Haphazard

The first day of chilled of November, when I first stepped on to the city, I clearly remembered it was Calcutta then. A city of celebration, a city of political upheaval, a city of immense joy, a city of ' Pather Panchali'. I never wanted this life, my careless and slaphappy life of Delhi was interrupted, all of a sudden I came in the city where my bunch of relatives stay. So badly I wanted to get out of it! So badly I wanted to rebel everything that was going right in front of me. No, this is not me and NOT my city definitely.


Today after 4 years when I look back, I just smile. 


Snap! Present year in December!


"You MUST write tonight." - he said with a commanding voice. She sipped her dark caffeine and looked at him. All this while she was too happy bursting her colored bubbles. The entire act vanished in the thin air. No, she can't write anymore. The thoughts evaporate one by one, very slowly; she tries to catch each one of them and fail miserably. The Mortician, with a silly smile looked at the Dreamer and said, " Yes, I will. Only once you're gone." 


Here she is, sitting in front of the computer, cursor blinks, page blank and nothing comes out from her churned out, frantic brain. She scolds the monkey inside that never stops jumping and thinks, thinks about the time she spent with the teary eyed Dreamer.


She lighted another cigarette, took a deep puff and blew the smoke. She needs peace, she always wanted that. The Dreamer makes the Mortician secured, like a father to a child. And now everything went off like the candle flame on a breezy night wooof !


The Mortician sits alone and read cards, trying to figure out a future that is as dark as a grave of a scatted prisoner . She looks at the Dreamer's face and try to read his thoughts. The sudden chill in the air with a perfect dimpled smile, takes her worries way like those little Cherubs. My Dreamer, my little masochistic angel , my - naughty elf!




Come the later half of the month and the Mortician is already busy chopping the dead bodies fondly called the ghosts of the past. She has been betrayed and this time, she stopped bleeding. Someone, some day told her to have enough choices. Now she chose to be indifferent, she chose to remain a spectator, she chose to be a brutal beast. This time, the pain became a rage, the victim turned to be an oppressor, the person with the deadly claws suddenly became an ant of boredom!


She struggles to write and re writes, but fails. She can't write anymore - she stopped breathing. looks at her final draft and collapses under the winter rain. 

Death of a Mortician

The day when she first opened the letter that the Dreamer sent, she was pretty taken aback! No, no one has the right to know her so well. Warm tears started rolling from her eyes she looked here and there to save herself from such crime. She wasn't supposed to cry anymore. Nothing can affect her, not even the love sick Dreamer.

She read and un-read that frightful letter time and again, trying in vain to find some faults in it. She wanted to be angry, she wanted to scream, she wanted to rebel against the world which rejected her long time back. She is now - The Mortician, for whom the only celebration is DEATH. For awhile, she returned to the world of flesh and blood, where love reigns, happiness exist, there is joy and sorrow, there is leave-taking, there is sweet nothings. She lived the years which she every day wanted to relive. Every night she dies and become a bit more of what she has become. The Mortician only had one companion, the stupid Dreamer. Woof !! and he has been exiled to a hopeless land.

Maya calls, asks her to take care of herself though they both don't know the meaning of 'taking care' ! After few careless gab, they bid each other good-bye. Maya puts balm on her deep wounds but like every other day, the contusions come back, like the monster in the hell - feasting on a wounded creature with sheer joy. She rolls another joint, takes the first puff and fumes with anger. She wanted to be happy, once upon a time, though she knows the 3 of them can never be happy like happiness could be !

She talks to the man with ' hope tattoo' she fights, she screams, she bleeds once more and he remains calm. He doesn't know what her pain is ! She doesn't know how to talk about it. The monkey starts jumping and the Mortician looks for the Dreamer like a maniac. The society disowned her, the Illusionist dismayed her, the colors red, blue and pink made her blind.

After the 'trip' she comes back to her senses, the mobile blinks and she reads the text. It's the Dreamer saying, " Rest are fine. Just.Fine".

She calls the Moon man and smiles, he finds her insane, disgusting and dour. She laughs at herself and recalls, what once the Dreamer sent.

"Two brunt neon night skies of the two far away cities…. The distance, the void between them is filled with songs; the notes float around in sepia undertones as they go back to the past again…."

"Rest are fine. If only. They were fine."

Kolkata Madness

I had to write today. For I’ve been trying to push things into a pattern, for I’ve been trying too hard, for I’ve been trying for too long – few years, to be precise – of me, in this city. Kolkata.

When in the chilled month of November I’d seen the city’s silhouettes of highrises in contrast with the 'purono diner bari', sloping roofs and sacred banyan trees spreading under a purple dusk, I’d wished, desperately hoped, it would be mine.

But the more I tried to make sense of Kolkata, the more it eluded me, leaving me confused and a little scared. So now I’ve let it be. My 'Tilottoma' is so many things…one day it will be mine.

My Kolkata lives in the past, its cosmopolitanism underlined with an aged, quotidian routine, like the restaurant names that are written, in very fine print in Bengali and 'almost' English, at the bottom of the glittering boards.

