You can never go back home -

if you eat on
a chipped table
at the office,

and shower under
a low faucet
at the gym,

and fuck in hotel
rooms with
bristly sheets,
how even could
you, really?

Bookmark

"I felt Tamara shrinking inside me. 'You're full of anger,' she said. 'I'm full of yearning' I thought. 'Can't you see? I have a toxic case of yearning"

- 'A Horse Walks Into A Bar', David Grossman.

Left unsaid

"We never go places,
I want to see things!",
she said, wincing -
petulantly - like a child
biting into a raw mango.

I thought of the early
morning voyage we
took, south of your navel,
and of navigating my
way to your lips through
the commotion of
disheveled, undone hair.

I thought of the view -
you perched upright on a
white pillow, and the setting
sun casting aspersions all
the way down to your waist -
and of how the high tide
rumbled and then dissipated
anxiously, at the sight of you
carelessly unclasping your dress.

"Can we please go see things
now?", and we did, but I
never told you that your
smells and sighs, contours
and moans; the crevices
of your body, and the
corners of  your soul,
were more novel and more
charming, to me, than all
of the places in this world.

Possession -

they say -
is 9/10ths of the law.

I now possess, a trinket
of yours,
that he gave you
before our time.

Abandoned amidst
gas receipts and
tobacco leaves,
sunken to the bottom
of my sack -
like treasure mauled
by a pirate ship.

Possession is 9/10ths
of the law, they say,
but I don't buy it.

In this pot roast
of love,
Besieged by the transitive
properties
of ownership and
affection,
I now possess what
he bought and
you own.

Bookmark

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”

-The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath

Swept

When we say I
miss you what
we mean is I’m
filled with
dread. At night
alone going
to bed is
like lying down
in a wave. Total
absence of light.
Swept away to
gone.

By Hayden Carruth.

Lessons in dignity

Every few months I find myself at odds with who I thought I was a few months ago.

In varied and colorful terms, a host of people I consider fairly intelligent have used several comparisons to tell me that they think that I have an obvious and glaring flaw: I am a fat-head. The reason that this comes right after the declaration of my ever-changing nature is that this is the one thing that has remained constant in my friendly neighborhood psych eval.

You know that charming young man who becomes a drunk brute by the end of the party, when the bar closes? In a real bar, thanks to my mountainous genes, I am never that person (or haven't been since I graduated from St. Someone's College of Blender's Pride). But in the bar of life (I just really wanted to start a sentence like that), I am growing into that person. The unruly slob who accidentally knocks over a gorgeous scotch glass with a thick camelot and looks dumbly at the broken glass, with a ketchup-smeared white shirt, incapable of picking up the pieces.

Enter girl. The archangel of constructive criticism. The patron saint of affirmative action. The scourge of whiners. The defender of all that is good in what we belittle as mainstream. The anti-fat head that the legend would have us believe.

 The problem with normality is that, for most people who read fantasy literature and watch Mafia movies, it isn't aspirational. Unless you attach something to it. A fat paycheque. Two kids. A fat paycheque and two kids. Or if you're really lucky, you find someone gorgeous and petite, with curly hair and a full mouth, who assures you that normality doesn't necessarily mean a resignation from a spirited definition of life. Someone who allows you to do multiple philosophical somersaults so you can reach the conclusion that there isn't really anything troubling you besides the fact that Middle Earth is not really a place and you can't be the Godfather when you grow up. Someone who allows you to create enough of a mess, to want to clean it up. Someone who knows when its time to leave the party; someone who knows to book a cab before-hand and understands the importance of changing clothes and brushing teeth before 'passing out'.

I eat carbohydrate-rich finger food before I drink now, use paper napkins, maintain a regular supply of mouthwash at home and only dance till the music stops.

I have always known how to make an entry. I want to thank you for being the only person I've ever known who taught me a thing or two about how to make a dignified exit.

 My secluded,ever-derisory (limited) intelligence bows humbly to you.

All grown up

I've recently begun to understand the structure of the process that people call 'growing up'. It's quite simple. The vitriolic resistance for your shortcomings is replaced by a smug delight sauteed in their familiarity. Your vices are glorified, projected on a slick high definition screen of moral ambiguity. And all that you ever held as outdated and moribund becomes inheritance. Family feuds, food preferences, social beliefs and Fareeda Khanum ghazals. Amelia Airheart said she flew because 'it released her mind from the tyranny of petty things'. With all due respect to her passion, it's why any of us work. To grow up. To re-prioritize so as to label 'comfort' as 'no.1'. Comfort has the capability of killing off the strongest of passions. Put money and sex in one basket and love and tedious hardwork in the other, and you'll see basket 'a' knock basket 'b' out of the park. The whole point of working is to lose sight of what is important so as to resent your life when it's beyond the point of redemption. It's part of a larger process called 'death'. Ash ridden, liquor soaked evenings of little relevance become anchors of a ship sailing to a place that no one wants to go to. And you even find a woman to love and a house to live in along the way. And you find joy in little things. And when you lie down in bed alone listening the magical concept of music put to poetry (ghazals) you wonder what makes you happy. What you want to do. What you want to be. You wonder what you want from life. You wonder where you came from, where you came to and where you want to go. And the only real answer that comes back to you is your annual tax liability. Growing up isn't anything like it should be. It is a self indulgent moment where you pride yourself on saving money on grocery by buying the family pack of maggie. It has ironed clothes and corporate cards instead of the grand illusion. Growing up is cowering, depending and losing and being ok with it. Growing up is folding a handkerchief with a dexterity that was up till now absent from your sleeves. As Eliot put it: "This is the way the world ends: Not with a bang but a whimper"

