Powerless

I mutely watch flippant Fate tease, torment and threaten my tenuous hope

I meekly submit to a reign of reason, to the wisdom of age

I sorely nurse my thwarted impulse and my admonished whim

I bleakly dream of a forgiving life, a forgotten mirth

Transience

Rebellious,                        The night swirled,              And day broke,                  Motionless,
She sinned,                       desultory                           shattering                          He sleeps,
rejecting her                      words of                           the night's                         fermenting her
virtuous guilt                     whispered pleasure             fictive castle                      amorous mind

Reverse precis

The world tilted 45 degrees as we climbed higher in an upward swoop. Below me a polka dotted glory of lights shrunk rapidly and disappeared. I looked around at my fellow travelers, some with a book in hand, some with earphones plugged into their ears. Our iPods generated our very own personal worlds, silent on the outside, musical on the inside. Spotlit heads all around me, laptop screens lit up frowns of intense concentration. Smells arose of coffee, wine and bread. I drank my unwise but deliberate coffee, for I chose MS Subbulakshmi and Dostoevsky over sleep. Delicious bitter coffee, unknown companions, a caffeine-induced unreal alertness, memories of Fight Club! And MS crooning just for me, Kurai Onrum Illai Kanna...

My seat overlooked the plane's wing. I had borrowed those wings, they were mine for the length of the flight. I scrutinized the paneled wing, those metal sheets flapping mechanically under human control. I wished I had my own wings to flap and flaunt, to fly about as I pleased. But for now, even metal wings will do. Will this fascination with flying (or is it freedom?) ever fade? We entered a wispy cloud, opaque white below me, clear blue skies above. I searched for a crack in the clouds, hoping for a glimpse of the lovely land I left behind. I caught myself hoping and I smiled, so did my ghost in the windowpane. I hoped the roar of the airplane would magically turn into the roar of the wind in my ears. I thought about forty years hence and wondered what I should hope for. Bright kids? A private jet maybe? My own wings? I caught myself hoping again. It's amazing how dependent the human mind is on hope. Success raises hopes of more success in a neverending recursion. We resort to hope to soften the blows dealt by failure. Hope baffles me, cornerstone of ambition at one time, haven for the escapist at another, elusive, chimerical and indefinable, to say the least.

My neighbor serenely knitted. It was something in a lovely pale green melting into rich dark olive. I hoped it was being made for someone with shining hazel eyes. I squinted at my neighbor's beverage. Calories-0. Fat-0. Carb-0. Sugars-0. Protein-0. I smirked at the pointlessness. But then how often should I smirk at my life? I felt the outside of my bag, I traced a fully charged iPod and my books. I never travel without enough books to last me at least a week. I momentarily acknowledged my intense fear of boredom, paranoia if you will. But then it could also be a fundamental distrust of my own mind and of chance acquaintances, even of nature to stimulate my interest for long enough. Life, of course, has proved me wrong too many times. But we elect to just go through our entire lives lugging some of our fears and inhibitions with us. There is not enough incentive to make an effort to lose particularly this one when I can resort to wonderful books and music. Vathapi Ganapathim... MS keeps me special company.

Strapped into safe confinement in submission to tiny illuminated signs, I wrote a story. Can I call words separated by hyphens a story? I wrote it in blue on tissue that blotted. My absent reveries when I paused for thought took the form of live growing inkspots. Inkspots on blotting tissue, begging and teasing for interpretation. The story was really just incomplete thoughts jotted down in a hurry, lest I forget them as quickly as they came. Random thoughts to be fleshed out later in the comfort of my bed. I tried to capture her voice on paper, her brilliant rendition of Bhavayami Gopalabalam and the echoing violin sounding like it was moved to cry by her pious voice. A perfectly bronzed woman, in push-up bra and tiny thong smiled at me from the glossy magazine peeking out of the seat pocket. Sorry, no room for her in my story. We were inside a cloud again. And I felt suspended, motionless thirty-seven thousand feet above land. No frame of reference to gauge the motion. Much like life, I'm tempted to say. I never finish stories, I don't know if I ever can or want to. I didn't promise myself that I will, but I did carefully save those precious tissues. Bhavayami Gopalabalam... I retired to MS at her mellifluous best.

A year of resolve ahead?

