Confession 22

It's been six years since I first saw you.

I remembered you today. In fact, I remember you every once in a while. You're the ghost... haunting me, making me restless, sometimes even long. You meant [maybe still do mean] a lot to me and you would so unwittingly swirl around in my dreams, enchaining this captive with your hypnotizing words. The captive that I was, the captive I longed to be. Back then, we were young. Yet, you stopped me from killing myself. My zest and my wonder for life is something that I've learnt from you.
You've taught me much.

My heart would skip beats every time we spoke, and irrationality would creep in, and so would possessiveness. Your seductive smile--the smile I loved so much--would always invite me to dive into your eyes and see oceans of something I could never comprehend. Maybe it was wisdom in there--connected to your experiences of life, and to the deepest throes of your mind. Sipping on the perfect coffee your mom always made for us, I enjoyed our endless conversations on chaos, politics, music and life. Ah, and there was always my frowning upon your incessant nibbling of the gold chain that hung around your slender, seemingly-fragile neck.

But now, you've disappeared into obscurity. And if I look up to the star-studded sky and ask why, I will not get any answer. I think things like "Maybe it wasn't meant to be" or "I wasn't good enough"... They're just shields behind which I can hide and run away from it all. Maybe I did wrong you in a way that I shouldn't have. But there have been too many maybe's in this story. And now, it's too late for forgiveness or reconciliation.

"When you lie down on the ground and look at the stars, don't you feel you're falling into the infinity of it all?"
Oh, what I would give to hear those words again, only I know.
And why you aren't with me now, only you know.
Sometimes, I miss having you around. Badly.
And every time I look into the night, and gaze at constellations of small specks of light, I remember you.

It's been six years. It's time I finally moved on.
No. Not just yet.

Life, Art and Everything In Between.

There were three keys,
One was Life,
One was Art,
And One was Everything In Between.

I took the First key, and filled my world with colour.
Fixed it in frames, and encapsulated its splendour.
It then became the lie, so beautiful, so free,
And I blamed the many needs, the needs I couldn’t see.
So I buried the key that was Art, so deep within my heart
To forever remain unseen, in the heart, the heart that now beats.

There were three keys,
One was Life,
One was Art,
And One was Everything In Between.

I took the Second key, reforged it with perversion, perception,
Transition, juxtaposition, ramification, justification,
And... human affection.
Amidst all the dogmatic strife and self-war stricken strides
I showed it civilizations, and tides of beautiful minds
Till one day it became everything, everything between art and life.

There were three keys,
One was Life,
One was Art,
And One was Everything In Between.

I took the Third key--the secret of life, death and wisdom infinite--
Far across the seven mountains, and across the seven seas,
I locked my soul,
And threw the key into the murky depths of oceans of time.

Then I fled into the cold night illuminated silver by moonlight bright.
For a hundred thousand years, feelings and thoughts fought a terrible fight.
The day I died, I shed my pride.
And my unlocked soul... reunited with the Key of Life.

There were three keys.
One, was Life.
One, was Art.
And One, was Everything. Everything In Between...

The Dipping Column of Mercury.

I’ve always wanted to write about this city.
I’ve always wanted to write about this city with as much fascination and awe, as people who write about Bombay or sometimes even Delhi.
And today, I’m doing exactly this.

The concept of normal is often underrated.

It’s the everyday that sometimes matters more than the occasional now-and-then. I’ve spent a good ten years of my life (piecewise discontinuous) in this city, growing up to its mannerisms and attitudes--savouring the warmth that people once showered, and shrugging off the distance that somehow seeped in over the years. Some blame the changing attitudes of the city on the Techies who, with their humongous salaries and decadent lifestyles, have left the common Bangalorean behind.

This, is not a rosy picture. In fact, it’s not even one picture. It is a multitude of snapshots--perceptions, cultures, emotions and varying degrees of warmth--frozen in time, that links one then-boy and the now-older-but-somewhat-wiser almost-a-man to various people.

People here relate to songs more than they relate to other people (this might be the scene everywhere, but that’s not the point), what with our watering holes offering every genre of music and every type of drink for the guzzler to drown himself/herself in. We like our definition of a cosmopolitan culture that spans Headbanger’s Balls’, Alternative, Hip-Hop-and-House, Grooving around, Oxygen bars, Fast food, 5-minute Smoke breaks, Conversations over beer (or conceptions over liquor), Rave parties, Sinful Promiscuities and Sunday brunch.

The average Bangalorean is in the process of perfecting the art of substituting these newly-adopted cultures with happiness, and devouring this happiness like wolves feasting on a multiple-course fine cuisine dinner. And we don’t want anyone to question it, because we’re quite comfortable living out our illusions.

I’m one of the many examples of people who have become an anathema, an antithesis to their own ideologies--the kind of people who look in the mirror and do not recognize the person staring back at them. All we are and all we have become are distant sometimes forgotten memories of goodness, blurs of perception phasing out too quickly, and a purple haze of evenings and nights gone awry… and we just don’t know why.

Every time I look into the eyes of a person passing by, there’s just iciness--icicles of coldness freezing my heart, making me as distant, unsympathetic and as frozen as them--and it blasts out of fur coats and façades. Where’s all the warmth gone?

It’s beyond me to discuss why we are this way, or how did we become this way.
I, am a Bangalorean.
I don’t know. But I pretend to.
I don’t care. And I don’t bother to pretend to.

Life on the highway has exposed me to different cultures--some still intact and untouched by cosmopolitan wants and selfish ideologies; sometimes where it’s seeping in and people refuse to let it take over; and some where its influence is felt to some degree.

When I’m riding for hours at a stretch watching latitudes and the longitudes literally whizz by, and I stop for a tea on the highway, I’m overjoyed to receive a rustic but extremely heartening warmth only people of the first and second types of culture that I have described can provide. And that’s possible only out of the city. Nowadays, I’m happy to sacrifice that warmth for a 150 KM ride to get my coffee at a particular Coffee Day on the B’lore-Mysore highway.

I must admit that I’m not bothered about how long it will be before Bangalore becomes another Bombay or Delhi.
This, is not the story of a small town.
This, is the story of a city in metamorphosis that’s losing its warmth, and fast.

But tonight, it’s not the cold wave of people that bothers me. It’s the weather.
There’s an unnatural chill in the air tonight.

Cloisterophobia

You wake up and refuse to see
Your mind, trapped in everything.
Trapped in, cloisters
Of the illusion so fragile.
Bolstering, the ego of the
Soul turning ugly, wearing thin...

The mists of, your blurred sounds
Have enslaved, this freedom, once unbound.
Talking the talk so loud
And walking the walk so proud,
You did unhinge, words profound.

I won't hear you talk this way...

You go to sleep and refuse to see
Your mind, trapped in shallow things.
Trapped in, claustrophobia
Of the space, that you think is small.
Fostering, insecurity of the
Soul turning ugly, wearing thin...

Scaling mountains to never see the summit
Forgiving me for the sins I never did commit

The tides of, your fears unfound
Have constricted, this mind, once profound
Talking the talk so loud
And walking the walk so proud,
Your blames did unhinge, thoughts unbound.

I won't let you walk away...

Confession 19

And as the familiar click of a certain Play button filled my world with music, it was sucked like a vortex from Somebody's soul because a dear one's life was cruelly snuffed to silence and faded to black. Somebody's sister, Somebody's friend, somebody's lover. The same face but different connections. Destiny being the only plausible logical explanation to death. And faith, not necessarily in God, the only logical solace.

As hurt and pain envelopes pallid hearts like a black plague, it's not my apathy that gets me...
It's my unfeeling coldness.