Thoughts pierce and guilt burns.
The night-breeze of adulterated-freedom whistles past.
The night's cold and the sky's dark.
Hiding stories underneath.
The clocks tick... back comes the time.
When souls stirred and hands held.
The air is heavy and the vision blurred.
The ways are hypnotic and the dust revengeful.
I want to rush to another thought...
But guilt follows.
The owl hoots in awareness
Aware of my access and his existence.
Light is still away.
The twilight between life and death.
The music of the spirit dampens.
And moss collects.
Thoughts come gushing... like a whirlpool
I am flooded: emotions in a washing-machine.
The wrong over right and the right over wrong
Like two shirts on the same peg.
The mirror cracks...
And blood flows through their thirsty fissures.
My mouth waters.
But wait; where am I?
The beginning is the end
And the end is the beginning.
The story must be told.
And re-told.
Sunday, August 16, 2009
Saturday, December 13, 2008
P.S. Regrets Only:
Ahoy! Humanity. Speak not, listen:
Not of some tragicomedy or trivial banter of the ilk
Not of some lady-love lost and found –
But of malice – strong and solemn. And fury.
You may enter this web of hatred, but at your own risk;
Enter one by one. Maintain trajectory. Seal your lips.
Else, leave now. Quit. And do not disturb.
– – – – – – –
Was hell-bent to be a good guest:
Filled my plate with my hosts’ choice.
Hellishly bent they were –
Closed their plates at my sight.
My preferences lay a tad away. I swallowed else.
Bigful Banquet. Numberful Nosh. Humbleless Hosts.
When politeness becomes weakness, guest becomes valet.
Was hell-bent to do as directed and even exceed:
When asked for water, I gave my blood.
Hellishly bent they were –
Sucked it more and more and fed on it.
Like vermin on those never-suturing wounds.
Clandestine Conspiracies. Evil Exudations, Oozed Ominously.
Is man a switch? On-off, on-off at will?
– – – – – – –
We sowed and watered and toiled tight.
In bleak clime and Machiavellian regime:
Yet, by winter our garden-laurels were plucked and plucked,
The onlookers stopped to stare – sinfully silent.
Covertly this and overtly that.
That is the order of the day –
Pristine honesty is a corpulent crone’s chortle –
Today’s mutated version: less of heart, more of head.
Stoic wounds have a lot of fortitude,
Rub salt and they feel it not.
Plunge your uneven fingers deeper in them:
They may bleed, but never cry.
Multitudinous faces did I see.
Five types the most facial of all:
Who’d promise to arrange a warm and balmy bath,
And after the cold night’s patience, splash one up with frosty fuel.
Ein: Ye foxes. Ye toothless Archfiends and bald Medusas.
(Called us for the trophy but buffed us hard to shine it bright!)
Ye manipulative missiles: your curse will consume ye.
Ye will rot in your own grotesque company – and wither.
Zwei: Ye shaky sub-ordinates. Ye loose screws.
(They charge for gold, supply silver, and call it all fair!)
Nepotism, nepotism, and nepotism ye know – hell waits.
Ye call honesty arrogance: that’s some audacity!
Drei: Ye mistresses of spices. Ye proud credit-pilferers –
(They try to pollute all minds in the most nefarious ways!)
Your rectitude can put a skunk to shame. So can ye.
Quintessence of failure and scum on opportunity: ye.
Vier: Ye obstinate termagants. Ye heartless boas.
Results matter for ye, not reasons: inhuman sub-humans.
(Thought we were innocently foolish – big solecism!)
Know it that we were just too disgusted to remonstrate.
Fünf: The Queens are yet to come!
Vagary and continuity abreast? Elysian lawns in Erebus?
Your cold shoulders can silence the infernal inferno.
When quiet, one is ‘reticent’. When not: ‘rebellious’.
Such is the mystery of your confused dualism:
Coloured opinions – painted customarily in grey.
Fight your own size, witches. Shame on you.
(Blotches upon this land – let us re-call Ragnarok.)
– – – – – – –
Some deserved, and the others…. Had it all reserved.
My time’s lessons, in gratis, is what I wish to share with all –
In simple words let me aver the simple aphorism –
Climb that greased pole called Life,
And never give in and never give up.
“Satisfaction lies in the heart, not hand.”
Fine words from the distant rumours of land.
Hoping that the Catharsis preludes the Catastrophe.
– – – – – – –
P.S.: Regrets Only:
Not of some tragicomedy or trivial banter of the ilk
Not of some lady-love lost and found –
But of malice – strong and solemn. And fury.
You may enter this web of hatred, but at your own risk;
Enter one by one. Maintain trajectory. Seal your lips.
Else, leave now. Quit. And do not disturb.
– – – – – – –
Was hell-bent to be a good guest:
Filled my plate with my hosts’ choice.