So while in Town there are lovely edifices – carved and pirouetted, riddled with arches and adorned with turrets – the road between home and Gariahat is congested with heart-repair ‘doctors’ with their mumbo jumbos, shops that sew you the exact new Bollywood or Tollywood style blouses and salwar kameez and nooks that sell coconuts. But at Southern Avenue the road widens, gives in to boulevards and trees, to old Bengali bungalows and old ladies in cotton 'ghore pora' sarees.


My Kolkata is in the by lanes of Bhawanipore and Rash Behari, tea shops under gnarled Banyan trees or those small little pan shops. My Kolkata is the taxi-wallahs outside CCD in Lake Road, their never ending slumber up on the bonnet – fanning their red piece of cloth to drive away the invisible insects ceaselessly while flanked by skyscrapers.

Sometimes my Kolkata is Park Street; many times the desi Manhattan within the city. With purple, green and pink neon lights, with several sinuous curve of the cross roads.The place where Lata Mangeshkar and Metallica earn a different kind of exuberance. My Kolkata is the exhilaration that comes, again and again and again, at looking at Maidan covered with fog.

My Kolkata is the sigh that escapes, looking up at the stars while surrounded by Victorian monuments, all bathed in an orange glow. My Kolkata is savouring this sumptuousness of space in a cramped, crowded city.

My Kolkata is the breathless, merciless torture of a claustrophobic afternoon before rain. My Kolkata is the bobbing psychedelic umbrellas on soaked roads, after rain.

My kolkata is the explainable enthusiasm for those sudden cemetery visits. My Kolkata is the Chinese breakfast at Teriti Bazaar with the desi touch of oriental delicacies. The cheap cigarettes and the cheaper 'bhanrer cha' at the Academy foot hold.

 

My Kolkata is the shelves of books in my living room, in the shadow of hot pink curtains. My Kolkata is the blue and green orb-lamp that hangs at my window. My Kolkata is the smell of paint that hits me every time I open my creaky almirah. My Kolkata is the best friend I have coffee with. My Kolkata is the home of a deceitful Illusionist, Aarshi Nagar with the heartsick Dreamer, weekend escapade of my Maya. My Kolkata is the sudden boy I found for life, called the Heartless Casanova. My Kolkata is a motley of midnight conversation with the Moon-Man and his 'Hope' tattoo.

My Kolkata is the city where the air is always laden with moisture, so much so that when you breathe, you take in its water and its sweat, hiding some part of it within you, for leaner, meaner times.

My Kolkata is all sepia. Dusty and musty, it’s the colour of milky tea, dusk and deserts.

Looking like faded photographs, Kolkata’s dilapidated houses run by me on the way home. Through tiny windows you can see tube-lit dens, bright blue walls, shabby lobbies; a lungi hanging from a pew in one room, ornate pictures of gods in another. One day, they will not awe me with their sense of easy belonging. One day, I will stop trying so hard to belong. One day, Kolkata will be mine.

Endless Soliloquy

MORTICIAN:

Toke aaj ekta kotha boli, may be I will never say such things ever afterwards.

I shall be missing you Dreamer when you are not here. I won't have anyone who will listen to my late night blabber.... My endless grumbling about something called 'your career'. How horrible was that. To my every nonsense you have been an active listener, all my tantrums you have dealt with forbearance and a happy face. What would I do without you I really wonder, my sudden day's escapade to the famous "Aarshi-Nagar" with cups of black tea/coffee, nico puffs and endless meaningless banter with child like photo shoots. I shall miss these greater halves of my life! I never found someone like you, who's always there donning that 'ready to die for' dimpled smile. Ah! The smile indeed; an escapade to my lunacy...Hori-dar cha-er dokan-e mosha-r bhyan bhyanani aar tui, Vivekananda Parker unchu unchu ghas peyire bench ta dokhol kora, hothat kore gaan geye kende phela, othoba "MORTICIAN tumi kintu bodle jeo na..."

You gave me all that I always WANTED in this wreck-less life.

There are times, when I scream at you. Just like a little girl who screeches in the middle of the night after seeing a nightmare. There are times when I ask you not to cry, your tears scare me and I ask you quite brutally to stop it. Though I know within, that these drops of eyes, are hard to resist. There are times when I look out of the window or read a book as you call and I say " I don't wanna talk anymore..." I do it all, everything that can justify me to be an inhumane. But behind every savage act there lies a subtle love, something that only I can feel and you can understand!

In 12 days time you shall be off to the Gujju Land with your life covered with strangers, some of them might also be your friend. And here I shall be all by myself thinking about your Assam expeditions. But that is life I guess...that is the ONLY way to remain with someone with a handful of memories.

My secret keeper, my friend, my masochistic angel; be happy as happiness could be, be strong like the rocks can be and remain JUST the way you are .... ‘Cause you are a BLESSING for people like US! I Love you!

Live well, drink and be merry DREAMER, with or without me! :)

DREAMER:

Yes I will be off to the dry state of Gujarat, pay five times the price for drinking, get lost in the folds of the Himalayas, call up Bihu-man, throw tantrums at him and sulk about how horrible Assamese foods are.... all these I will do, but somewhere deep down a bit of the Mortician would also be there doing all these with me.

