete. The victors saw the picric grass. “Where did the runner run?”
Very far? Thought to that direction! “Did the lady find beauty?”

Compromise…

“Pretend the dove from above is a dragon and your feet are on fire.”
- Josh Ritter.

...

They showed me ice lights
Rising from foreign corners,

They showed me light green
Water in their eyes,

They showed me circular ponds
Displaying their hyacinths,

They showed me the gilded mirror
Saying we are made of stardust.

They showed me soft sands.

They showed me electric trees.

They showed me,

Yellow,

Light laughter,

Asterisks and Exclamations,

They showed me the room
I just walked into.

Shaking my head, gently.

Ellipsis.

Balance of sorrow.

"Her name shall be Deirdre, and she will be the most beautiful woman in the world. But that beauty shall bring death to many heroes, and much sorrow."
- Deirdre of the Sorrows.

Initially the phrase was ‘ The’ balance of sorrow’. But after a slight chat with a relative friend it struck me that the use of ‘The’ in this situation would be an acceptance of the generic viability of sorrow. Balance shadowed the sorrow. Thus ‘A’ balance of sorrow. The balance was delivered in my head through red-eyed projections.

Tears cut, and stolen from gypsies who were lamenting the loss of dynamic relationships. Relations shared by them.
Shared by them, with their sorrows. Confused purely by the virginity of these vestal, emotive aggravations to their ideas of grief.
The initial moments of sorrow. How plain! How sweet!
Litters of flowers in reds and blacks.
Dirty! Rotting, not just yet. Orange!

The moods:
Engulfed!
Engulfing!
The remnants of the strewn feeling, drawing from the simple multitudes of the aforesaid harsh moments.

2002.

The torture of the limited conscience for the legality of the patriotic serum, dry and driven. The raped song! Drying within the tube light nations images of the west running, and accused of secretly applying fiery balms to divisive wounds. The floods dried it of the acceptance of unattainable ignorance.

Tilting, are the seesaws of the hide and seek game.
Status quo. Irrelevance.
A monopoly of truths, an army of orange flowers, walking below bridges and building criss-crossed shelters. Attempting the emergence of sorrows.

Religion sat on a park bench, religion absorbed, the gifted red. Not asking, nor refusing.
Religion jumped from rooftops, impaled, in perfect unison.

A weighing scale, yielded by the queen of circumstance, crouching behind marked oak chambers. Weighing the rivers of sad memoirs written in bright inks, in the hope of a notice. The balance.

Tears and fears with angel leers.

In their eyes it can be, in their eyes it shifted, sparsely. Balance of such sorrow reflected off the silver glass panes and numb movements. Silting in issued tents. Not asking for comfort or pillows. Nor strong words of love and martyrs. No curtains.
Only macro scopes. Yes! Macro scopes!

The second discussion –

‘A’ balance, rejects the collective sphere of sorrow. ‘The” balance, forgoes the personal experience. Thus the balance I try to elucidate if dwelling in the chasm of these two bi-polar desserts of sorrows. Both eyes see different angles of the light. Collective sight is the aspiration of this piece.

Blue has many shades.

Smart words! Smart words!
Escaping my windows!

How to relish the fog? Or the smog where I’m concerned??

In pursuit of a silent movie I’m walking a mile. With sneakers on for comfort. But it’s biting into my vocabulary. And I do not attempt to lie. Sense is not construed in untruthful sentences.

Took the painters advice and bought some cushion for lying down.
Next to a few mythological dreamers. We had a lot in common. All our words lacked gender and tense.
Lacked even the viable strands of times’ errors. Words on words. Not a line spoken. All through the tentacles of the dictators of the silver screen projections.
Not the directors. They are content being ghosts. Driving home language instead of limousines.

I was not interested in languages. Nor were my mythological dreamers. It was the grail of ultimate letters in tow, we were after. Letters in tow.

The weight it yielded was light. Only the esoteric group of welcomed bystanders were heavy, seeped in misplaced profits!

Misplaced profits! The guffaws of the banks ware hardly cynical. They too succeeded in comprehending the dreamers’ dream. The mythology of words.

Found words are far too boring. I was going on and on about the languages I could not speak. Illiteracy in the guise of ignorance.
The lost words are the real interest.
Free of morality, they operate beneath our/my radar. Copulating hazardously. Practicing incest. Dying in orange pools of slow blues numbers. Orange!

I discovered a new author this morning. He wrote pretty poems too. I felt his pain. Died his heroes’ death. Cries his widows tears. Understood all his poetic allusions, and the realm between the lines. His words were mine. I knew them all too well. He just said them with more style and panache.

He never bothered to invent.

Nor did she.

