Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Strangely deranged [11]



What the hell was he thinking?
Did he assume for one ache-filled moment
that this glowing concrete world
would welcome him with open arms?
Was he blind and deaf in his belief
that his particular genre of scum
is allowed in their diamond palaces?
What a stupendous idea.
What a misguided fool he is.
This isn't a life that can accommodate him.
His words are too vitreous.
His appearance too jarring.
His dreams too humble.
They do not rise
to the towering glory that is expected of men in this land.
He is more like the weed that grows amongst their lush green gardens.
Allowed to survive
as long as he remains blissfully out of sight.
As long as his existence
doesn't become an inconvenience to their perfect lives.

What did he imagine?
Life would be as simple as it had always been?
That his kind would be found freely walking these hallowed halls?
If so, he truly is the King of Fools.
For in this world, he is expected to be like the rest.
It is demanded that he fall in line
or step way from it.
There is no room here for the stray branch.
No space for minds as bent as his own.
Their eyes do not see what he wishes they would.
Their ideas do not fit together.
Their thoughts will always clash.
It would be better if he just surrendered to their ways.
Survival here means clipping his wings.
Or forgetting he ever had them.
Living here is defined by the quality of livelihood.
By the means he can provide,
not the ideas he can birth.

He really is the fool they make him out to be.
For intruding on their idyllic lives.
For having his own views of life.
For falling in love.
He should never have done that.
He should have kept his ruined heart to himself.
He should never have dared to reach out to one
from this perfectly pruned world.
He risks destroying her now.
The one he loves.
The one who stops all his thoughts.
But then again,
she is what he was thinking of in the first place.

Thursday, April 17, 2014

Night vision



she always slept
with her face to the sky.
he always dreamt
with his ear to the ground.
maybe it was the fact
that her sights were upward and on,
while his thoughts
came from what was in and around.

they say true love
is opposites attracting
to a common misunderstanding,
but maybe it's just
finding the other idiot
who fills the gaps
when you go to bed at night.

she always kept
a sliver of her eye open,
as if searching for a glimpse
of a dream within the dream.
wishing the other were real
and the one being lived
a bit less so.

she always lay
with her eardrums blocked out
to the sounds of neighbours.
she would instead
be that much gladder
with the voice of his exhale
filling her void.

love is blind
some others tell me
but i know the truth
with each waking morn;
it is the eyes
that sleep wide shut
in which you see
it's your dreams
that survive.

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

Mental acrobatics

it's an underwater ballet
as my thoughts swim around.
like the Cirque du Soleil
but i'm afraid we'll all drown

it's an impossible ordeal
requiring incredible focus.
to understand what is real
before the water can choke us.

i can see many a circle
and the bubbles in their wake.
the waves they crash and crumple
there is no sense here to make.

this performance before me
would befit an olympic event.
but these are things that define me
so this dance, i'd rather prevent.

it's an underwater ballet
that always eludes my clutch,
like the Cirque du Soleil
but it will never count for much.

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Strangely deranged [7]



He's doing it again.
Can't handle something that strikingly beautiful.
Can't really grasp how extraordinary it is.
The fear of getting his filth on it makes him pull his hand back.
The dream is a dwindling candle and,
try as he might,
it will not burn ever long.

So he's attempting what he always resorts to in such situations.
He cuts off the flame.
He put's Newton's first law to work on his emotional state
and pushes.
Hoping against science,
that the friction of love can hold back the inertia.

But he never seems to move any further away.
He can't put distance between himself
and the beauty he fears he will sully.
He is the proverbial moth.
She; the mortal flame.
Fear of being burnt isn't a thought that bothers him for an instant.
Rather it is coming so close,
in his final moment,
that he might extinguish her embers.
Self destruction doesn't toy with his mind.
Mutually agreed doom
is a more worrisome prospect.

So he tries to pull off the same manoeuvre.
He tries to duck out of the favourable situation,
hoping to postpone the incoming misery.
Wishing to replace it with pain in the now,
knowing full well
the healing powers of time.