I will miss the scared hands that always held me tight while crossing the roads making me realise that I better grow up and learn to take charges. I will have fun in the weekends but the joy of having you at the “Aarshinogor” would always be longed for. I will meet many new people, see new rivers but in my mind I will always hum the same old river songs that you always sang for me. The steps of Bihu would be echoing in my ears and hammering on my head, the solace won’t be there, because there would be no Mortician or Maya to drag me to sing.

With every taambul that I will chew I know for sure I will be missing Ruu and her funny ways of blaming me for having paan alone.

I will wear the white Tee that you have gifted me for my birth day. And yes may be I will also miss the Lunatic thinking of my last birth day....

I will be missing you all....

MORTICIAN:

We spend most of our time talking about nothing but I just want to let you know that all these nothings mean so much more to me than so many somethings. I don’t regret the rain or the nights I felt the pain or the tears I had to cry some of those times along the way. If you’re leaving, take me with you. If you’re running away, take me too. If you’re jumping off, hold my hand as you do...But these good byes are painful!

Life takes a different run, each time I read your thoughts. Yes, I can READ them all. And then those endless telephonic conversation that determine 'how we should be or how we are'. Life goes on, as it never ends! With Maya by my side, and Ruu on another, I shall be living YOUR life, here, in this reckless city, where life refuses to gain momentum.

Think what you have while I narrate this life story to you, so that you can also have time to smile a bit and say, "Life is short, but this time it was bigger"!

DREAMER:

You have never accepted a second rate life story, so have I tried following your footsteps. But none of us have seen the end, we know not what we are, what life is, how the ending is like.... no one knows the end before the end....

You and Maya always ask me to grow up. You scream and shout at me, I remain quiet; not because I don’t have answers, not because I don’t want to piss you off; it’s because I know I need to be shouted at, the child in me always feels safe with you around. The screeching and scolding gets surpassed with the love and affection you have unconditionally showered on me. I never had to ask for anything, but you have given me all that I had so longed for....

Grown up Maya often says we are all alone. I bargain saying “we still love to act as if we are not alone”. I shut Maya up, I shut you up; but at one point I see a reflection of this Dreamer in both of you. So yeah, we all are sailing the same boat, through the "shorbonasher nodi" hoping "lagbey tori kusum bonn e...." I can’t promise you anything, because I really can’t afford to break the promise if I make one. I know how it feels when promises are broken. I don’t know exactly how short life is, and this time how big it had been like. All that I know for sure is that some short stories are ever so long.... "sesh hoiya hoilo na sesh...."

MORTICIAN:

Ever wondered how will my trips to the cemeteries be? They shall be as ghost-like as the graves themselves. I will be carrying the same camera, with a bottle of lemonade and few note books in my bag. But the charm of these little excursions will vaporise, with each passing day. I don't know whom to call when I need a smoke in the middle of something; I don't know who will hold my hand as I walk the streets gallantly while talking to one of my friends over the phone.

Rita mashi'r cha-er dokan will have one empty space, Indthalia will have one chair free, Nandan-Academy will have a spare place to sit, Cafe Lounge and Cha Bar will serve one person less, the cinema-hall Ajanta will have just one more ticket to sell, CCD, Barista, Maharani'r Kochuri, the ol' alleys of the New Market to the unpredictable "Sinful Afternoons", everything will miss one more part of this worthless Mortician. And I will be missing, my most beloved half, YOU – The Dreamer.

The regular walks from Lake Road to Rashbehari, the sudden afternoon showers, lazy clicking sound of the camera, the occasional shopping, my encounter with Robi Thakur, those unending midnight conversations, your love for Love and my hatred for the same or the smoke with whiskey filled glasses will never be the same!

You are the world-class fool indeed! Cause you in turn befooled the world!

....Till we meet AGAIN!

DREAMER:

Don’t get distressed when I cry, let me cry and feel sorry for myself.... many a times we have called each other up complaining about the over cast sky or the traffic on the roads or the hiking up of the prices of cigarettes.... and then consoled ourselves with the thought of there is always a tomorrow. It’s just that this time the night would be a little prolonged before tomorrow comes.

I promise to come back as soon as possible. You just promise me to be the same Mortician you always have been to this Dreamer.

.... I would just be a phone call away.... and yeah I am sure dirty Santa’s would not sleep switching off their mobiles this Christmas.

MORTICIAN:

Remember Me..?

Am your sanity...

We used to walk hand in hand

But you could no more stand

The incisions of life

And chose to stay the horrid way....

In a life of illusions

And smokey repentance...!!!

Remember me.....???

Or should I believe

You've lost your head drawing pictures,

Scribbling things that dont make any sense

Waiting for the Eternal Death...!

I shall be writing such a History. :)

DREAMER:

:)

Unfinished....


http://oflovelifeandlunacy.blogspot.com/

Delivery Rejected

I have waited for you for 2 years and I will wait for you for the rest of my life. Even if that means I have to give you up for the rest of my life, I will wait for you. I love you that much and nothing will ever change that. 'coz I'm holding on to something that used to be there hoping it will come back, knowing it won't. Its an irony you know when I see a lot of people walk in and out of my life, but... you're one of the only ones I ever really wanted to stick around.