Words with a wordsmith

1: Do we consider ourselves intelligent? Or are we actually? 2: I always defined intelligence as a profound realization of one's lack of wisdom and relevant knowledge.

Revolving Paths

I move like a Knight moves on a chess board. 2 and a half steps whatever way, and never in the same direction. It always has been my favorite piece on the chess board. It can leap over lesser pieces. It can move odd directions. It can deviate paths. It can go 4 places or more at once, even when surrounded by a bunch of pieces. It can check and mate a king. A well fortified king. A king surrounded and entrapped in his own people. It can lead the van and stale advances. It can travel great distances in but a few moves. Oh, and ofcourse there's the romance well attached with the notion. The Knight, the self employed fool. The taker of risks. The paragon of justice. The protector of the poor. The keeper of courtesies. But what is the bane of the Knight? It is a slave to it's own ways. It's ill designed for simpler tasks. Meaningless tales. Deeds unworthy of song. Battles short on glory. Taking a shit in gilded steel. Even on an empty chess board, with a straight path to follow, it must resign to 2 and a half steps, whatever way, and never in the same direction.

End of disc 1. Insert disc 2. Or don't and watch disc 1 all over again. Analyze the good and the bad parts. Learn up the lines and obsess over it. Do you know the intertia you feel when the fucking dvd makes you get up so you can watch the second part of a movie. It's these little movements that irritate me. And what's worse is when you make all the effort and actually do change the disc, to find disc 2 scratched. That it doesn't play smooth. That it doesn't go beyond a point. I don't know shit of what I'm saying. I've been reading too much Bukowski. And I'm drunk. Good night.

A Clash Of Kings

"These are Knights of summer" said Lady Catelyn "they will start shedding at the first sign of winter".

A Storm Of Swords

“But I am not certain it was in Rhaegar to be happy.” “You make him sound so sour,” Dany protested. “Not sour, no, but... there was a melancholy to Prince Rhaegar, a sense...” The old man hesitated again. “Say it,” she urged. “A sense... ?” “... of doom. He was born in grief, my queen, and that shadow hung over him all his days.” Viserys had spoken of Rhaegar’s birth only once. Perhaps the tale saddened him too much. “It was the shadow of Summerhall that haunted him, was it not?” “Yes. And yet Summerhall was the place the prince loved best. He would go there from time to time, with only his harp for company. Even the knights of the Kingsguard did not attend him there. He liked to sleep in the ruined hall, beneath the moon and stars, and whenever he came back he would bring a song. When you heard him play his high harp with the silver strings and sing of twilights and tears and the death of kings, you could not but feel that he was singing of himself and those he loved.”

Game of Thrones II

"And why do you show this kindness to my brother, Imp?", Tyrion seemed to take no notice of the slight and said, "I have a soft corner in my heart for bastards, cripples and broken things."

A Game of Thrones I

“Is there a man in your service that you trust utterly and completely?” “Yes,” said Ned. “In that case, I have a delightful palace in Valyria that I would dearly love to sell you,” Littlefinger said with a mocking smile

"Every man, at some point in his life, suspects himself of one of the cardinal virtues, mine was honesty."
- F Scott Fitzgerald,
The Great Gatsby.