The only time I collapsed attempting the revival of the unknown linguists, was also the last time I lost my mind in straight sets to an under confident player of the arts. Why did I never call for a challenge?

Being doomed to the paths of the less knighted, dwelling in the soft glows of the green lights, the long sentences I omit are forgotten by the deep sea publishers.
Growth to the wandering babbler. Hail the unreasonable household rambler.
The pioneers of the fantasy. Of discoverable words.

Orange, live, in silence, no longer rotting in water bottles, under the plastic covers we laid it to sleep on. Seeping fast into the shoes I wore in search of the silent movie.
Comfort, the vocabulary is now preserved within the envelops of the gallery walls.

Cyan waters – cerulean mud – robin egg blue imagination – teal bells ringing – viridian stones gathering paintings to quench the unattainable thirst of colour contrasts.

Wish me the courage to imagine new letters being towed!

Of confusion, destiny, illusions, and sounds.

Sounds are the integral system of confusion.
Fearing the cacophony, the jingles of confusion are born.

Noises from the vocals of a reason ravaged generation. That is it that is so different from the lonely hobos of the yesteryears as opposed to their counterparts today. They sing in the same alleys, similar songs. Of love, riches, roofs and subway tickets.

Is Mr Sen correct in describing the illusions of destiny in a 198 paged book? Rather simplistic I feel. But probably not.
What I feel is ignorance is also the flip side of the beatific illusion called destiny.
I am inspired by Mr Sen.

So how is it that I aspire to relate sound, confusion and destiny?
Its rater simply depends on the following of the colours.
Dolphins and glassy water.
Scarlet windows beaconing me to climb a little lower into the water and attempt to touch the skies way below.
Not the reflections of the northern clouds but the reality of such illusions.

Thus comes the tap on the big doors of destiny fixed into contorted shapes…
Contorted shapes….
Confusing shapes…

Now that is where it struck me that these shapes were way too busy with vivid sounds to care for the reason ravaged voices.
Fear of the cacophony binds the strings of paralysis.

Waves crashed onto the brown rocks wearing the crowns of a thousand rich kings.
I stood on the realm of this kingdom.
Intoxicated, floating on the noises, confused, dazed, like a poor song, sung on the galleries of to few, attacked my the misers of the deaf.

The only connection between the noises that gave me this illusion of a confused destiny was a lyric. Which one, I forget. But it was lucid, mercury, and a silence of green eyes.

Orange windows and ice showers.
Ice mints in my mouth.
Ice mints in my mind.
Ice - ice - ice

I’m sweating snow!

Goa - !!!!!

The age old curse of the Goa monster has lifted. I only hope I do not speak too soon. 3 years since the day I stepped into college, I have been planning to embark on a magical journey down the golden beaches of Goa.

The real tragedy of my life resides in the fact that I’ve never seen the ocean.
Never.
So full of hope and expectations, I planed and I planed some more, bout how I’m going to catch a Volvo to Goa, rent a shack next to the waters, drink kings beers and read all the books I had not the courage to delve into. Wake up precisely at 12 in the morn/noon, swim, see a few great white sharks( but was told they kind of don’t like Goa too much), get seriously drunk and then puke out all the lobsters I had consumed before, and so and so forth.

Now I’m not the new-years-in-Goa type, I’d rather be there a few days after.
Love my space, my time, like some soppy infomercials. But its more personal. Being one, in the union of a few thousands, swarming the beaches and the parties, with exaggerated rates and deals, not my typical scene.

Thus, the 2nd Jan date with Goa.

Hope this works out, and I’m not too disappointed.

2.7 years of extensive experience in Mainframe Testing.

II really was not aware of this but as it turns out I have 2.7 years of extensive training, really, I do.

Some thing called “mainframe testing”.

I’m still grappling with this truth. To be very honest I don’t very much know what this really is, but as today the multiple cheers of the joyous ‘ Merry Christmas’ emulates from the collective voices of many a generations all over the spherical planet, I’m confident I can handle the real truth.

The real truth, mind you, not the unreal one.

Last night I really was very eager to go for midnight mass. Never been to one before. But unfortunately my aspirations of multi cultural understanding, from the respective view of a pseudo atheist were cruelly crushed.

After a few moments of visionary fog lifting, I came to the doorway of reason which told me that since Christmas denotes the birth of Christ and so and so forth, all this is actually bout J.C. but somewhere in the sands of the same festival, its been hijacked but Mr. Santa Claus. Its all but him now days, sure a few convent schools will put up plays depicting the manger, the Magi and the regular flowers. All parts played by grade 4 students, but they too on their return home wait for Santa to come bearing gifts.

So when did this hijack really occur. That is the question.

“mainframe testing”

Sounds very computer to me.