Read more, write more, travel more, focus more, pay more attention to detail, step outside my cocoon and be aware of the world, cook more, become a fitter me, concentrate better, slow down, talk less, sleep (less or more???), life can be improved in a thousand ways...

Yes, it is that time of the year. I am not one to take stock of the previous year and I don't usually make resolutions. But today I am tempted. I embarked on the mental quest for a resolution and realized that a resolution is a self defeating entity. My premise is that a disciplined person does not need to put an oath down on paper, police herself and then reward herself to achieve something as trivial as a visit to the gym everyday or half an hour a day to keep abreast of news. Neither should she wait for a new year to begin these habits. Quitting alcohol or smoking or drugs are graver issues by virtue of being addictions and require more than just discipline. But it is her lack of discipline which gives rise to the need for alternate motivation to develop more mundane habits and to the procrastination until a new year or a birthday to begin. And this very lack of discipline will avenge itself by preventing her from keeping up the resolution successfully. Such is the self defeating nature of a resolution; it arises from a want of discipline which defeats the resolution itself. One could argue that we don't live in an ideal world and that resolutions serve as an anchor, a walking stick that abets noble goals which may otherwise not even be attempted. But unaccompanied by discipline, a resolution reduces to an anchor lowered on quick sand, a walking stick deserted by its owner.

This year I want to court discipline itself, wage war with it, conquer it and own it forever. I'm assuming that discipline is the starting point of achievement and hence can be acquired. For if it cannot be, then nothing can be changed or achieved by an aspirant who is not blessed with it. I'm putting this down on paper now, hoping that soon I will do away with the need to. I could call my quest for discipline an oath, hopefully the last one I will ever make. I'm also imposing on myself the onus of taking stock of my "resolution" a year from now. Sigh... my beautiful, ironical life!

Wish you a Happy New Year!

This blog

Every couple of months I spend long hours reading every post I've made on this blog. I do so to take stock of my writing but end up reliving the actual moments that made me write each post. Today as I read some of the posts, I realize what an important extension of myself this blog has become. I refrain from calling it a "part" of myself because I believe that it is a parallelism built around my commentary on life (in handpicked fonts and justified text). Every post on this blog is witness to ten others relegated to the recycle bin, deemed unfit for public display, at times too unbearable in its honesty.

I come to this blog to pen the unthinkable, to think the unpardonable. This blog is my irrational dream. It is a recourse for my restlessness. It is also my bruised ego. A cupful of joy, my unshed tears, my denied fears. It is my silence, my screaming pain sometimes. It is my unleashed anger at the aberrant world. My helplessness too. My insomnia. My cheated, defeated reason. My will to beat the odds, my intermittent persistence, my bent beaten resignation. This blog is my corner of the universe where reality submits to imagination. It is the reign of conjecture over fact, hypothesis over proof, rebellion over reason. It is a tiny tribute to the belief that Art is God, Effort - worship, Creation - sacred. This blog is the nonzero sum of my rationality, my curiosity and my insanity.

Ego! Welcome...

She: You are the single largest demand on my time
He: Come on! You have nothing better to do than talk to me anyway
She: If not for you I would be doing a million other things
He: Fine, so go do what you want. I am not stopping you
She: Yeah right, you are not stopping me. Just that you prevented me from hanging up four times in the past hour
He: Really? I can stop calling you if that's what you want...
She: You would? You can? (snickers)
He: Are you daring me?
She: Maybe...
He: Ok, so how long before I call you next?
She: Hmm... next Wednesday??? As if you can
He: So be it. Till Wednesday then...
She: Great! Bye
He: Bye (slams the phone)
She: (Hangs up with a mischievous grin) I give him one full hour (to herself)

One hour later, there was no call. Two full days passed without a call. The week trudges along, wearier than ever. She pointedly leaves the phone out of her sight all the time. He "distracts" himself through conversations with other women, conversations he neither cares to listen to nor remembers.

Villainous Ego pitching its tent in hitherto impenetrable quarters...

Windowpane wonderings

Her hands rushed to her ears. She tried to block off the noise, but in vain, for the clamor indeed was inside her head. What everyone construed to be excitement or zest was in fact an uncontrollable restlessness. She chose to fondly call it "infinite energy" instead. It was this restlessness that endeared her to the world around her, the same restlessness that wedged itself between her and the milling masses, immovably so... It instilled in her an undying quest for happiness and a compulsive need for direction. It evoked in her the anger she needed to transcend the hopelessness that surfaced unannounced...