Just because I moved on doesn't mean I won't be here if you change your mind, but I know those things will never happen.It's been quite a while... I must say I miss our friendship. I miss you, but what I really miss the most is not just you or us but how it all was.I often catch myself constantly wondering how you are, sitting alone with my mind set so far, reminiscing about your smile, voice and touch, damn this life...!!!We've gone our separate ways and I know it's for the best, but sometimes I wonder, will I ever have friends like you again? Sometimes, no matter how much faith we have, we lose people. But you never forget them. And sometimes, it's those memories that give us the strength to go on. Now when things have started falling in places, I miss you most when I'm sad. I miss you when I'm lonely. But most of all, I miss you when I'm happy.

Lastly I wonder, now when I'm not there... do you think of me? When you're sad and something's bothering you... do you wish I was there to help comfort you even if it's just for a moment? When you lay down at night... do you look back and cherish the old memories you made with me? Because that's how I think of you...

I have loved you unconditionally enough to hate you the same..I have surrendred unconditionally enough to take it back the same...I have walked hundred miles yet trusted you from the word go...you walked the same and lied from the first footstep...yet I forgive you...'coz a person who lies looking at the mirror , the mirror does crack in the end....

Reflections: Turning 30

"I turned 30 two weeks ago. I'm just kind of neutral about it right now, and maybe still a bit stunned. It's a little hard to believe that I'm not in my 20s anymore; it's a whole new decade!" This has been written by someone who was probably getting nervous about entering into his thirties!

Now that the man has lived through the 20s decade and had many eye-opening experiences - jobs that brought lots of surprises, relationships that were difficult to foster and maintain, and neighbors that were a source of friction - he has become less idealistic about the world than he once was. But he does feel the pivot happening. He does feel childhood and adolescence and young adulthood receding. There it goes. Like a wave in high tide that washes in, that slaps the sand with its crunch and its sleekness, spreading out among the particles, picking up stray bits of crab and shell, of sea weed and kelp and other marine vegetation, brooming across the beach, and then, hanging there, suspending for a second, it begins to pull away. To go back into the rolling blue ether of time. To join all the other childhoods and adolescences. To smash them together, rubbing their mass together, all the laughter and pain and joy and horror, the tragedy and the elation spuming together in a spray of foam and air and total complete effervescence.

Until that mass lifts and disintegrates into time and space and place.

B-i-g 30.

That man with his wounded scars, meandering ways with dreamy big eyes peeping through the
glasses. That BOY who suddenly turned 30. He wipes his glasses and sighs...memories of long lost
past came down in a flash of a second.

He wanted that last one kiss from his young blood love, that last puff of the adolescent cigarette, the
shy glance of that un-named girl in the park. He inhaled deep and tried to sense the air that he smelt
when he was 20 - a decade ago when he was a bit of a rebel, he used to wear love stained glasses
then. He tried to go through and mend all the pages that he once unread, all the works that he kept undone, all the promises that he never kept. All at once, one by o-n-e.

"You know that feeling you get when you gaze into the campfire? When you can hear what’s being said, but still you let your eyes get lost in the dancing, formless flames. You think of earlier, when everyone worked together, how the flames roared up. You couldn’t have gotten there without them, but now it’s just you, alone in you head, watching the fire flicker, and subside, slowly…", he whispers.

He stares into the blaze of thirty birthday candles on the cake. Inhaling deeply, and blow until his lungs are empty. The room goes dark, and all he can see are the glowing orange wicks.

The room got filled with laughter and happiness. He wiped that invisible tear from his eyes...while Guns N' Roses sang..

"And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon,
Little boy blue and the man 'n the moon... "

The years of our lives are like the leaves on a tree - we should not mourn for the few that have fallen when we could celebrate the many healthy ones that still remain. Thirty is much too young to mourn the loss of youth and the shortness of life. I am healthy, happy and would rather spend my time living my life than futilely mourning its mortality. Mortality is something that we cannot change, but what we can change is what we do with our time. Pack enough into your days and you will feel no need to regret the years behind you - rather you will treasure them.

A Farewell Note

On a day like today even few days back, I woke up with your call / text in the morning. Half asleep and half irritated, you made an abrupt Sunday plan! I was little hesitated and perplexed, while you smiled all along the way...

And now, its today ! the phone remained mute, it did ring in the morning and I with my sleep starved eyes looked at the mobile and never replied. That is the beginning, the beginning of the time when there will be none who will color my hard-core practicality with a dash of dreamer's eyes! I shall be the same, irritated and hot headed.

There are plenty of time while walking in the smokey alleys, or while humming a song carelessly, you asked me - "Do you ever dream? Is it so bad to fall in love?" then I say, "Grow UP ! *tsk tsk* what would I do with you! " with a deep, sordid sigh! With ever beguiling dimpled smile you say, " Wet paint! You ask me not to sit on the stool but I still sit. Its not bad! Its only wet paint. It will spoil my pants and leave a mark, but its fun...I always fail to understand that even that fossil of dry paint is an unnecessary trouble in life...I know why you shout at me!
promise me, you will never stop shouting at me!"  then we exchange songs, poems and pictures thinking a networking site to be a part of our lives. We remember conversations, we remember the last secret joke that we shared. I never felt that you will leave this city about which I crib the most and you compensate that with your love! you talk about the Mortician, Maya and the heartless Casanova!

