FOR THE LOVE OF GOD - PART ONE

It’s not alien (at least to myself) that I’ve recently developed this habit of rising before anyone else could, and I know that’s virtually impossible, but I guess that’s why I’m being nothing but real when I say that I’ve been waking up before the soul next to mine and the soul next to his, in a tangle of souls that all wake up after I do, and I know I sounded godly saying that, it’s because I actually feel so. Awakening is definitely something else, a contest that knows no time, but I guess I’d still be getting somewhere with my eyes wide open, I’d still be better than the best sleepwalker alive. But only with flashlights and a cell-phone.

Darkness is cute. This isn’t part of a gothic leap, but definitely, darkness is a lot more reassuring than silence or white noise, and it needs no say that with ‘darkness’, I implied nothing but ‘darkness’ and not something like ‘dark, without sound’ or ‘dark, with ghosts screaming aloud’, which means one can bias darkness to favour oneself, as long as he gives it something to mate with, like music for instance. But I find that it’s not the same case with silence, even in the brightest of lights, as without people around, I’ve never felt an ounce of optimism more than what I was supposed to feel, what the silence was supposed to induce, and that’s nothing, really. And I tend to hallucinate, yeah, which doesn’t make me neurotic, it only makes me skilled enough to be able to bring the images in my mind to the outside world, but constrained so that no one but myself can savour what’s being shown, because it can’t be seen by anyone else. It’s often something very graphic, for the eye cannot distinguish substance from shit, I’ve been told it’s all in the mind, and without the mind you could end up treating shit like everything else, and everything else like shit and everything is at par and that’s like the ideal world. An ideal world where being is banned, and you can’t be something else either, because you’ve got to ‘be’ to be that and so you can’t be.

She was outside my window, the window that faces the corridor, the corridor that glowed with every single fluorescent lamp turned on. I blinked. She would’ve been gone by then if she had materialized out of nothing, or an equal amount of air, but I know that I saw her coming from around the bend, clad in her best, the best they always dress her in. Gold. Stones. Crown. Anklets. Bangles. Silks. Not overdone, for I held the brush, you know, I don’t mind ornaments unless they came in my way, and I guessed a little wouldn’t do much harm. And besides, I couldn’t imagine her without them, it’s not my fault, really. And it’s not my fault that she’s always got to be this pretty, for through the ages, through pumpkins and pussycats and every odd and end that’s played her in a film, there’s only been one that’s lasted in my mind, particularly because she was only as old as I am now and because there’s nothing that connects better than age. Not even Nokia, for that matter.

TEN POUNDS

“How much do you bench?”

“Two eighty five. How much do you bench?”

I’m not the gymnasium person. And I know I could be found there almost every day, but that doesn’t need to, and that doesn’t mean that I’m a gym-person. I’m more like one who’s trying to get out of it, you know, lifting things is not my thing, and I’ve never lifted anything considerable, only encouraging discouragement every time I try. From everyone around, that is, I’m not a dejected soul drowning my sorrow over here, I’m sorry if you’ve started to think that this is yet another “I’m all alone” post, it’s not, anyway. Always had an eye on frailty, always thought ‘fragile’ spelt ‘amazing’ and felt amazing, because then I’d break before I break, and that’s bullshit actually, I made that up just a second ago, so it’s not like that’s a driving force of sorts.

“And you would seem so frail

in the cold of the night,

when the armies of emotion

go out to fight…”

Standing amidst weights and measures and sweat that would cool away if I stood still for too long, I don’t think it’s a place enough to romanticize, or to start a chain that starts far from where I was, and there was this out-of-the-way reminder of this Dylan song called ‘Buckets of Rain’, an odd blend of groan and subtle folk-guitar, and emblematic words, I felt I ought to write something on those lines, and it didn’t take long to fit ‘Ten Pounds’ instead of ‘buckets’, although I’m sure that none today would weigh that much, this said ignoring the steel buckets of yesterday. I guess they survive even now, but serve to be nothing but today’s reminders of yesterday, so it’s technically a peek through the periscope than the big picture itself, so I guess I’d not dwell on that a lot.

I don’t know much about wars, heck, I’ve never been in one. Never been hit, either, so I’d rather not pretend. Haven’t gone hungry, wanting to eat but having nothing to eat, haven’t shivered, wanting heat but not getting any, but I’ve always felt this: They’re shitting on us. And how do I know that, I mean I’ve got a nose, I’m told I’ve got a keen sense of smell and I could write about the stench of socks without getting affected by them, and I’m even living in this world amidst all this shit, and that makes me professionally qualified, you know, a green signal that always burns. A welcome sign that’s never painted on, an archway built for me.