He understands that to save the candle
all he must do is put out the flame
before it burns any further.
Then wait.
In hope that another spark
on another day
will reignite her incandescent beauty.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

MH608



there's a strange
unquenchable
kind of sorrow
at taking a step

past glass barriers
and aluminium barricades
to board
a flying cylinder
to reach
wherever you need to be

this strange
indescribable
kind of sorrow
at leaving someone
so incredible
so special
that every step away
makes your feet turn 180
and flee right back

this strange
permanent
kind of sorrow
knowing onward
is what is expected
but right past
those automated doors
you left behind
is where your
real, true and final
destination waits

it's this weird
unwritable
breed of sorrow
at departing on wings
when you'd rather
be arriving in arms

I'm still not voting.



Personally, I've always belonged to the George Carlin school of thought. He had very wisely stated the argument that those who vote are responsible for the mess they created. While those who sat at home and jerked off were left with an easier mess to clean up. That being said, this year is the first time I have actually wanted to cast a ballot. Not because I think the country will improve by my doing so, but because I will at least have tried to prevent a totalitarian state being born here. I know it seems a bit extreme to say, but what other colour would the saffron brigade paint this nation if not their own?

The country is up for grabs and no one seems to be interested right now. We are in the middle of probably the most entertaining and in-your-face political fights of our history. With the cyber age finally arriving in India on the sanskaari shoulders of Alok Nath, every famous face should be more wary of the netizenry. Especially if they are vying to win the Seat of Power.

As a whole we are more informed than ever with everyone and their paternal-uncles-twice-removed-from-Lucknow trying to beat numbers and statistics down on our eardrums. But the fact remains that we are mighty limited on options today. Between a megalomaniac, an immature adult and, a chocolate boy; we are painfully short of putting a rational head on this country's shoulders. Two of these (and their gangs of followers) are thrusting advertising from every pixel that can be bought, rented or borrowed. These have been met, fittingly, with armies of fellow geeks who are quick on both Adobe and wit.

One party has started a string of limericks so ridiculous that only the internet could have birthed the meme. While the other is using a masturbation metaphor as their call-sign. The third has become a mockery of itself with the advent of Mango People. But what's common is, for once, all of them have been noticed by people who would rather not give two shits. This kind of situational sarcastic response was usually reserved for the likes of R.K. Laxman and Khushwant Singh. Their ability to point at the truth and laugh made the original caricatures of Indian politics. But, where they used the protection of visual metaphors, the internet has no qualms of making a face the butt of their jokes.

But about a fortnight from now, these meme's will reach the end of their age. They will catapult a few pictures into the 'made-me-laugh' section of our brains and then be forgotten my almost everyone. The lasting impact will be made by the ones who rise from the dust of this fray. And that is the thing that worries me.

We are all pretending to know so much about the situation of this country. Most of us are confidently misinformed about the political scene and the parties are pulling the obvious trick - ignore it and it will go away. The sick part is, that's actually going to work. We are all gravely mistaken about the power of the internet to change the country. Like sharing a post about feeding an African child doesn't really feed the kid, posting your opinion on the internet doesn't really affect the polls. It's high time we realised that change is sparked on the internet but the fire needs to spread offline. There is a very real world that we are the part of and the future only belongs to us if we take it.

I can't shake the feeling that 5 years from now, I'll look back and wonder if a blot of ink on my finger in Summer '14 would have made a difference. Because I do not know what route this country will take under either of the three personas being presented to us. On one hand, I worry about the victory of Our All Powerful And Hopefully Benevolent Dictator Narendra Modi. On the other, I fear we will continue in the line of backseat-driver politics with a child on the steering wheel. On my third imaginary hand, I lie to myself that the underdog deserves to win and will magically know how to lead.

In either case, I think I'd still rather submit to greatest angry old man in the world. Until next time, when I am able to get a voter ID card without paying or being asked for a bribe. Because some part of me still believes George was right. Shovelling shit every 5 years isn't going to change anything. It's the same shit from a different asshole. So maybe, just maybe, none of this matters after all and come election day I should just sit at home like the rest of the ignoramuses and take the more 'productive' action.