In Transit

One lonesome thursday evening,
Entombed in glass,
Staring into the eyes of a foreign land

As a night came to life in its blinding lights,
As red watermelon flesh melted in the warmth of my lips,
As a stranger's scent parleyed with my senses,
As an escalator lived its own death,

I saw Chapman's Ithaca,
Lost my heart in the empty streets of Buenos Aires,
Smarted at the taste of eternal darkness,
Rode the sea's whiteness with your friend Melville
And felt time's sands trickle through my fingers.

Stranded in the middle of everywhere
I was no one, I was every one.

As I read you, Jorge Luis Borges,
As I read you.

[8 32 pm | 12/03/2009 | Bangalore]

In defiance of monotony

Mornings. Evenings.
Here. There.
In. Out.
Black. White.
You. Me.

Again. And again. Over and over again.
The same as yesterday. And the day before.
The same tomorrow. And the day after.
Just different garbs, different times, different names, different places, different faces.

Templates for a life. For a world.
Alluring monotonies. Ready made existences.
Waiting for me to plug into them. And switch myself off.

I shall not give in. No, not to this. I shall not.

I shall not sit by and watch as this world chews me up and spits me out. I shall not learn acceptance. I shall not be subsumed by peripheries. I shall not be lost in the multitudes. I shall not be tamed into submission.

I shall not be taught habit.
I shall belong to nothing. No time. No name. No place. No face.

I shall not give in. I shall breach the confines of the routine. I shall not give in. I shall disown my inheritance. I shall not give in. I shall shatter convention. I shall not give in. I shall scream these walls aside. I shall not give in. I shall tear down traditions.

Let them make me the outcast, taint my reality and condemn me to the shadows, I shall not be contained. I shall be the stain on the face of eternity, the battle cry that brings down an empire, the fervour that ignites the flame. Of this tyranny, nothing shall remain. Bottom lines shall be decimated, facades shall be ripped apart and fate shall be subdued at the altar of subversion. There shall be no restraint, flames shall engulf worlds and ravage them, leaving infernos in their wake. I shall soar beyond gravity's grasp, beyond chance, beyond fear, beyond destiny, beyond mediocrity, and watch coldly as history goes up in flames and dissolves into the dust beneath my feet.

Timeless, they shall forsake me.
Nameless, they shall forget me.
Faceless, they shall consume me.

But no, to this monotony, I shall not give in. I shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not shall not.

Life, in a sentence.

Born into the all-encompassing singularity of the capital i, seized by space, stung by life, we wake up to obscurity and stretch across confines, feeding on dreams, gliding through ignorance, gathering selves along the way, wriggling out of childhoods into what lies next, wriggling out of what lies next into whatever else lies next, subsuming multitudes, emerging a different i only to be signified by the same i, learning to forget that we're compelled to crawl through time, we know what we know, yet we go on with the business of living, we live on, through births, through deaths, through indifferent mornings, through ecstatic evenings, through presences, through absences, through pain, through bliss, through friends, through strangers, through hate, through indifference, through love, never letting up even for a moment, weaving in, weaving out, irrepressibly at work on the fabric of time, toiling away at that one never-ending memory we know we shall never get to reflect back on, that one reality that reaffirms us that we have not been in vain, that one grand legacy we wish to bequeath to the endless universe, that one and only entity that knew how it felt to be the undeniably singular i, all for the solitary ambition of stumbling onto that one moment we live for, that crowning blaze of glory, that one period the weary sentence of life so achingly craves for, that one blinding instant the i coruscates before our eyes before vanishing into the amorphous textures of light that make up eternity.

Confession

In the corner of a bookstore,
One unmemorable evening,
I walked by a coffee table book
As a stranger stirred behind it.

I wished it was you.

The ardent conversationalist

The dreaded silence.
His turn to listen now.
To wait out the silence, to take words in.

Silence he knows won't go away.
For a moment there's that image, that ephemeral hope that he has finally deciphered the silences but he knows, as he always knows, everything is still the same.