Hellishly bent they were –
Closed their plates at my sight.
My preferences lay a tad away. I swallowed else.
Bigful Banquet. Numberful Nosh. Humbleless Hosts.
When politeness becomes weakness, guest becomes valet.
Was hell-bent to do as directed and even exceed:
When asked for water, I gave my blood.
Hellishly bent they were –
Sucked it more and more and fed on it.
Like vermin on those never-suturing wounds.
Clandestine Conspiracies. Evil Exudations, Oozed Ominously.
Is man a switch? On-off, on-off at will?
– – – – – – –
We sowed and watered and toiled tight.
In bleak clime and Machiavellian regime:
Yet, by winter our garden-laurels were plucked and plucked,
The onlookers stopped to stare – sinfully silent.
Covertly this and overtly that.
That is the order of the day –
Pristine honesty is a corpulent crone’s chortle –
Today’s mutated version: less of heart, more of head.
Stoic wounds have a lot of fortitude,
Rub salt and they feel it not.
Plunge your uneven fingers deeper in them:
They may bleed, but never cry.
Multitudinous faces did I see.
Five types the most facial of all:
Who’d promise to arrange a warm and balmy bath,
And after the cold night’s patience, splash one up with frosty fuel.
Ein: Ye foxes. Ye toothless Archfiends and bald Medusas.
(Called us for the trophy but buffed us hard to shine it bright!)
Ye manipulative missiles: your curse will consume ye.
Ye will rot in your own grotesque company – and wither.
Zwei: Ye shaky sub-ordinates. Ye loose screws.
(They charge for gold, supply silver, and call it all fair!)
Nepotism, nepotism, and nepotism ye know – hell waits.
Ye call honesty arrogance: that’s some audacity!
Drei: Ye mistresses of spices. Ye proud credit-pilferers –
(They try to pollute all minds in the most nefarious ways!)
Your rectitude can put a skunk to shame. So can ye.
Quintessence of failure and scum on opportunity: ye.
Vier: Ye obstinate termagants. Ye heartless boas.
Results matter for ye, not reasons: inhuman sub-humans.
(Thought we were innocently foolish – big solecism!)
Know it that we were just too disgusted to remonstrate.
Fünf: The Queens are yet to come!
Vagary and continuity abreast? Elysian lawns in Erebus?
Your cold shoulders can silence the infernal inferno.
When quiet, one is ‘reticent’. When not: ‘rebellious’.
Such is the mystery of your confused dualism:
Coloured opinions – painted customarily in grey.
Fight your own size, witches. Shame on you.
(Blotches upon this land – let us re-call Ragnarok.)
– – – – – – –
Some deserved, and the others…. Had it all reserved.
My time’s lessons, in gratis, is what I wish to share with all –
In simple words let me aver the simple aphorism –
Climb that greased pole called Life,
And never give in and never give up.
“Satisfaction lies in the heart, not hand.”
Fine words from the distant rumours of land.
Hoping that the Catharsis preludes the Catastrophe.
– – – – – – –
P.S.: Regrets Only:
Friday, July 27, 2007
THE SOJOURN IN A THREE - WHEELER
Be it a scorching June day or a pleasant September one, the only thing that is truly ubiquitous on an Indian road is a three-wheeler. Travelling in a three-wheeler is sui generis experience in itself: there is something uncanny about it. Starting from the first brandishing movement you make in order to enter into one, till the time you stay inside, you change and so does the world around you. These days three-wheelers based on the model of city buses have come to domination in the public-transport system. Colloquially, they are called Vikrams. Often over-passengering. They carry more than eight passengers at a time. Ostensibly, subjecting everyone inside to claustrophobia. For some, however, there may be better things to look forward to, too.
Some odd days may be brightened up if a hot damsel decides to sit next to you. (Actually the adjective ‘odd’ isn’t apt here; these days such occasions are seldom a rarity.) The squeezing and slight adjustments follows in no time as the cantankerous driver hollers and ululates for you to shift and make space for more passengers, time and again. What’s funny is, although these people stay in such a restricted world, the young ones from the fairer gender come and sit so close to you, insouciantly; be it the sareewalis or the Jeans walis. The irony is, you hardly hear of molestations inside the Vikrams.
If you belong to the bourgeoisie, you are often seen with a disgusted, pulled face; an act that is akin to condescending. You want to find faults in the not-so-fastidious vehicle so that a chance acquaintance on the street may not bring you in his evening’s discourse with some other acquaintances of yours and his. Basically, you want to show a face, which conveys it all. You take a sadist pride in being an alien to the system, which is mostly patronized by the penurious and the weaker milieu of society. Or at least wish to appear so.