“Ten pounds of peace

that you tried to buy, with

nothing to buy with:

a dinner delight, tonight;

ten pounds of wheat

from the hunger-deprived,

a ten left behind,

and the ten that she lied about”

Don’t break your head over this, it’s something I had fun writing.

THE BOMB - PART TWO

I stood for three-quarters of the journey on my way home today, losing three opportunities to sit down in the process, pretending that they didn’t slip away without me letting them to, although there was no need to pretend, the world can’t care. I was frustrated, though. Painted a grin on my face to cover-up the fact that I was freaked out by this really oily-haired boy who was determinedly bumping his head against my pants, falling asleep. I tried to not think of the act as deliberate, but I couldn’t bring myself to try to try. I rescued my backpack a couple of times from a couple of people who almost stepped on it as I listened to ‘Draw the Line’ by David Gray, because I couldn’t afford that, it had my laptop in it. And I can’t afford my laptop, it’s a fact.

Crowd cleared a little at the CMBT, but it’s always the place that never makes a difference, for they get in as they step out, it’s a real life scenario of John Mayer’s ‘Wheel’, and one can’t help but eat when force-fed, because spitting out only makes the world dirtier. I counted five: five men, five suitcases, four made of wood and one made of leather. And I’m talking about the suitcases, and they were fairly big, so they occupied about half the length of the bus; half the place that’s there for standing. I’m not being the stickler over here, and I wasn’t, either. I was too busy watching the men and studying them, to be one. Beards. Paan. Safaris, slacks and Kurtas too. Exotic. ‘Same old, same old’.

I wished the bus weren’t speeding. I wished I could get down.

I started to ponder about who would survive. I wondered if I’d make it, I wondered if it could be the turning point of my life, where they get to find that I’m like David Dunn (from ‘Unbreakable’) and that I can’t be broken, and that a list of people who didn’t make it through would never have me on it, unless it’s a list of those who drowned, because I know for a fact that I can’t swim. I thought about Matt Damon’s emphatic monologue from ‘Good Will Hunting’, the multiple references of ‘shrapnel in the ass’ (weird, because there was a box right behind me), I thought about comic imitations of a blast, where the victims stand in rags, covered in soot, blowing smoke which they inhaled just a second ago, I wondered if I could get away with nothing more than a puff of smoke, except that I don’t smoke and the world’s no stage either. I thought of how the heat could scald my skin, how I’ve never felt anything more than ‘tolerable’ before, wondered how it could feel to be pounded by nails and bolts and bits and pieces of metal, and I thought again if I would die or if I’d survive and I remembered how I’ve never died before, and that it’s always dilemmatic as to whether one could wish for what he hasn’t felt already, but then again, there’s no one around who can tell me not to, and get away with it convincingly. A kind man then put my face at risk than my behind, by asking me to take the seat beside his, for he had seen me stand for too long. And then, as I sat, I secretly resolved that if I don’t get down by the time this song (‘Jackdaw’, David Gray) ends, I might possibly not get down again. Consciously alive, that is.

I got down before the bridge of the song, having replayed it twice on my way. I guess I can’t do much about metropolitan traffic.

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I’m not John Carpenter, for heaven’s sake. I’m not for cheap thrills, especially if I’m involved in one (I doubt if he’d be, either, if the thrill’s on him). I don’t fear blood, I just don’t like to see it flow out of me in amounts that I wouldn’t appreciate. Cuts are nasty, bruises last for weeks, broken bones stray out of control, and death is too permanent for me to desire it.

But I swear that both of the times that I got down, I wished, that on its way down the road, the bomb would burst just to prove me right. And I don’t know what that makes me.

THE BOMB - PART ONE

Keeping in mind the fact that half of our life is an extrapolation of the other half, and that you always want to see what you want to see, I take the liberty to state that the following is a compilation of real incidents. A ‘true story’, to follow cliché.

I had the impression that this share-auto might start before the rest, and although I never really had a time constraint, it so happens that one always wants to be early just to avoid being late, for ‘right in the nick of time’ is something that not many vie for. And I was in no mind to try to differ. And yes, to differ, one must always try, because the world always makes a man be what ‘it’ is, what everything other than that man is being, so it takes a considerable effort to be otherwise. And I wasn’t willing to take that effort, that night. No fatigue, no loss, no fear, no reason in particular, except for plain unwillingness. And I’m sure I can’t be sued for that.