Coming back to the same fantasy land you ask your invisible lover, " Can I call you Puspa like Rajesh Khanna and you will call me Ramesh Babu,
Sometimes may be Raj and I will call you Simran....
We will dance on the moving trains; make it in the pouring rains,
Run in the tulip fields, sing on helicopters and make love on fire...
We will sing inside the elevator and live on the roads...
We will name our home Basera..."

I frown and scream at you ! I stop you from drinking the poison called love, I ignore your pain and force you to smile, with those moist dark eyes. I have never been so cruel, may be I want you not to suffer anymore, may be I was too scared to let you go, or may be I was just protecting you from the gnashing ravages of human life! Everything halted as you left. The Sunday mornings, sauntering in the by-lanes with cheap cigarettes, sudden gush of rain or even my eternal conflict with the famous 'Rabindranath Thakur'...

...and then you leave with a note saying, "Many a times we have called each other up complaining about the over cast sky or the traffic on the roads or the hiking up of the prices of cigarettes.And then consoled ourselves with the thought of there is always a tomorrow. It’s just that this time the night would be a little prolonged before tomorrow comes.

I promise to come back as soon as possible. You just promise me to be the same Mortician you always have been to this Dreamer.

Don’t get distressed when I cry, let me sob some and feel sorry for myself... I would just be a phone call away.... and yeah I am sure dirty Santa’s would not sleep switching off their mobiles this Christmas.
love as always :)"

For the Dreamer of my dreams

Yes, with love always and forever, my stupid Dreamer !

Untitled II

When you hear them pack their bags
Their large feet shrinking away through the door
Their hands on the gate

There are
the spaces they leave

Just there
the poem places a last glance back at the window imprinted with ghost thuds of birds
Tiny carcasses already dropped to the purring mouths of quiet cats with long transparent whiskers to move soundlessly through the night
green eyed

Here the sounds wobble as another marches by loudly
measuring a distance with the certainty of numbers noted down
Where their edges are lost in the overlapping

A sharp urgency flounders
behind a dull puckered
These are not sounds
these are words
interrupted by the sharp announcement of the doorbell rising to be heard past the furniture as if unexpected
Hands clench
small pawed in cotton skirted courtesy
Follow the words trailing
As a shrill wind fills the silence left wide open behind them
Heavy lidded you return to the page which shivered blankly beneath a note written then placed in a pocket
A moment stained with the mottled impossibility
of containing an ending in the telling
remains

Untitled

Can I reveal to you my gestures
through this writing.

I want to show you my hand,
As it rests now in my lap,
Fingers softly curled,
Upturned like a cup.

As the other makes these shapes
Which I will later tap tap type
with two stiff fingers.

Read them now and retrace
That path of meaning, back
through keypad, paper, pen
hands, lap, arms

Back to the point
of its conception

Back to this moment
Which was right.

We can adjust the rest
Later.

The Black Rose

For my darling Annie

She held her arms high, toward the moon.
Surrounded by the dark night and its morose presence.
Her hair, woven of moonlight, flows restlessly against her pale skin.
She drowns endlessly and bathes in the angelic light of the moon.

A long lost soul, yearning for liberation.
Breathing for her love, deceased.
This is the lost tale
Of the Black Rose.

She cries tears of blood, marring her beauty.
No longer virginal, but impure.
When will the enticer cease his sins.
And bring her back to true existence.

A crestfallen soul, mourning for deliverance.
Bleeding for her love, lifeless.
This is the lost tale of
Of the Black Rose

Heartless and cold, the enticer persists.
Feeding her hunger for hope and faith.
That one day, her love will commence.
And return to her forlornly arms.

A disheartened soul, longing for love.
Dying for her lover, demised.
This was the lost tale
Of the Black Rose.
That withered without love.

Text Received.

Its almost 5 o'clock in the evening. People around the lake are engaged in their regular evening stroll. They sometimes leave a mark of their own in my insane mind. While I take out the cigarette and light it up from my office's balcony. There's a bench right in front of our office where I've seen endless lovers and their shy kisses.

The color of the sun-set gives a 'mon kharap kora' ( lamentable) feel. As if there will never be a tomorrow. My mobile blinks. Ah! here comes the Casanova's text. I read and take a long puff of the smoke stick. I still don't clearly remember, when/how this careless lover-boy became a part of my life. He talks about heart-aches, his pent-up 'obhimaan' (anger - though not the right term), the thoughts that scare him, the songs that make his eyes moist. At times I wonder, what makes me to connect to this 'probashi' who never stays at one place anymore.