...she watched the river, a thousand feet below. "Is it really flowing?" all the hours she spent staring into its dark depths still left her confused. "How can a river, a flowing river be so serene? Why didn't it bring on a gush of feeling like rivers always did?" She was petulant at nature for letting her down. On the bridge over the river, cars purposefully drove past at alarming speeds. The world within the river was moving equally fast,the cars in the river were racing too, the watery traffic lights turning from bleeding red to blotchy green with mind-numbing regularity. But the river itself, caught in a timelessness of its own, remained unfazed by the urgency of the world it reflected. It refused to be anything more than a faithful mirror that completed the symmetry of nature...

...her hands were still clutching her ears, but the noise had gone away. Her senses were lulled, her mind was fuzzy, the hopelessness had momentarily relented and her restlessness had momentarily receded. "Are you really flowing? May I not have some of your inertness?" she wondered as she enviously pulled the blinds shut...

Sleepless Blues

Light, uninvited, squeezes
through the careless window slit,
Yellow grids on vacant blue,
Stories- lurk between the lines

Fluid shadows, Freeze! Please!
Hold still, that sensuous silhouette
One moment to separate
him from her

The lone moon, steps
out of its wooly den,
My darkest thoughts revealed,
in its mazelike crevices

Hunger- Five hours too early,
Take your pangs, Be gone!
Sleep - Ten years too late,
Lend your dreams, Be gone!

I tried to peek into her mind...

She sat, a wasted pen grasped loosely in her hand. Her face was a cascade of emotions. Those eyes flamed with anger, tightly pursed lips screamed of recent resolutions, promises to herself perhaps. Frustration at the humongous effort that never paid back, at time that slipped through her fingers never to be had again. Questions contorted her features- Why am I here? Where am I going? Not a year ago, it seemed picture perfect. Is it just one huge mistake? A comment sailed by, that agreed with the cynicism she felt. Her pen moved on paper, I could discern the slant of her hand from yards away. I could feel the searing force of the pen as if it were piercing through my own skin. Resentment hung around her like an impenetrable curtain.

I wondered if these are just my inferences snatched away from the fleeting expressions on her face. These could be just my thoughts, isolating patterns from the kaleidescope of her feelings. This might be a futile attempt at mind reading. Or my faulty perception and skewed imagination jaundicing simple reality. I sat wondering, when suddenly a small smile, a happy one, stole into her eyes. Those lips, a thin line until then, perked up from that smile. Was it the beloved violin back home, beckoning? Was it favorites from Bach and Mozart, resounding in her head? Was it the sun that had just swam in and brightened the window? But she smiled, a happy smile. Aren't these the very moments that make life worth its while...?

Flouncing

Have you ever felt your life has become an exciting tug of war between fancies and reason... intensity and inertia... heart and mind (allow me the cliché)? It is almost as if someone, with the touch of a wand and a whispered spell, has rendered everything unrecognizable.

Not too long ago, I was young and important and thought I was the sole master of my life. But life has its way of springing these surprises. Surprises that could be nasty, or a much needed reality check, or just an amusing change of scene.

The cynic is tempted to wonder if as we grow older, we slowly spiral down into a vortex of ambivalence and uncertainty. Isn't that moving backwards? Where is all the wisdom I was promised will come with experience? Maybe those important lessons swished past me during an elusive woolgathering moment. Or is it too early for wisdom to reveal itself? I am still a child!

For a change, the cynic was smothered! There is a certain charm in the non-algorithmic tortuous flow of life. There is a promise entwined in the tangles of uncertainty - a promise of a memorable today, the tomorrow of my dreams. The fear causes an onset of boiling wrath that soon hardens into unbending obstinacy against the ravages of fear itself.

The illusion of success could paint itself real... The rainbow could come and stay on forever... Call it optimism, call it irrationality, call it lust for life. The proverbial speck of light gleams enticingly, maybe the tunnel will end in an ideal world?!

Off guard

All day long I walk amidst a sea of faces, many a plastic smile, many a muttered pleasantry, civilities galore. We share a dingy elevator always making space for one more, united by nothing more than intermittent beeps and bright numbers mechanically blinking at us. We run together, the ceaseless race to reach our respective destinations, none the winner, none the loser.

