At last, time has broken its own spell,
The words have fallen into place,
And so have the mists they sought to quell,
Here ends a phase, my friend without a face
A relief masks a guilt squirming deep inside its shell,
After all, isn’t an abyss only as deep as its surface?
Busy crowds are where the idle dwell,
Giving in to work’s workless ways,
Maybe I was the task that never went well,
But there’s an unheard voice that says,
Time’s always lost only to be made up in the farewell,
After all, what’s life if not an eternal embrace?
Monday, September 29, 2008
Friday, September 26, 2008
Quaestio
What if love had a heart? Would it know pleasure from pain?
What if words had a voice? Would they still speak so much?
What if time had an age? Would it learn how it felt to be human?
What if dreams needed sleep? Would they wake up to reality?
What if the smile had a face? Would it always look so beautiful?
What if darkness was blind? Would it be able to find itself?
What if tears had eyes? Would they be able to see their pain?
What if pain had a mind? Would it learn to cure itself?
What if a loss knew how to win? Would it someday be able to win?
What if death had a life of its own? Would it make it any easier to die?
What if every answer had a question? Would it answer itself?
What if black was white and white was black?
Would it be any different?
What if I were you and you were me?
Would we still be the same?
What if words had a voice? Would they still speak so much?
What if time had an age? Would it learn how it felt to be human?
What if dreams needed sleep? Would they wake up to reality?
What if the smile had a face? Would it always look so beautiful?
What if darkness was blind? Would it be able to find itself?
What if tears had eyes? Would they be able to see their pain?
What if pain had a mind? Would it learn to cure itself?
What if a loss knew how to win? Would it someday be able to win?
What if death had a life of its own? Would it make it any easier to die?
What if every answer had a question? Would it answer itself?
What if black was white and white was black?
Would it be any different?
What if I were you and you were me?
Would we still be the same?
Thursday, September 18, 2008
In pursuit of a memory
He was about four years old.
Every day, by the time his grandfather was back from college, he would be dressed up and ready, eager for the evening walk, his daily adventure. His grandfather would take him out for a walk and they would go to the park nearby, visiting all those stores on the way, meeting all those people his grandfather knew.
They would walk the calm streets, all the way to the park. His grandfather would sometimes stop to talk to people they met on the way and he would wonder how much everybody smiled at his grandfather, all the while gripping his fingers like his life depended on never letting go. They would go to the park and sit beneath his favourite tree. He loved to play in the park with the other kids but he loved more to be with his grandfather, to talk to him, to pester him to tell him stories and then answer all the questions he would ask.
There would be tales of wonderful lands, of gods who could change their faces at will, of greedy and selfish men who were punished, of good men who would sacrifice their lives to battle evil and save the world. Then there would be the questions. How big was the world? Could he see god if he wanted to talk to him? Where did all the good men go when they died? Why were evil people evil? How could he grow up sooner?
And he got an answer for everything.
How could he know so many stories?
How could he know everything about everything?
That was what he wanted to become when he grew up, his grandfather. Exactly him. To know exactly how much he knew. He would always ask him how he knew so much and his grandfather would always give him the same answer.
Books, he would say.
The park has moved on, the streets have, and time has, but those conversations still thrive, among timeless tales and the trivialities of the world's life, and the little mind still feeds off the wiser one. Nineteen years and scores of those little rectangles later, the old man still knows everything about everything and I'm in the darkness still, chasing the shadow of the wise mind I once marvelled at as a four year old.
Every day, by the time his grandfather was back from college, he would be dressed up and ready, eager for the evening walk, his daily adventure. His grandfather would take him out for a walk and they would go to the park nearby, visiting all those stores on the way, meeting all those people his grandfather knew.
They would walk the calm streets, all the way to the park. His grandfather would sometimes stop to talk to people they met on the way and he would wonder how much everybody smiled at his grandfather, all the while gripping his fingers like his life depended on never letting go. They would go to the park and sit beneath his favourite tree. He loved to play in the park with the other kids but he loved more to be with his grandfather, to talk to him, to pester him to tell him stories and then answer all the questions he would ask.
