For Want Of A Better World

While I take some time to come up with more here, do check out another project I've been working on. Rustic Roaming catalogues my time in the villages of India, while I'm here as part of my rural stint for 2 months. I update it a lot more frequently (promise).

I woke up this morning, and realised, the romance in me had died, sometime in the night. It was a peaceful demise, Like a death from starvation, disease, old age, Just wasting away behind the scenes, without a fight. I am no longer the ashes on my pillow, Just memories moving through a murky past, The sinews of my being move me to look away from the remains, Afraid to know if it was an end he deserved, But I think he would have liked that. I move on with my being, Taking pleasure from what is here and now, A cold drop of water pleases more my shoulder, Than the scribblings of a mind, fevered, With visions beyond mankind, With sweat on his brow. The bed lies empty as I come back, The room frozen in a wanton sigh, I clasp the folds of the blanket, afraid, Of a shroud debased by my existence, To lay down my head, and cry.

06:45 The alarm rings. My hand flails in the dark for the phone on the countertop, to turn it off. One eye opens crookedly, as if remembering the existence of light, and peeks across the bed to the edge of the screen. No messages. 07:00 The second alarm rings. This time, the hand knows where the sound comes from, and turns it off in a second. The erstwhile lazy eye betrays me though, and hoping against hope looks again at the screen. No messages. I get up, and get ready for the day. 7:45 The hand, smelling faintly of aftershave, grabs the shirt from the hangar. The shoes are scrubbed and worn, as the eyes look askance at where the phone is charging. No messages. 9:30 The tummy, quite full from breakfast, waddles merrily on its way to work. It flutters as the lady at the security check asks for the phone while it passes through the kiosk. It sinks when it reaches the other side. No messages. 11:30 The sound of a message. A camera couldn't tell if the hand reached...

Don't act like you don't know me. I'm that man from the backalleys of your brain. Yes, that very same guy! The decrepit being who goes through the vicissitudes of life thinking a longer and more convoluted word, wrapped in a compound sentence filled with reactionary double-entendres is the only way to say it right.  The one who thinks he deserves the woman he loves simply by virtue of being the only one not making any outright effort to get her, in a sea of men looking to make her feel special. The one who believes that every woman deserves to be fallen in love wih, and leads the crusade by example. The one who sees himself seek solace in the sound of a typewriter rather than in the company of her who he so desperately finds himself craving. Too classy to be vulnerable, and too timid to dominate; or so he tells himself. Life becomes a lot easier to tolerate, once you get past this arbitrary concept of it being "fair". That the universe has nothing better to d...

It's that festival again, and try as I might, my mind wanders back to this day two years ago, in a three-bedroom house in a nine-storied building, with the smell of rajma and sounds of laughter coming from within. It was a nicer time, with friends separated by walls, not time zones; estranged lovers come back to meet; an evening of shopping for kurtas and talks of mulmul pajamas; and no sign or warning that soon you would be celebrating this day alone, fevered, bereft of the happiness only the presence of almost everyone you love being around you can bring. I've searched for the meaning of this love in many places; from the deepest of drug-induced psychoses to the desperate, lingering sensuality in the crumpled folds of a bedsheet. Nothing. It just seems to be one of those fundamental flaws of being born as this species: that no matter how much you try, some memories always remain, some to fondly remind and some to haunt you out of the merest shred of sleep for days. Maybe...

Ever since I was a kid, a "good" movie always had a clear definition: one that made you think something you hadn't thought before, and one that made you want to be part of it; as the protagonist or one of the leads in some of them, or just a curious observer in others. Growing up, try as I might, I still can't rid myself of that second definition. In fact, the only that has changed with the passage of time is the level of detail I can create around a world which, in the reel world, offers little information out of the ordinary. It's childish, and maybe the vicariousness of it all is slightly depraved, but it still keeps one of the nicer things about movie-watching intact: that there are people in this world who have a similar pattern of thought. The latest flick to afflict me in such a way was The Perks of Being a Wallflower. A lazy evening with not much to look forward to the next day resulted in an uninterrupted watch, one of the more memorable ones lately....

And when did you last go to Goa? When was the last time you decided to break off all connection with the rest of humanity and go wandering off among the waves; the sea and the sand your only refuge as you made your own lonely way to peace and salvation? When was it that you thought you had had enough of living your life through the lens of someone else's perception and decided you had to get back in touch with the only person in the world whose actions you wouldn't first be cynical about before accepting? I last went to Goa when I had faith in myself. When, through some series of fortunate events, I had ended up having the confidence to believe in my existence and a rainbow across the promised land where I would have lived the way I always thought of myself as having envisioned to be. When I had a basis of survival, and something had reminded me that no experience in the world is undergone in isolation; that there always have been and always will be people who have lived a...