A wizened gentleman stands before me, expounding the theories of microeconomics, hypothesizing and infering and concluding in turns. I twiddle my pen, intently searching my neighbor's face for a clue to his thoughts. I gaze at the blackboard ahead mildly amused and largely unaffected by the symbols and numbers scrawled across. Random words that, if strung together, might unravel their mysteries issue forth and float past me. My neighbor stirs, our worlds crisscrossing for a brief moment, time enough for a polite nod, for a meaningful shrug at the futility of it all. The professor draws elaborate patterns in the air, his voice rising in excitement. Maybe it is passion, a deep love for his job, if you will. Maybe it is just an ethic to do his job well, to earn a living untainted by the guilt of shirking.

"Passion", I wonder. But where is mine? Does my mind wander away in search of that very passion or does it wander for the pitiful lack of it? Why not meekly submit to the "flow" as they call it? Why the unending quest for fiery passion, lofty goals, perfect love? Why this obsession with elusive superlatives and high ideals? My hands have gone clammy and cold- Fear wielding its power, perhaps? But the seas of home are a million miles away, the welcoming roar of the waves a distant echo in my ear. Those eyes in my mind have lost their spark. Those familiar smiles are fading away, shade after shade. My bookshelf has reduced to the impersonal touch of cold metal. The yellowing books have crumbled in my memory. Pages from Jane Austen and Wodehouse and Voltaire gently superimpose and melt into each other.

Here I am, having relinquished the defences I so painstakingly built. Here I am, a tortoise with no shell to hide beneath.

Playing spectator

It was early evening and vehicles were beginning to trickle in towards the traffic signal. Rush hour traffic was building up, an occasional honk permeated through the swank glass that separated me from the road. I sat in a small cafe with two friends, engaged in an interesting discussion, the kind young people with big dreams indulge in - discussions about people who relentlessly pursue their dreams, about hot jobs and shortcuts to fame, conversations that carefully skirted the periphery of each other's personal life.

"...did you read about this guy who..."

I watched the lucky few who sped past the traffic light as it turned from orange to red and the timer above it began yet another countdown. I could almost feel their tiny thrill at an imagined victory over time. Over a decade of driving in the city has not abated the unfailing excitement I feel every time this happens. The way we let clocks, timers, alarms, phones and answering machines dictate our lives saddens me briefly at such moments of realization. But I've learned not to let the feeling last too long.

My friends had moved on to girls, "...Oh watch out for her. She's gonna be one of the hot ones for sure..." I flashed a knowing smile at this, a grin almost, "Is she the girl you met today?", I asked, though I knew the answer already.

My gaze wandered back to the road, now burgeoning with cars locked fender to fender and shiny motorcycles maneuvering to squeeze themselves in between. There was an urgency in the air. It was the cumulative urgency of men and women hurrying to their waiting sweethearts, of mothers worrying about their hungry children at home, of the occasional loner craving for respite from the mad rush, of those hoping fervently to make it on time for their favorite soaps.

I snapped into the present and smoothly veered back into the conversation, "Oh! Holidays are definitely getting more and more luxurious", I added. It's amazing how a slight nod, a noncommittal acknowledgment or a muttered response issues forth with immaculate timing even at such levels of abstraction.

Far removed from the din and unperturbed by the impatience, I felt disconnected from the muted show outside my window. This evening, for a change, the frenzy was not a part of my universe. But I felt a restlessness in me that shunned the cozy interior of the softly lit cafe. I was clamoring to be a part of the buzzing road. At that moment, all I wanted was those harsh sodium lamps, the honking in my ears, my fair share of that throbbing urgency.

"I just wish I owned an isolated island somewhere", I said aloud to deceive myself...

As I depart...

If I were a dewdrop, I would evaporate without a trace
If I were a snowflake, I would melt away out of shape

If I were a ray of light, you would look away from the glare
If I were a sheet of rain, you would run away to drier abodes

But if I were just a memory, will you not keep me safe
between the myriad folds of your mind?

Alas!

Little did I know
that futility indeed
is the aftertaste of satiety...

So what?

Oh yes! I'm quite the cynical cow. This is how I feel most of the time...