It's evening now. The nearby bench in no time will be filled with these free young 'lovers', who with their trembling shy hands shall discover each others' bodies followed by a sudden kiss. The naive girl shall no longer be the same anymore. Nor be the boy who shall taste the first saliva of passion. Few texts exchanged and I can see the Casanova as a young adolescent who still smells of his first afternoon of  turn on. I smile as I light my last smoke of the evening.

While returning home, I read his another text. " Eei amay chinecho?" ( Don't you know me). I sigh and look at the drizzling sky . I feel like asking him, " Chinbo bollei ki chena jay?" ( Can we really know a person so easily). Another sigh and there I go, to get an auto.

Heartless Love

I

Heartless statues,

Dauntless cowards

Sunshine darkens my empty,

Bruised soul

Silence echoes off the wall...

Desireless passion

and cruel love,

Run away from fear,

Fly like a black dove.

Resentful anger makes you crave

What you can't own.

II

When I close my eyes at night,

I float back into time,

And I reminisce on the days that you were mine.

I hear your voice,

I see your face,

I feel your touch,

But now, I’m out of place.

You don’t want me there

I can see it in your eyes

But you’re nice to me anyway

Covering up your lies.

...and then, 

I start to forget you,

Then I think of you

A broken heart

torn by your annihilating hands

A sweet face

ruined by your vicious kisses

A gentle body

that never wants to be touched again

A mind shattered

by your delusory caring words

A life devastated

when you left without looking back!

Waiting, hoping realizing

Waiting, hoping realizing
It walks alone with nobody to love or nobody to care for it
No-one to trust, No one to hold
It is all out of hope
Waiting for each day to end, for it to crawl back into its hole
It does not want to see anyone
So ashamed of its existence
Its been hurt once, it does not want to be hurt again
Why did he do it

Did he not know the undying love it had for him?
He was the only being it trusted
Now, no-one

He walks past it, ignoring it, not wanting to know it.
Like a vampire which thirsts for blood, it thirsts only for his love.
Did it get his love? No
But only the rejection of its presence

The unwanted soul meanders alone into the dark, deep hole of loneliness
No-one to love it, no one to care for it, no-one to trust and no-one to hold
No, it has nothing but painful memories of its everlasting love for him
It goes back into its hole and curls up feeling too hurt
It never comes out, its heart is wounded - no broken
It lies there to die, doing nothing loving no-one but him...

Slowly, painfully, it comes to its pitiful end
It had waited, it had hoped, it then realized
Waiting, hoping realizing.

P.S. : I have deliberately replaced He/She with It. It gives the strength to go a bit deeper than the usual imagination.

A bloody June

I clearly remember
A time long ago
A bloody month of June
The red-tinted White cloth.

I stayed around
Quite to hear
There was not a sound
But the drop of a tear
As she laid there motionless.

I faintly remember
But can't comprehend
Down into the chamber
All caskets descend

From 6 feet above
The blue flowers fell
Through kindness and love
She rose from this hell

She left and all died.

The 20-minute Interval

The morning was quite like the other days, when she wakes up from her overnight slumber. It was drizzling and giving a grey touch of sombre. With the cup of morning coffee the woman tossed the calendar, very nonchalantly as if she has all the time in the world.

...it is afternoon, she is looking for a taxi on the lazy street of South Kolkata. Suddenly the moist air was added with the smell of 'chatim' ! She looked at her watch and then smiled, Durga Puja was just round the corner. 

Pause. The cab.

Little she knew before entering the office, that the day will not be the same like any other day, in any other agency,  with any other people she meet... 

Snap!

The journey.

A stranger, with a recognized smile. His killer dimples jabbed her throbbing heart. She looked at him, like a blushing virgin wife...time aged her but she was never so young within, like the way she was with the advent of the evening. He opened the cab's door for her  like a true gentleman, alien to the fact how badly she wanted to kiss him. Standing right on the busy street with people all around and the constant honking of the bizarre vehicles. She stood there like a limbo and stared at him.

He called her again, this time a little louder...she retrieved herself in an instant and skidded inside the taxi. They both sat inside the car with damp air for don't know how long. She was looking outside the window while smoking and listening to one of her favorite number 'Rock you like a hurricane'. There was a hurricane, indeed  within her.

He asked for the light and lit another cigarette. They both looked at each other and exchanged few pleasantries. The song in her i-pod now shifted to 'Bedardi Raja' - a popular Hindi number ! With the few speed breakers, their legs were touching each other like two shy lovers in a park. He remained the same, while there was a fire deep down her. She remained the same, as if unaffected, she didn't even utter a word while making out with him thousand times in her head. 

The cab changed into an old mansion, the innocent brushing of two human beings in a vehicle was replaced with flesh. She ripped his shirt and held him close to her naked body, so that he can listen to her fast breaths. So that, he can compete with her savage heart beats, so that he can at least understand her endless insanity. 

Traffic signal. The destination.

The car honked again. She never felt so debauched ever in her life. He was saying something, while she was reaching the climax in her secret imaginary world of rage. She regained conscious and smiled back sheepishly. She desperately wanted the 20 minutes journey to stretch for at least next 20 hours, but all in vain. Her mind was wandering aimlessly all around trying to find out a way to delay the journey. He offered her a smoke and she accepted. they both were talking while travelling to an illusory world. Her urge to kiss him became desperate - a kiss that only lovers can exchange, pure, divine and full of passion ! She knows him just for few hours, but felt as if they know know each other eternally. They laughed at some silly jokes, teased each other like good ol' friends, exchanged glances as if they were meant to be with each other, like this, always.