It’s funny how everyone is so giving at all times, except when it comes to themselves, except when it’s your glass of water, when all of a sudden, you wished you were dying too, so as to not part with what you have, because you think it’s unfair for someone to gain while you lose, and gratitude is hardly a possession. Heck, you can’t keep it, you can’t flaunt it (you’re not ‘supposed to’), it just floats around; hovers about. And I’m not detaching myself from this actuality, I admit that I have been, and I am part of this ‘everyone’ that I speak about, except that it’s a part of ‘me’ that ‘I’ despise right now. A Hyde I want to hide, and he wasn’t that different, either. One bad leg, rags sewn intact, a plastic bag in one hand as he clung on to a stick with the other. He was bearded, and I’d say he was young, because I didn’t spot much of grey, but then again there’s grey at places where it’s not supposed to be, so I thought I’d dare not deduce. And he didn’t enter already, he was lingering outside, waiting for the auto to get filled, for he was only used to hanging on and ‘convenience’ could kill him. And I let a couple of people pass me on their way inside, I told them I’d be getting down before, it took some time and then he got in and sat beside me, set to mate the wind. And I got to see him up close.

He was fair-skinned. He had pink lips. He smelt of ‘paan’, and I suspected alcohol too. He was wearing a ‘Kurta’. He looked exotic, even out of place. He was casual, yet focused; grave. I got down before it could start, telling the driver that I would take a bus instead, and I pointed to a bus that arrived just then, gladly. I ran.

I got into another share-auto parked behind the bus, one which had a family in it, distinctly Tamil, and hoped it wouldn’t go too near to the one I had just abandoned. Guilt nauseates me, I’ve nearly passed out a couple of times before. Not this time, either. He had left.

SECRETS

I told my mother about you, yesterday. When we watched TV together. When she didn’t wait long to point at the first diva that came along in a yesteryear Hindi song, call her ‘beautiful’ to the extent of being unmatched, and I guess I couldn’t take it any longer. I said she wasn’t all that she’s hailed to be, (I don’t remember her name, by the way) said she’s just another pretty face, just another celebrity who’d give anything away for a place on the paper, for the lead part in a film that might not even turn out to be successful; just another woman who can’t possibly constrain herself enough at least to not get ruined by the whole world, let alone one wicked man who always comes along, to ruin such women. Just another person, who’s only shamelessly alive. Or just another person who ingested poison last night. Just another, to pile up on the mound; another drop in the ocean.

I told my mother that this can never be a woman that I would look up to. Not the woman I would want to wake up to, however bright she can make my day by being the pretty face she is. And I said it’s not because she’s vile or she’s vulgar or because she’s helpless to be otherwise: I just don’t know what she is, heck, she’s just a space on my TV screen. She’s just there, dancing around, talking at times, weeping, shooting fake smiles at an audience that doesn’t wait to be mesmerized, getting civilian awards, although no parent, even the most insane of the lot, would never want their daughters to end up becoming like her, however ‘fruitful’ that might seem on the surface (Funny how every one of us Indians is so good with the spade, always ready to dig into stuff, always looking deeper than the surface when it came to things of personal concern). She wouldn’t fade away, I would never see a blank in the space where she danced when she fades away, and sure enough, she would fade away some day: Cosmetics aren’t a cure, and so she would fade. Fade, wither, die and decay, turning into ‘nothing’, like me and you do. Except that it’s a lesser ‘nothing’ in her case, than it’s with yours or mine, for nothing she was, when she was alive. Just another beating heart. And although I love hearts that beat, I guess I do certainly want a reassurance, hearing one beat against mine. That’s reality, I guess, and I drink into it. Like I drink into you, because you’re part of my reality, something they can’t ever achieve. The Glam dolls; Divas; Beauty Queens. Scratch the last one out, it’s a misnomer.

The song died out, with the pair of them dancing into the rain, rehearsing a kiss they’re about to exchange. The music died out, it wasn’t music to me, anyway. My thoughts died out too, and then they played the next song. Different person, different clothes, same intention, same dancing around. I guess even my mother has limits, as the pressure cooker won the battle against the woman who’d never have stood beside one. She handed me the remote, pulled herself up and walked around the bend that led to a baby she always caressed, for I’m not one anymore. Neither is my sister.

I never told her anything. Again.

I guess I’m waiting for the moment when you pop on the TV screen in front of me, and I get to smile when she stares, clueless, and I get to tell her that THIS is what I want, what I’ve always looked for, what I found just a while ago, and what I feel so terribly happy about.

On second thoughts, I wish that never happens, because I’m content with you, being just mine.