Be Mine

Run with me in my perpetual haste
Wander with me in my desperate search 
Meander with me in my whimsical course
Slalom with me in my endless vacillation
Wade with me through my hopeless misery
Sink with me to my senseless abysses
Spin with me in my eddying emotion
Cruise with me through my youthful fantasy
Flow with me in my surging spontaneity
Swim with me in my verbal euphony
Float with me in my phantasmal heaven
Whirl with me in my fragile bubble 
Fly with me as I escape reality

insignificant intimacy, please

saccharine spiels
devised demureness
amorous adoration
casual caresses
exotic erotism
nimble nipping
moaned murmurs
barbaric bacchanalia
flooded fatigue
limpid languor
sated slumber

Let go!

Pilfer my wing
in a moment of inattention,
Hold it tight, stop
my flight, my fervor, my frenzy.

Cocoon us tight
in this ephemeral chimera,
Weave it closed, paint
a moon, the ocean, our reality.

Tragic

I turned back slowly, fearfully, even a little hesitantly...

A chain of seemingly connected, truly disparate realities, fragments strung together by some strange whim of nature. A misplaced fantasy- well, hopelessly!

Ellipsis carefully strewn about to beautifully camouflage the uncannily repetitive omissions, or should I say forgotten procrastinations? Negligence- well, nearly!

Ripples, one after the other, incessantly spreading, arch emotions, flitting romance, illusory love, undying lust. Turbulence- well, always!

Tears, both shed and denied, stifled and blinked away, solitude, self-inflicted heartache. Happiness - well, wistfully!

Phantoms, some even real, of thoughts and words and deeds, some said, some swallowed, some loved, some repented. Spontaneity- well, rued!

I turned away sadly, fearfully, even a little too quickly...

Greedy

Fingertips, a hummed tune, the moment before you sneeze,
a crumpled sheet of scrawled words, chipped coffee mug, a puppy,
whispered love, a secret meeting place, momentary motionless locked gaze.

If you will allow me some more greed...

An embrace, your voice, the moment before you sleep,
manuscripts of love, the sugar in your coffee, allegiance,
an oath, paradise, eternity.

Trivial

I'm an inkblot, scattered by an angry whim of the hand.
I'm a footstep, an insignificant instant in an eternal journey.
I'm a shadow, a dark twin that lurks by day and fades by night.
I'm a torn page, an incomplete story with no beginning or end.
I'm a broken clock, frozen at a forgotten moment of truth.
I'm an ambiguity, maybe, maybe not...

When I'm gone...

Oh cuckoo that wakes him every morn!
Won't you sing a melancholy song,
the day I'm gone?

Oh rainbow outside his window!
Just one more color, won't you show,
the day I'm gone?

Oh fragrant flower in his way!
Your pretty head, won't you sway,
the day I'm gone?

Oh teardrop in his left eye!
A little sooner, won't you dry,
the day I'm gone?

Oh new moon, out of sight!
Won't you be his lover for a night,
the day I'm gone?

Stay awhile, will you?

You are my fleeting fantasy,
Rest awhile before you hurry away-
Just long enough to sing me a song...
Just long enough to write you a verse...

You are my sweet intoxicant,
Hold me awhile in your magical mirth-
Just long enough to profess my love...
Just long enough to lull me to sleep...

You are my unopened gift,
Stay awhile wrapped in ribbons-
Just long enough to stop this flutter...
Just long enough to guess your surprise...

You are my flowing poetry,
Remain awhile as stammered words-
Just long enough to finish this dream...
Just long enough to string you together...

You are my impending doom,
Wait awhile before destroying me-
Just long enough to feel your wrath...
Just long enough to hear my plea...

Soma

Inspirational Art: courtesy Nithya ( A really good amateur artist!)


Crystal goblets, musically clinking
Sparkling stars, softly blurring
Imagined music, gently lilting
Warm intoxication, washing all over.

Blurted words, barely croaking
Leaden head, wildly throbbing
Numbed senses, slowly dying
Brutal intoxication, ravaging all over.

May I not have just a bit of your morn?

May I not perch
on your window sill
and glimpse your creased forehead
and guess your last dream?
I promise, I will fly away into the dawn.

May I not ride
down a gleaming ray
and tickle your eyelids
and kiss you awake?
I promise, I will not stay too long.

May I not slide
into your morning papers
and peek at your face
and follow your gaze?
I promise, I will not leave my far corner.

May I not melt
into your dark coffee
and float up the steam
and whisper you a secret?
I promise, I will not cloud up your eyes.

May I not have just a bit of your morn?