There would be tales of wonderful lands, of gods who could change their faces at will, of greedy and selfish men who were punished, of good men who would sacrifice their lives to battle evil and save the world. Then there would be the questions. How big was the world? Could he see god if he wanted to talk to him? Where did all the good men go when they died? Why were evil people evil? How could he grow up sooner?
And he got an answer for everything.
How could he know so many stories?
How could he know everything about everything?
That was what he wanted to become when he grew up, his grandfather. Exactly him. To know exactly how much he knew. He would always ask him how he knew so much and his grandfather would always give him the same answer.
Books, he would say.
The park has moved on, the streets have, and time has, but those conversations still thrive, among timeless tales and the trivialities of the world's life, and the little mind still feeds off the wiser one. Nineteen years and scores of those little rectangles later, the old man still knows everything about everything and I'm in the darkness still, chasing the shadow of the wise mind I once marvelled at as a four year old.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
On being angry
Anger isn't probably the ideal word to start a blog entry with but there you go. I've always loved ire and the more malleable irate but for today, let anger get its spotlight. I know it deserves more than always being upstaged by more "beautiful" words and being camouflaged by contrived pieces of language and anyway, for once, I find that I love the rawness of it.
"I'm angry."
That beauty again.
Now where does that leave our dear friend irate? In my head, of course. And, for some inconceivable reason, fate always follows it there. Irate fate. One of those phrases that are hard to get out of your mind until you do something about/with them. I don't even remember if I coined it myself or picked it up from somewhere but it reminds me of a failed exercise about an year ago, a tacky, convoluted peice of poetry that has since been confined to the archives. Where is it, I don't even remember what it was called. One of these days, I'm going to have to reconfigure my archives and make them more searchable. There. I'm not about to rewrite it now and so would be prone to reproducing the very imperfections that have rendered it unpublishable for so long but then, you know, people do outrageously stupid things when they're angry.
Love of love, or hate of hate,
How do I relate to this inanimate state?
Unable to placate a debate that never seems to abate,
Powerless to liberate myself from a checkmate this intricate,
I prostrate before an irate fate and contemplate,
Is it hate of love or love of hate?
Compassion for words and exhumed baubles aside, I had fancied a bit of raw writing today with a particular something in mind when I started out but you see, anger is a master of the art of subversion. You might not be able to fathom the extent of damage I have done to myself by "wasting" (I know I'm greedy but sadly, that only makes me greedier) a raw, imperfect piece when it could've been so much better but I know how much the hangover's going to hurt. Stupidity by itself is a not-so desirable yet often harmless trait but when it consorts with the disruptive chicanery of anger, it's known to act not so stupidly, after all. The irony of it. Anyway, innate stupidity aside, I can't risk losing another of my imperfectly developed ideas to its guiles and hence, for all practical purposes, wish to stop here.
Now, why wouldn't I want to stop writing here? My mind's already somewhere else, in another state (geographical, not metaphorical), tripping in a past, in another state (metaphorical, not geographical), dripping with nostalgia. One of those memories I composed one early morning on an orange, secluded beach has just revisited me thanks to the retrievable piece of music I invested it in.
Anger goes rather well with memory and that's where I'm going to take it.
Inflaming memory's memories has always been one of those undeniably addictive pleasures of life.
"I'm angry."
That beauty again.
Now where does that leave our dear friend irate? In my head, of course. And, for some inconceivable reason, fate always follows it there. Irate fate. One of those phrases that are hard to get out of your mind until you do something about/with them. I don't even remember if I coined it myself or picked it up from somewhere but it reminds me of a failed exercise about an year ago, a tacky, convoluted peice of poetry that has since been confined to the archives. Where is it, I don't even remember what it was called. One of these days, I'm going to have to reconfigure my archives and make them more searchable. There. I'm not about to rewrite it now and so would be prone to reproducing the very imperfections that have rendered it unpublishable for so long but then, you know, people do outrageously stupid things when they're angry.