Good-byes are always painful.

He reached his  terminus and offered to pay. She refused and looked at him as if she is looking at a man for the first time in her life. He looked at her too and whispered, " I've to settle few unfinished business with you.", winked and bid her good-bye.

The End.

She has always been good with men, of any sort, but she never felt connected like this. As the taxi took the flyover overlooking the city lights, she finally smiled with a relief !  Realizing that she now can actually live life, without the unceasing supply of love. She finally learnt to love only for a moment and relishing it like sipping a glass of ice-cold lemonade in the summer heat, drop by drop ! 

While she emanated the smoke, there was an inaudible sigh of relief. She smiled for her new art of love. It was 'Coming back to life' playing in her i-pod.

Conversation of two dead Romantics

Enter the Illusionist...

Exit the infamous Mortician!

Mortician: Heh ! blasphemy !

Illusionist: lol...dont worry

Mortician: but, am not worried baby

Illusionist: When the Illusionist dies it would have to take the favor of the mortician

Mortician : Duh! how can she even dare to do that! She shall be cursed and thrown out of her business in no time !

Illusionist: Well, that was our first deal!

Mortician :(laughs) Told ya even then, you can't afford me. Glad you remember at least one among the thousands of worthless DEALS

Illusionist: Hmm.. (sigh)

Mortician: ...pretty much dead air in between, let the silence speak 'cuz it speaks a million words unlike people like you and me.

Illusionist: True (smiles)

Mortician: Shessshhhh....it turned a mortician into a worthless poet! tsk tsk ... Look what you have done to me now :|

Illusionist: aschorjo toh ! (strange) If a corpse can be a magician, then why cant a mortician be a poet?

Mortician: Correction love, its NOT a corpse anymore, its a dazzling Illusionist !! The one and ONLY one ... am just a mere mortician ...who chops the dead bodies and smell these dirty rotten flesh !!

Life oh life!

When does life really begin? Is it when the first fluttering beats of the primitive heart of a fetus start, or when the child is pushed from the womb into the world? Does it all actually start at the moment of conception when the egg and sperm meet and mix their genetic code together to create a new being? No one knows because no one is sure of when life truly begins.

There are many out there who say an unborn child isn't really a person, or even alive because it can not sustain its own life. If this were true, then no one is a real person until they are living on their own away from their parents. When you stop and really think about this, without listening to the arguments about when life starts or if something is considered alive until a certain time, you would be surprised at what you may find.

When the primitive heart of a tiny fetus starts to beat for the first time, it is then that it starts to actually survive on its own, apart from its mother. It’s that life growing inside them that started those mothering instincts. It’s those instincts that protect it from harm until it is able to survive outside the womb and until it can live apart from its mother later in life.

I'm not a scientist, a theologist, or even a doctor. I am just an average woman who can bear a child of her own. So, when does life really begin? I don't know, but when ever it does, its all well worth keeping it going, for the rewards are more than what anyone truly deserves. Love gives meaning to our lives – as do friendship, or art or faith in God. These are factors of true happiness, of inner peace, of feelings of harmony, allowing meaning to our existence.

But there is the other side. There is the cruelty of life, the pain, the evil, not to talk of death. They are the hidden tigers, ambushed and ready to attack the imprudent, to use an image present in the Buddhist Scriptures. Is between these pendulums - the positive, the one that gives happiness and meaning, and the negative - that our lives are lived. And when we meditate about all that, we arrive at a diverse and disagreeing set of thoughts about the meaning and purpose of life. As they say:

“Nature separates beings, after having surrounded them by love. It divides them, and demands that they still love each other.”

Because life is a SONATA

Do you dare..? to live on high?

Do you have the courage to walk straight, when the arrows on the road of time, cross often and point you to distraction? Do you have the strength to keep the pure choice? Do you know how to make boundaries even though you may... lose, be alone, have empty pockets and gain nothing that the world can see? Living life on a note is not for the small soul, or the faint of heart.

To choose your own path, you need to initiate, you will have to make all your own rules, tell your family to be quiet, give some friend the boot, and cry alone. You will have to exit many rooms, travel in pain and hear words that call you crazy.

Choices make you - the king and queen of your world. Choices of self-love make you stand strong in the breeze, alone in the sand, with your heart pink with unconditional love, and the world. In the choice of strength of spirit, it is enough to have your own feet. Your elevator has one direction, no stop signs, and no decisions about buttons to push. It is enough that you know that you move beyond the third dimension – with Einstein, and Gandhi and the Beatles… On the high yellow brick road, you may meet the scarecrow, the tin man and the lion, and the witch and the wizard, but you own your own shoes. You will never take them off for people, for money, for fame. The dark forest you will pass and the poison is the fake garden, and the empty rooms behind the doors. But, you will have committed to living somewhere over the rainbow, where dreams are born. And in our world, in our times, we need the compass that will seek the peaks. Commit, choose, stay and walk on the high road with the sinfonia. Keep solid and straight, because happiness is not a crooked tune.