I wish I could write like Stephen Fry. To lovingly, liltingly flow through words, a caress here, the most delicate of touches there, and paint verbal pictures that make even the most cloacal of matters look like meadows lit by the dew on a crisp halcyon morning.  I wish I could write like Wodehouse. To pick pen & p., and charge out to the terrace in a swift walk. One that would make Usian Bolt feel like the old church-going lady you must make cross the road every time you happen to meet on the sidewalk. On one of those days where nature's holy plan seems to involve quite a bit of a nap, and the clouds above seem to yell, "Say it with ink!" Or maybe I could write like Bukowski. It shouldn't be hard, shouldn't take long to write about the assholes who probably couldn't tell the difference between a love gone sour and the rugged, swirling defecation of humanity splattered across a barstool, waiting for another dirty glass of shame. I wish I could fall ...

It was merely a chance occurrence by which we happened to be in that place, at a time of the evening where people who would have a claim to life would be more interested in remembering why they should bother to wake up again next morning. The night was one of the more squalid things about the place, where one of the many degenerates who frequented it could get a fix by sniffing the mushrooms that had started growing in the cracks on the wall, if only they bothered. It's not a surprising coincidence that the drunken lout is not the sharpest tool in the shed. The place was lit by a single light three feet to the left of where it should have been, throwing dull, yellow haze on a chalkboard that held the menu up for inspection, though I doubt many there could read. There was rum, a bit cheaper than you could find anywhere else, even at the liquor store where the old man would give you whatever you wanted from behind his wire mesh cage, as long as it was whisky. There was also '...

Spent, tired across waters unknown, Driven from your old, warm nests, Biting winds, bone-clinging, unyielding snow, This is not your home. Who sent you here, where we live and die? With your head held high you stay in my lands, What do you come as? A raider from the desert, slave to the sand, Where mountains you made dust with the wind in your wings? Ran away from the sun, like A refugee running from war,  With your lands burnt, scorched by someone you knew, Who meant you no harm What did you hope to find so far away, In this stark stretch of cold that never ends? You may want to live, but we preserve This is not that village in the hills, With a green lake in a sea of white banks Where you perch in the temple when the sun goes down, Worshipped like a faceless god by a man of many shapes and a broken heart he hides from you Here, it's cold.

There are days when a melody flies up out of nowhere and nestles itself safely somewhere in the confines of your ears. Once there, the tenacious little munchkin refuses to settle down, and pretty much dictates the mood and tempo of the rest of your day. There’s no earthly reason for gloom, drear and dullness, when the beat keeps the day alive. Soon enough, a lonely hand seeks the company of another, and two otherwise square feet search for a partner at 100 beats per minute. The search, like a rocky hillock in the middle of a desert, does not bear fruit. But a solitary dancer is the talk of the town, and who needs a partner when stifled giggles and suddenly hushed conversations are there to egg you on? In some time, other tasks pale in comparison to the zeal and perseverance needed for that sound to stay where it was. Work gets done, ugliness erased and insecurities awash when no one cares enough to give them a second thought. As long as that beat goes on, it’s all going to be okay...

It could be the first sign of the morning, It could be the brightest ray at noon, Could even be the blackest spot of night, But whenever it may start, There's no telling when the storm will end. It may be a gale, cold and swift, It may be the sun; quiet, complete, It may be the clouds, humbled and effete, Nature may cull it as it may, There's no telling when the storm will end. Stay inside where it's safe and warm, Carry an umbrella, if you must go, Tread lightly, and be back soon, The night is unforgiving and, There's no telling when the storm will end.

(The Scene: An evening in a regular London pub. The bar isn’t crowded, there are only two couples in the booths. Two men at the bar, friends by the look of it. One drinking a pint of dark beer) Man 1 : So Lucy called. Said she was gonna pack all of her stuff and head back to her mum’s. Her life’s too precious to spend livin’ with a waster, she says. Man 2 : All her stuff? Well that’s okay, then. Give her a couple of days’ head start to get her suitcases sorted before you go apologizing. Man 1 : (Chuckles)  Nah, she’ll come around sooner than that. She’s not a bad bird, that one. Think I may actually settle down with her. Man 2 : Yeah? Man 1 : Yeah, yeah, y’know… it’s not a bad idea, really. I mean, I could always quit this job and find one that pays more. She won’t half mind marrying me, I know that. Yeah… maybe I could just get this bird for keepers. Man 2 : Pays more, eh? And where exactly do you propose to find such gainful employment, old boy? Man...

It was all going perfectly according to plan. The world was at peace, the beings in harmony, one part eating the other, and the other sacrificing itself to sustain the first. Green and brown above, blue and grey below. It worked, it sustained what could have gone on for eons. Why, then, did nature create man? Suddenly, in what was practically a flash in the billions of years of the DNA code, there was this, thing , that was fast, strong, and hungry beyond fulfillment. Hacking, and burning, and digging and scraping apart all that was there until its subjugation of all around it was complete. Until the very mother that caused him to be wept tears of acid and blew away its tattered covers to sear him with the sun’s rays. What was this grand scheme that caused nature to make something that would think up a power greater than itself to dominate and torture that which gave birth to him so completely? And when there was no other to be ravished, turn on each other in a noisy bicker...