Love of love, or hate of hate,
How do I relate to this inanimate state?
Unable to placate a debate that never seems to abate,
Powerless to liberate myself from a checkmate this intricate,
I prostrate before an irate fate and contemplate,
Is it hate of love or love of hate?
Compassion for words and exhumed baubles aside, I had fancied a bit of raw writing today with a particular something in mind when I started out but you see, anger is a master of the art of subversion. You might not be able to fathom the extent of damage I have done to myself by "wasting" (I know I'm greedy but sadly, that only makes me greedier) a raw, imperfect piece when it could've been so much better but I know how much the hangover's going to hurt. Stupidity by itself is a not-so desirable yet often harmless trait but when it consorts with the disruptive chicanery of anger, it's known to act not so stupidly, after all. The irony of it. Anyway, innate stupidity aside, I can't risk losing another of my imperfectly developed ideas to its guiles and hence, for all practical purposes, wish to stop here.
Now, why wouldn't I want to stop writing here? My mind's already somewhere else, in another state (geographical, not metaphorical), tripping in a past, in another state (metaphorical, not geographical), dripping with nostalgia. One of those memories I composed one early morning on an orange, secluded beach has just revisited me thanks to the retrievable piece of music I invested it in.
Anger goes rather well with memory and that's where I'm going to take it.
Inflaming memory's memories has always been one of those undeniably addictive pleasures of life.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Ode to a hebdomad
Once in a while, we all have a hebdomad that breaks out of our life, rising above all that went before it and all that come after it, and I just had mine.
[Pardon the occult jargon, I didn't want to call it just a 'week' and place it on the conveyor belt of the production cycle of life and let its memory to be heartlessly trampled by the week that follows it.]
Now, where do I begin? Describing this marvellous 'hebdomad', that is.
There might be a few people from a particular geography of the web that might presume that this is about a particular number. It's a part of it, yes, but I'm a bit more than someone who just hinges his memories of a great week on an inconsequential number. So, first let's get it out of the way. That evening, after a few unsuccessful premature attempts to check my number, when it finally opened up and I laid my eyes on it for the first time, I admit, for reasons that were purely independent of the event itself, it felt good, so good you wouldn't even believe there was such goodness left in life anymore.
You see, life has a way of being lifeless without what went before it. And this feeling, this good feeling that I was experiencing then was the result of a displaced sense of importance, of the love for the nostalgia of the past that went before it and not the gloriousness of the future that it was supposed to point to. For years, I've seen sundays come and go, with a number tagged to each of them, disappearing down dusty lanes of memory without meaning or substance. And finally, finally, there came along a number that redeemed or, atleast, reaffirmed a tiny bit of faith in what went before it.
Alright, there you go. Enough ranting. I enjoyed it because of a sense of redemption in my past, not in anticipation of the future. It holds no meaning to me, not any more. The moment's passed and the past's been laid to rest. Catharsis, of a milder order. Period.
Moving on, conversations are what generally define the quality of a day or a week for me and this one had a few of them. Not even as many as an average week would boast of but there were a few long-lost talks thrown in here and that was more than enough. Short at times, spread out at times, but memorable as always. You don't get much of that everyday, you see.
WALL-E. How many movies have had the good fortune to be featured in two consecutive blog entries of mine? None till now, if my memory hasn't defected to the other side of senility (yet). I was gonna write a much detailed review of WALL-E and all it meant to me but then as always, it fell through. It didn't meet my standards (the write-up, I mean). Well, then, so I'll just try to wrap it up quickly here.
It wouldn't be hyperbole if I called it one of the best movies I've seen in my life yet I wouldn't give in to the temptation of saying that. That phrase has lost its value with the amount of recommendations we dole out these days. It has heart, and art, a rare combination these days. (I wonder if that line's as cheesy as I think it is.) WALL-E's everything you can call a movie. Artistic, witty, mushy, romantic, imaginative, moralizing, dramatic... All it requires is an open mind to take it all in.