Forgiveness

Forgiveness is not a sign of strength. It is an indication of a lack of conviction. Vengeance is not a sign of strength either. It is simply an indication of one's lack of creativity. "Fucking hell, he slapped me! Fucking! I'll slap him!". See what I mean? A severe lack of creativity.
Why is the Godfather such a great movie?
Besides the fact that Copolla is a magician working with two demi-gods (Al Pacino and Marlon Brando), the theme of the movie is gratification of whatever kind, bound by pragmatism. The movie doesn't pander. At no point does it slip it's hands into your pants and tries giving you a boner. It undresses in the most natural way.
It's why Al Pacino seems so real. Because at no point through the series does he make a decision to make you feel better about the world. He finds out about the fact that the mole from within his organization was his brother. Unlike most stories, where he'd forgive him or go after him, he does neither. He proves himself strong enough to be indifferent. You can feel the one million mutinies in his body, the many revolts amongst his many sensations, when he takes Fredo's face in his hands, with a strange conviction and kisses him with the kind of spite that only a brother can warrant, he looks into Fredo's eyes and expresses himself as simply as he can, "I know it was you Fredo, you broke my heart". Fredo eventually has to die. Not because of vendetta or karma. He has to die because of the principle of causality. He has to die because a system has to work and he isn't strong enough to let the system sacrifice someone else or change the system. He has to die because, that is what happens to the traitors when a plan to de-throne the Emperor fails. It doesn't matter who you are. Brother, lover, friend. The Emperor is the emperor before being any of these things. And if precedent, convention and causality call for death, a dispassionate death, one even without a simple motivation of vengeance, so be it.
You see what this system of forgiveness doesn't take into account is the fact that a mistake is accidental. A mistake can be forgiven. But a plot to de-throne the Emperor, isn't a mistake. It's a bad decision. And by the principal of causality all bad decisions must live through their consequence, "one ill turn deserves another". I'm only writing this because of the astonishing number of people who don't understand the difference between 'a bad decision' and a mistake. Because of the number of people who've tried to teach me the virtues of forgiveness. People have to go long distances to earn forgiveness. Earn being an important verb. I hate it when 'forgive' becomes the verb. Forgiveness must be earned, not gotten. It's hard to earn forgiveness. Judas had to hang himself.

"They all deserve to die,
I'll tell you why Mrs. Lovett,
Tell you why.

In all of the human race Mrs. Lovett,
there are two kinds of people,
and only two,
there's the one staying put in his
proper place,
and there's the one with his foot
in the other man's face,
look at me Mrs. Lovett,
look at you.

No, we all deserve to die,
tell you why Mrs. Lovett,
tell you why,
because the lives of the wicked
should be made brief
for the rest of us death will be a
relief,
we all deserve to die,
Even you Mrs. Lovett, even I."

- Sweeny Todd,
The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Food for thought

Famished thoughts
and carnivorous dreams
get along
or so it seems,

till dreams gnaw away
as carnivores must
at simpler thoughts
that still persist

and get in the way
of multi-layered plots
and zealous dreams
and reasoned thoughts

I compromise my thoughts
at the altar of my dreams
poets can be villains too,
or so it seems.

On being fine

There's a particular manner in which inconspicuous and enigmatic old men smoke cigarettes. Dry lips and wet palates, it's nostalgic to a point where you feel like they aren't smoking in the present, but smoking by association, in an older glory. They should ban long standing gentlemen from smoking, it's far more enticing than any screen moron doing it.

Being an intern, is an exercise in taming the pride of youth; the independence that undiminished, leads to either death or glory. So, I wandered aimlessly in a premier Indian journalistic organization, with no recognition, and mild sympathy from my colleagues. Besides learning that I do not want to be a journalist (special thanks to a cover journalist with a sub-human IQ and a lovely young copywriter who took an interest in deconstructing a non existent work environment for me), I learnt of inconspicuous, weathered old men.

In the hope of finding something mildly inspiring, I, the intern, decided to take a walk near the staircase (synonymous with smoking room for all print media establishments), where I saw a 5 feet 8', 60 something years old man relishing a cigarette. He smiled at me in full recognition of my presence on that staircase and almost as a conditioned reaction searched his kurta-pocket for his cigarette pack. He drew the pack out and presented it to me as a man his age would, a blessing. 'Would you like one?' he said, brisk and well-enunciated and just like that started up a conversation as genteel as the one we have about the weather, only nicer.

He had studied in a premier boarding school pre-independence and had gone to England to study. He had worked a while in different organizations, found some success and had returned eventually to fight a losing battle for the sanctity of the print media. He had returned to find deft touches replaced by loud colors. To find that wordplay and references had been replaced by jarring alliteration and disturbing use of font. He seemed harrowed and happy. A soldier who knew the battle was lost. He was just happy he fought, and happy that he was going to be gone before the New Order had time to establish itself. Kurta, glasses, titan-watch, loose jeans, receding hairline and perfect English intact, he was an Aragorn-of-sorts.

I was walking lazily up the staircase next morning, when I saw him and said, 'Good morning' his body jolted into an absolute response, the kind you get from people who really are looking for conversation. He said,'to you too, young sir. And how are you today?' and I said, 'I'm good' and halted just a while to finish off the cursory conversation. He lit his cigarette looked at me nonchalantly said, 'I wonder when fine became good'. And mumbled to himself in several tones, 'I'm fine'.

In one response he embodied the in-exactitude of everyday conversation. The unnecessary positive overtone of fast food marketing. The assumption that if you weren't miserable, the other condition, the compromised condition the world gave to you, was good. I have embraced the compromises I've made with that which surrounds me and I'm fine. Getting better.