Bliss Or A Bend?

Walk with me …a mile or so
Let’s be together till the bend in this road
Sprinkle some sunshine, add some rain
Spice it up with promises, the ones in vain..
Give me a teardrop, add your giggle too
Wrap up your love, place the contempt true..
Fooled each other, that we’ll forever dwell
Forevers until goodbye; such a handsome fate!
Walk with me …a mile or so
Let’s be together till the bend in this road

Yesterdays will stay; then they will fade
Some stories to remember; some we’ll forget
This saffron evening, the heaven’s pale
The vanished powers of our reign…
I fly back, oh so free….into nothingness, like the sea
Fool me again…say we should stay & I will fool you back
like I always did...
A few steps more…then another end…
All roads are lovely…except for these bends

Main Bhi "BABA"

Standing near the door, managing myself in half square feet of area, amongst hyperactive women cribbing about mother-in-laws, bitching about “to-be daughter in laws”, at 7 in the morning makes me wonder if a special “Viagara powered women horlicks” is available at the local chemist. You guessed it right, m dragging myself to my office in the mumbai local train.

Amongst all the commotion, I manage to read the newspaper perched at an angle of 123 degree north and my spectacles at 495! My favorite is the speaking tree in TOI. On my voyage to this enlightening page, something rather interesting catches my attention. It’s the “Chitrakoot baba sex scandal” …wow! It definitely made me smile despite the painful angles my life was at now.

If you are a Mumbai local traveler, I bet one of the source of your entertainment on the way to office is the graffiti in the compartment- ranging from “I love you, Sheela” to incomprehensible graphics drawn by a frustrated man. I notice, recently the business opportunity has been tapped here. Something more interesting than the grafitti! Strips of papers pasted everywhere, each different from its neighbour read - Cure Fistula, improve your manhood, “Learn axelent English speaking- Don’t be down, win girls”

Flouroscent coloured cheap papers read “Baba Bangal wale”, “Baba Bhairavi” , (this one wins hands down) “Baba Jangli, for all Mangliks” ..F***ing rhythmic baba! I stood there reading each one….it had certainly changed my loyalty towards the speaking tree. One of it read – “If your daughter has her Jupiter sitting on 5th place , or if her moon refuses to kiss the sun, or if the Saturn has entered rahu, she will never get married”. “If your daughter’s ketu is sleeping with mangal, she is SCREWED!” ..and so on and so forth. I wondered in this so called economic capital, how many of educated parents will fall a prey to this bullshit, how many will suffer because one baba jangli has decided that someone will die- because 20 years ago a girl was born when the clock struck 12 noon 34 minutes and 5 seconds!!

In few recent instances, I have seen so called educated people blindly falling prey to this. MBA Marketing- top B- school grads fail to understand gimmicks of uneducated babas. I wonder how will it be to visit one of these baba homes- I guess they will shove up broom sticks up my nose and dance around me , so that I will get a promotion at my next appraisal.

I am no one to challenge these “Godmen”- afterall if they can predict birth and death- they are bloody talented and can easily replace god himself. As I reach Dadar, and the clock strikes 8:00 , I just wonder about this career option of becoming a baba - I will earn much more, I will be respected..and yes I will rule so many dumb minds in the world..! Atleast I will not have to travel in the locals at unearthly hours..not bad, not bad at all!
I will be in business till the end of patriarchy (oops the world)

100 sqaure feet

100 square feet of pure mess....

Of empty bottles below my bed

Of random pages with half - written thoughts
and the several chapters erased ...

Of the peppery- spray for “just- in- case"
and miniatures of old monk for exactly the same..
Of jhonson baby lotions and the anti- ageing creams too

Of laptops and ipods and the old radio too
Of “lenses on offers” and expensive perfumes

Of the never- utilized “candle light dinner” dress
and of used up candles from the dark rainy nights ...
Of glossy invitations and menus,
and plates of Maggie cooked on the yesteryear days...

Of the ladoos mom packed for me,
and a flight ticket to escape farther from her ...
Of shimmering gift wrappers preciously tucked away

and the gifts sitting idle waiting to be touched

Of the webs on the wall and the walls of life creating the webs ...
Of days of broken heels and nights of broken hearts,

of dazzling dusks and the murky dawns

If and when the time to leave arrives, I ll look back …

At this alien piece of land- my home, a nameless life- now my own

100 square feet of pure mess, I enjoyed creating it all…

To Nowhere..

A Saturday evening…a bout of self- love. I choose to spend this evening just with myself…
I buy a pirated copy of one my favorite books…I have read, read and re- read this book a couple of times in the past few years. Interestingly… every time I have read this book, I have been in a different city…each time life has been a little different than the last time I read it.

I walk back, not necessarily with an aim to reach anywhere. I let myself walk through the small lanes, not knowing where they will lead me to …
Paths which lead to the unknown, are worthwhile to tread on…

It’s a beautiful night.... The air is crisp and cold… it starts drizzling…the cold rain drops pleasingly pierce my skin. I have reached a divine place overlooking the city which has death- like calm and a life- like vivacity. It is dimly lit..very calm, forlorn….. a place, where I suddenly feel alienated from all the things which I am a part of …It is a feeling of being possessed by everything around and not having any possession of my own..it’s beautiful, almost like a string of magic moments..