A Story

Ever feel like nothing could go right for you and that you are never going to get out of a slump? The need for companionship is strong enough to overrule any other emotion or any thought. Life seems much blacker without someone to share it with. Life continues regardless, and I abide...

The Story

Countless faces all around, whispering while listening to the music. Happy hours of the city has just started. There she is, locked up within her solitude, begging for mercy for a crime that she never committed. Love came to her once, like a dark silhouette. She believed in Fairy Tales after all! The flash of thunder, a few hiccups and a lonely street.

Another cigarette, a little sip of rum - this is her last day to prove that she wasn't wrong. The society, caste her out, like a leper. She fought gallantly for her innocence and now the exhaustion made her numb. Her blank eyes, witnessing how these social moths are feasting on her soul euphorically. She met justice on that winding road, smiling like the rest, promising what her lover once assured, “I’ll never leave your side." But not every fairy tale ends with a 'happily ever after'.

Next day, a court full of audience. Judgment ready, her heart panting. The last show. She was standing there, with quiet eyes and silent tears. Listening to the 'story' of what each has to say. Once her well wishers, these people ridiculed, battered her emotions, wasted on that phantom. They are the witness of the murder that never took place.

Only once she screamed, her eyes looking for help, " I don't know, please believe me, I can't kill him, as he never existed! I'm innocent and slowly she whispered, I loved him." Nobody heard her plea, they all were busy, mocking at her, laughing. "She is so stupid..." they said.

Justice never came to her, neither came the knight. The judge with baritone voice announced, "To be hanged till death." She paused and smiled.

Case closed. Justice pending. Death awaited.

A Mindful of Lies

LIFE... is like a box of chocolates. A cheap, thoughtless, perfunctoral gift that no one ever asks for. Unreturnable because all you get back is another box of chocolates. So, you're stuck with mostly undefinable whipped mint crap, mindlessly wolfed down when there's nothing else to eat while you're watching the game. Sure, once is a while you get a peanut butter cup or an English toffee but it's gone too fast and the taste is fleeting. In the end, you are left with nothing but broken bits filled with hardened jelly and teeth-shattering nuts, which, if you are desperate enough to eat, leaves nothing but an empty box of useless brown paper.

Now, as you have already relished the concept of a box full of chocolates here comes another potion...LOVE !!

Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up these defenses, you build this whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life. You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They do something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own any more. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination. not just in the mind. It's a soul hurt, a body hurt, a real gets inside you and rips you apart pain. I hate love.

And Now, hence most of you have been affected someway or the other by this deadly poison...I wish you a speedy recovery :)

Amen!!

Nothing ever happens and I WONDER :-|

Lazy morning sips to an endless cuppa, and then I sit and yawn! Welcome to a Sunday.I still remember there was this certain "someday" when things were different than it always were. And now another day. When the smokes circle in the air I sit and wonder! Is there anything called God, Devil, Humanity or they are all different ratios of nonchalance??!! Anyways questions are better not be answered all the time.

I have always been an atheist and more I talk about it people told me that some of my miseries are due to my lack of faith in the Almighty. How mighty that "Spirit' can be I question when that "Supreme Soul" drinks and have fun all by Himself up in somewhere called Heaven while thousands of people are suffering for nothing.

Another OTT expression is Love. Oh Man!! Who discovered this at times I have an immense urge to thank that "Extra Terrestrial Being". I mean who has seen simple Love beyond any expectations? I want to meet that person who has not suffered a zilch for something "As Divine as Loooove..."(yeah pun intended)! If something which is as sacred as love then why people fall in and out of it like the Entry and Exit gates??!!!

Questions storming like a whirlwind and still no reply. Sometimes I feel like breaking every norms of this society. People talk about chances but in the process they forget that chances are not given they are taken. Behind every successful, smart and humorous face there is an insecured and weak heart. They are used in such a way that the real person are left behind far far away with no traces of true identity.And in this world of consumerism we talk about Real Fruit juices??!! duh! What a life....

Finally after everything am back to square one...What was I talking about???!! Oh yeah about God, Love, Humanity, Affection, Respect, Commitments, Forgiveness etcetera. So...come on!! lets shower this Circus fondly called Earth something like those which only exist in the 3-D Utopian World. Okay I was just not talking about being utterly self-centered and foolish. was I ??!!

P.S.: Need your help I know if this goes on I shall be a Lunatic for good lol!

...Blurred

Yesterday's goals, dim memories.

Dark saddened eyes, blurring with tears.

Painful scars borne; Love's history.

Futures crumble when doubt appears.

No brightly lit hope envisioned,

When following after harsh words.

Hurt soul splits in twain, partitioned.

Swooned by appeal - when numbness lured.

Apologies made, never bought.

Price paid turned out far too costly.

Though never known what would be wrought -

Must walk into the night softly.

One wish, only to be released.

Granted - now receive this token.

Words written in rhyme, love's deceased.

When promises made . . . were broken.