So, another aspect of the wonderful week done with. What else was there? Hmmm. I think I've spent more time than expected on this and my mind's losing track of what I had set out to outline. Yes, another one. Something about a caravan. There are very few who would get what I'm talking about but then, that's the point of it all.
What would be a great story if it didn't end well? And since I have already started out by calling this one great, it would logically follow that it did end well, wouldn't it? Right, it did. So well, in fact, that it was the one that prompted me to start writing this. Square one. Freedom. Rebirth. To name bits of it.
I'm a schemer (yes, Mr. Ledger, I am), and these blog entries are my schemes. You wouldn't understand the bits of it you weren't meant to. Why, you may ask. No reason, I might say. Maybe because, for me, details are trivialities. Or maybe, for the irreasonable reason that there isn't much mystery left in life anymore.
[Pardon the occult jargon, I didn't want to call it just a 'week' and place it on the conveyor belt of the production cycle of life and let its memory to be heartlessly trampled by the week that follows it.]
Now, where do I begin? Describing this marvellous 'hebdomad', that is.
There might be a few people from a particular geography of the web that might presume that this is about a particular number. It's a part of it, yes, but I'm a bit more than someone who just hinges his memories of a great week on an inconsequential number. So, first let's get it out of the way. That evening, after a few unsuccessful premature attempts to check my number, when it finally opened up and I laid my eyes on it for the first time, I admit, for reasons that were purely independent of the event itself, it felt good, so good you wouldn't even believe there was such goodness left in life anymore.
You see, life has a way of being lifeless without what went before it. And this feeling, this good feeling that I was experiencing then was the result of a displaced sense of importance, of the love for the nostalgia of the past that went before it and not the gloriousness of the future that it was supposed to point to. For years, I've seen sundays come and go, with a number tagged to each of them, disappearing down dusty lanes of memory without meaning or substance. And finally, finally, there came along a number that redeemed or, atleast, reaffirmed a tiny bit of faith in what went before it.
Alright, there you go. Enough ranting. I enjoyed it because of a sense of redemption in my past, not in anticipation of the future. It holds no meaning to me, not any more. The moment's passed and the past's been laid to rest. Catharsis, of a milder order. Period.
Moving on, conversations are what generally define the quality of a day or a week for me and this one had a few of them. Not even as many as an average week would boast of but there were a few long-lost talks thrown in here and that was more than enough. Short at times, spread out at times, but memorable as always. You don't get much of that everyday, you see.
WALL-E. How many movies have had the good fortune to be featured in two consecutive blog entries of mine? None till now, if my memory hasn't defected to the other side of senility (yet). I was gonna write a much detailed review of WALL-E and all it meant to me but then as always, it fell through. It didn't meet my standards (the write-up, I mean). Well, then, so I'll just try to wrap it up quickly here.
It wouldn't be hyperbole if I called it one of the best movies I've seen in my life yet I wouldn't give in to the temptation of saying that. That phrase has lost its value with the amount of recommendations we dole out these days. It has heart, and art, a rare combination these days. (I wonder if that line's as cheesy as I think it is.) WALL-E's everything you can call a movie. Artistic, witty, mushy, romantic, imaginative, moralizing, dramatic... All it requires is an open mind to take it all in.
So, another aspect of the wonderful week done with. What else was there? Hmmm. I think I've spent more time than expected on this and my mind's losing track of what I had set out to outline. Yes, another one. Something about a caravan. There are very few who would get what I'm talking about but then, that's the point of it all.
What would be a great story if it didn't end well? And since I have already started out by calling this one great, it would logically follow that it did end well, wouldn't it? Right, it did. So well, in fact, that it was the one that prompted me to start writing this. Square one. Freedom. Rebirth. To name bits of it.
I'm a schemer (yes, Mr. Ledger, I am), and these blog entries are my schemes. You wouldn't understand the bits of it you weren't meant to. Why, you may ask. No reason, I might say. Maybe because, for me, details are trivialities. Or maybe, for the irreasonable reason that there isn't much mystery left in life anymore.
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