I want to scribble a few lines to capture these moments..I do so on the blank pages of the book I just bought. A few lines on the next page attract my attention….it talks of mistakes, of fate…and the mistakes which make our fate...of letting life choose the course by itself ...

I sit here thinking… the last time I read this statement in my dilapidated apartment on a winter night years ago in the city of joy...I had no clue I will read it once again in this city, I never thought I will go to...

My journey from there to here, then to now…it took a lot of strength and a little fragility, a lot of love and a little hatred, a lot of turbulence and a little peace...a lot of "letting- go" and "holding on" ...big errors and little mistakes

I sit here wondering...when we let ourselves on anonymous paths we come accross lots of illusions, apprehensions of what may happen next and a fear of not being able to find the destination again…but I guess that’s the price we all pay for a few magic moments like these..

I bookmark this page…for the next time and the one after that…

Of Doubt & Trust

It never ends, I wish it never does
These last few moments of doubt and trust…

No more it matters if I win...
And it doesn’t matter if I win a lil less
It is meant to be broken, destined for an end
I see it going…was never mine
It never goes, I wish it never does
The last few moments of doubt and trust…

No more it matters if I will miss it
And it doesn’t matter if I ll miss it a lil more
Yesterday has disappeared, tomorrow will too..
I see this day fading away soon
It never fades, I wish it never does..
The last few moments of doubt and trust…

The dawn is elusive, the dusk is too
A Fathomless abyss between me and you
Where the doubt is charming, and the trust is too!

Beautifully Implicit

Most things in life are done out of compulsions – few explicit, most implicit. Being punctual to office belongs to the latter (if you are into HR). It’s a usual morning. After snoozing for approx. 20 minutes, I finally push myself out of the bed. As I slowly descend from the astral world, I realize the only thing “usual” about this morning is the eternal internal conflict of “to bunk or not to bunk”. The sky is gloomy, rains haven’t stopped pouring since last night, the air is fresh and cold – it carries a fragrance better than the one trapped in nina ricci bottles….it is ideal – a hot cup of coffee, my bed and day full of “nothingness”…but..

I give in, I have to rush – the corporate butchers do not understand that there’s much more to life than to earn a living….do I?...may be not! none of us do …guess the “implicit compulsions” are more potent than the explicit ones.

At 9 in the morning one of the busiest roads to travel in the city is the “hi-tech”, where thousands of techies drag themselves to work each day – decked up, wearing the rectangular access/ID cards around their necks which reduce each one of them into a number, but does give them some sort of “identity” we all crave for.

The traffic is totally jammed. I am happy as it gives me some more time and a valid reason to reach office late. Still at the same spot as I was 10 mins ago, the music in my ipod starts giving me a headache. I put it off and look around...

A pretty girl in a rickshaw doing and re-doing her make-up with complicated colored pencils…impatiently looking at her watch time and again…An old woman wearing a faded saree in another rickshaw...contemplating in silence, in no hurry to reach anywhere…

A white school bus stuffed with kids- all of them tearing each others clothes apart….a group of younger children happily selling flowers, thanking the traffic jam to give them maximum client exposure.

A black Mercedes (something to die for) and a disturbingly handsome man on the back seat (something to live for: P) …too engrossed in his palmtop to notice anything around… A cycle with 27 chickens on each side tied upside down …the fastest one to twist and turn and make its way out of the commotion...

A “formally dressed” mid- aged man on a pulsar continually convincing someone on phone getting ready for his sales target …. A old bike - 3 friends , adjusting themselves on a red caliber having the best laugh of their lives…

A rainy morning….a standstill corner of a fast paced city made us all look like the “self- absorbed” characters of a similar story – ever flowing , ever moving from someone, something, somewhere to someone, something ,elsewhere. It is few explicit stops in life like these , when I wonder how everything around is indeed beautifully implicit!

May Be...

When one routine ends ...we simply dive into a new one. As I come back home this Friday night , I take a break from my cellphone ,e-mails and myself. The day I wait for every week is here - Tomorrow ,I can skip everything I hate – Waking up early, forcing my eyeballs accept polymers to see the world better, going through my “To-Do-List” on my way to the office and making it on my way back.

I stare at the city , so well framed by the window of my room - this is where I lose myself everyday amongst the thousands ….it’s still alive …colours, lights, savvy people ,the latest cars …the noise,the rush and the charade.

A New year in a new city, new roomies , new targets and a new role to play ….I wonder how it still is the same old struggle everyday to hit certain life targets that we all are so programmed to achieve - A secure job , a family back home and a hope that the years to come will be better.

I slept off , without managing an answer to the question I ask everyday --What if someone wants to miss the pre-planned targets ? May be one such impulsive Friday night holds the key to my question ….