If your alienation to the three-wheeler is authentic, and you are born with a silver spoon, then making a transit in one may be arduous; it doesn’t really give you the smoothest-of-smooth drives. And besides, a corpulent crone or a termagant co-passenger may get on to your nerves with such ease that you may resort to something wily and do something which would clearly indicate that you have forgotten the foremost rule of travelling in a three-wheeler: you can’t bring in a hoity-toity attitude here because of your bank balance. Anyway, if you do something testily, then you face the music almost instantly: the unity amongst the passengers suddenly becomes so creditable. Especially if it were to be against one hapless soul whose semblance secretly tells the others of his newness to the system. Even if you can tolerate well and don’t let loose a string of ire, coping with the ribaldry in the working hours along with the dust and heat coming from outside may not be the kind of endurance-test you would like to face.
Still, if you aren’t coy to travel in a three-wheeler, the thought isn’t too bad. In fact, a small part of me feels that it isn’t bad at all. You just have to get used to it once. If you get a corner seat, and the firmaments decide to let lose a round of shower, you hardly can do anything but get drenched. Its gets so congested that any movement invokes protest. You are only sharing a public utility, you remind yourself. Otherwise, if you are luckier and its doesn’t rain, you still have chances of getting the extremities of your limbs snatched away by the speeding vehicles that go past hastily. There is so less aloofness on the road. It seems as if there is a queer sense of ‘fastness’ associated with everything that you witness from inside. Students hurrying for their classes; office men; abstruse slang that seem to be inherent in everyone’s parlance; the pandemonium outside; the screeching horns; and everything else. And even before you notice, your journey at the lower level is already over. You are startled out of your reverie when the driver reminds you, looking at your clothes sardonically, ‘O bade saab, uterne ka vichar nahi hai kya?” (Boss, don’t you wish to get down?). And so you do get down. Before you have hardly handed over to the driver a pittance for your sojourn in the three-wheeler, you see it speed past you. Catching other passengers, making yet another monotonous, yet a totally different trip, disappearing out of sight.
Some odd days may be brightened up if a hot damsel decides to sit next to you. (Actually the adjective ‘odd’ isn’t apt here; these days such occasions are seldom a rarity.) The squeezing and slight adjustments follows in no time as the cantankerous driver hollers and ululates for you to shift and make space for more passengers, time and again. What’s funny is, although these people stay in such a restricted world, the young ones from the fairer gender come and sit so close to you, insouciantly; be it the sareewalis or the Jeans walis. The irony is, you hardly hear of molestations inside the Vikrams.
If you belong to the bourgeoisie, you are often seen with a disgusted, pulled face; an act that is akin to condescending. You want to find faults in the not-so-fastidious vehicle so that a chance acquaintance on the street may not bring you in his evening’s discourse with some other acquaintances of yours and his. Basically, you want to show a face, which conveys it all. You take a sadist pride in being an alien to the system, which is mostly patronized by the penurious and the weaker milieu of society. Or at least wish to appear so.
If your alienation to the three-wheeler is authentic, and you are born with a silver spoon, then making a transit in one may be arduous; it doesn’t really give you the smoothest-of-smooth drives. And besides, a corpulent crone or a termagant co-passenger may get on to your nerves with such ease that you may resort to something wily and do something which would clearly indicate that you have forgotten the foremost rule of travelling in a three-wheeler: you can’t bring in a hoity-toity attitude here because of your bank balance. Anyway, if you do something testily, then you face the music almost instantly: the unity amongst the passengers suddenly becomes so creditable. Especially if it were to be against one hapless soul whose semblance secretly tells the others of his newness to the system. Even if you can tolerate well and don’t let loose a string of ire, coping with the ribaldry in the working hours along with the dust and heat coming from outside may not be the kind of endurance-test you would like to face.
Still, if you aren’t coy to travel in a three-wheeler, the thought isn’t too bad. In fact, a small part of me feels that it isn’t bad at all. You just have to get used to it once. If you get a corner seat, and the firmaments decide to let lose a round of shower, you hardly can do anything but get drenched. Its gets so congested that any movement invokes protest. You are only sharing a public utility, you remind yourself. Otherwise, if you are luckier and its doesn’t rain, you still have chances of getting the extremities of your limbs snatched away by the speeding vehicles that go past hastily. There is so less aloofness on the road. It seems as if there is a queer sense of ‘fastness’ associated with everything that you witness from inside. Students hurrying for their classes; office men; abstruse slang that seem to be inherent in everyone’s parlance; the pandemonium outside; the screeching horns; and everything else. And even before you notice, your journey at the lower level is already over. You are startled out of your reverie when the driver reminds you, looking at your clothes sardonically, ‘O bade saab, uterne ka vichar nahi hai kya?” (Boss, don’t you wish to get down?). And so you do get down. Before you have hardly handed over to the driver a pittance for your sojourn in the three-wheeler, you see it speed past you. Catching other passengers, making yet another monotonous, yet a totally different trip, disappearing out of sight.
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