The moment you wake up in the morning; that stretch where you cannot open your eyes fully or feel your conspiring arms trying to lift you up, is probably the most lucid instant of the entire day. Those two seconds where no one can begin to contemplate anything other than two inches of sunlight in their eyes make every morning a new day. What decides the course of your day, however, is unfortunately not this moment. No, that moment comes about half an hour later, around the time when you're stepping out of the bathroom and reaching for that coffee mug. When the cogs of your cognition suddenly whirr into action, and contemplate the day that went past, and using some complex method that I can only imagine is akin to the one they use at my office, forecasts your mood for the day. Now, this mood does not make your day good or bad; how can it. What it does is change the little things you do; the skip in your step, the cheeriness of a “Good Morning!” or the look on your face when you thin...

I feel ashamed today. Ashamed, helpless, and livid at my city, my country, the entire class of human beings claiming to be from my gender, but most importantly, at the alleged leaders of my city, country, commune who so much as dare to look at today and the horizon and tell me to my face that things are GOOD. How can anyone claim that our country is progressing, that our society, far from being the decadent cesspool that it is, is in fact vibrant and active and climbing the ladder of success, when we haven’t yet so much as approached the first step? What good is anything we have, anywhere across the world, if we can’t guarantee the most basic of human needs: safety, to all our denizens, and especially to that half who we claim openly in our chauvinist, ribald moments as the weaker gender? What is the point of a term like that, if the corresponding term for men isn’t the slacker or helpless gender (in equal measure)? Or even, in fact, the decadent, sick or perverted gender? I lately wa...

The Scene: Midnight, in an empty bar. Shelves in the back, replete with exquisite liquor, their colour reflected from a long mirror above, running along the length of the bar counter, its wood burnished a dull gold with the light above. Man and Woman, alone, together, close, their drinks in front of them (Scotch for Him, Daiquiri for Her). French windows behind them show nothing but a full moon in the distance. No one else around. Woman: (contemplative, staring at her glass) Tragedy never strikes when one is in the throes of sorrow. It has a knack for picking the sweetest, happiest moments to descend and skewer a heart. Is it life’s way of being merciful to man in his sorrow, or painful in his joy? (To Him, smiling) I absolutely loved our day together; it was all I ever wished for; in fact, much more. And yet... Man: I did what I did because I wanted to. I love you, and a day in your life spent happy is a day in mine fulfilled. (Aloud, to no one) Our choices are all made long ago, ...

(Pubby's Note: Well, it’s been a while now, and I haven’t written anything I can put up on my blog; thought I’d describe a typical day at my summer training/internship. Also, now that I’m in solitary again, I have returned to my non-proofed narrative thinking/writing. So here goes) This place is huge. In length, breadth, and height. And the number of people. And it’s organised. Thoroughly. From people to paper clips. There’s umpteen departments, different machine shops, foundries, core shops, and loads of other things that are all supposed to do their own little bit to add value to the whole. Some seem to work more, some less, but all of them pretty much curse one another in a tussle for one-upmanship where the only benefit they may accrue is respect from a management that they don’t respect. My day here usually starts with a glass of water, 5 minutes on gtalk (via gmail) and 20 minutes or so of solitaire on my cellphone while I wait for it to strike 10. Then on, I move to my cabi...

[Pubby's Note: This post is mostly fiction, and very mildly fact. Please do not take it seriously] A long, long time ago, in the land of Rajputana , there was a small, peaceful kingdom in the region of Gaumukh . The kingdom was called Dosamgarh , and it was a fast-growing realm of businessmen; people who liked to speak, to negotiate, to cut deals, and to gather goods and money. This money they gathered wasn’t for their own personal needs, although the drinks they got they generally kept to themselves. The money was used to hold the three big festivals, held every year in the honour of Tukdeydev , the lord of culture, innovation and sports. The festivals were the most important affair in Gaumukh ; so important that the king of Dosamgarh used to spend his entire life working for them, and his scions were the high priests of the festivals. After a few years, though, it became apparent that Gaumukh had become a very desolate place. Most people who used to live there had either emigrate...

For more months than I can care to count now, life’s been a series of hard, unrewarding toils, trials and tribulations. An extended spate of failed endeavours, half measures, backstabbing, exhaustion, the occasional exhilaration, jugaad , meetings, rage, hopelessness, helplessness and what all. Recently there’s been this obsession with the idea of all these efforts culminating into one giant release at Waves, which, apart from being the most kick-ass thing we could hope to organise in less than half the time an annual cultural festival should be done in, shall also be a confluence of bedraggled coordinators finally letting it ALL out, enjoying to their wits’ end, staying perhaps buzzed, drunk, stoned or just energetic at the festival where they helped bring about so much. Whatever had happened in the months previous, let it slide; these three days will be the stuff to tell your children when they enter college, if not their children in turn. Until a couple of days ago, my plans were th...