Bleeding words as he searches himself for a silence, squirming about in the anarchy of the lull, he knows, he knows the futility only too well. Traipsing aimlessly through time seeking to create more of it, crumbling in the uncertainty of the wordlessness only to realise that he is condemned to forever drown in the pool of words that punctuates his thoughts and his silence, he knows. It is easier to make words than to wait for them to return.

"Talk, my dear, talk", he exhorts eloquently, "being silent is one of those resounding crimes in life."

The joy of bending words to terpsichorean whims, of weaving thoughts into their substance, of pouring life into them in sentences, of letting them out into a silence and embellishing it with the beauty of the spoken word... The pride, and the pleasure, they all tell him the same thing, that one simple yet undeniable truth that words are heavier than silence.

To spiral through days, to find revelations in daily greetings, to elicit love from windy windows, to plant memories inside conversations, to thrive on moments stolen from words and words stolen from moments, isn't that what time merits from its remorseless assassins? The sound of a word escaping the lips, isn't that what true beauty aspires to? To say a word and receive another in return, isn't this bartering of the most basic of emotions the greatest thing about being human?

Forced to curtail the irrepressible flow of words and left to lament the tyranny of time, burning up in solitude and silence and sweating to contain these words inside him, he asks himself, did it have to be so hard?

Like standing at the centre of a paper-thin glacier. Like groping about the walls of a dark room, searching for a switch to illuminate the darkness. Like screaming into a ravaging tornado.

But he knows, all that he knows, he knows because he's had the luxury of silences, of silences understanding enough to let him digest his words, words which wouldn't be what they were if it wasn't for the existence of the silences they broke.

Silences hushing words, words ripping silences apart, silences in words, words in silences... Silences and words, those two strange bedfellows, incessantly at argument, always driving each other apart yet forever in the throes of one another, possessors of strangely intertwined destinies.

For now, he is the ardent conversationalist and he shall play his part.
To just sit there and wait for the words to return. One after the other.
And patiently wait until there shall be no words left to wait for anymore.

The reluctant conversationalist

The dreaded silence.
His turn to speak now.
To fill the silence, to put words out.

Words he knows won't come.
For a moment there's that mirage, that eternal hope that the words have finally forgiven him but he knows, as he always knows, everything is still the same.

Bleeding silences while he searches himself for a sound, a self-loathing smile trying to keep the pain at bay, he knows, he knows his futility only too well. Fretting, sputtering, stuttering, clutching at cunningly evasive words, tripping over himself, fishing about for redemption only to realise he's condemned to forever choke in the hush that lies between his thoughts and his voice, he knows. It's easier to listen to words than to try to make them.

"Listen, my dear, listen", he mouths soundlessly, "speaking is one of those silent crimes in life."

The pain of wrestling with words, of weaving meaning into their spines, of stringing their lifelessness together into sentences, of finally thrusting them onto a silence and tarnishing it with the abrasion of the spoken word... The shame, and the guilt, they all tell him the same thing, that one simple yet undeniable truth that silence is heavier than words.

To tumble through life, to find meanings in empty spaces, to extract life from the stillness of chaos, to nestle silent selves into memory and to thrive on moments stolen from silences and silences stolen from moments, isn't that what time merits from its remorseless assassins? A hushed breath in a silence, isn't that what true beauty aspires to? To extend a calm and receive another in return, isn't this expression of a wordless understanding the greatest thing about being human?

Waiting for elusive words to arrive and left to smile at faces when all he wants is a blissful silence, smarting amidst the words, burdened with the inexpressible silence inside him, he asks himself, did it have to be so hard?

Like being a dot of ink irrevocably rooted to the centre of a white paper. Like in a battlefield, scratching and scarring every time. Like learning to breathe underwater.

But he knows, all that he knows, he knows it only because he has had the luxury of words, of the beauty of words shattering innocent silences, silences which wouldn't be what they were if it wasn't for the inexistence of the words they lacked.

Words ripping silences apart, silences hushing words, words in silences, silences in words... Words and silences, those two strange bedfellows, incessantly at argument, always driving each other apart yet forever in the throes of one another, possessors of strangely intertwined destinies.

For now, he is the reluctant conversationalist and he shall play his part.
To just sit there, and wait for the silences to return. One after the other.
To patiently wait until there shall be no silences left to wait for anymore.