Sunday, March 27, 2011

Rendition

Part of me
I never knew
friends I had
I had but few
A year hence
I have less hair
but life's moving
on top gear
playing life's act
that sounds like fiction
way more than fact
This is My rendition
of this script
of these nondescript
stories from the crypt
Hanged to death n
sliced in the gulliton
Disparged by you
dispised by everyone
I cried nearly drowned
no one tugged at
this outstretched hand
This is my stage
I'm the prodigal son
and yet I am the sage
This is my rendition
of the misadventure
that I did but then didn't
share with anyone
I had love but
i held too tight
what I love
is a shadow
in a dark night
What I aim
is a world away
What I adore is
an ingrate I'd say
I see my reality
finally the way
I wish to
This is my life
my rendition
I'm the hero
I am the audience
to my own rules
I bow in obedience

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

unrest inside

tonight
avoid proclivity
tonight
I yearn serenity
Do cease this dirge
what mental scourge
I wish not
to hear any words

A silence, heavenly
neither ticks of clocks
nor barking dogs
keep them all away
Let me hear, what
these beats have to say

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Upheaval

I clean your wounds
and my own heal
I empathise
and to my suprise
It's easier to
forgive my foes
to stand up and
stop ranting about
these tales of woes
It frightens no more,
the sight of this
blood n' gore
I'm neither buried
in terror
nor soaring high
For I accept that
one day, I'll die
so will he
the one who can't
express his heart
so will she
the one who woudn't
use her mind
but is still
most kind
she loves me despite
knowing me well
with all the fears
I can't dispell

But as I
tend to your wound
my pain subsides
but why?
unaware of all
from me, that
my own mind hides
the doors open
in my dreams
I see not only
the surreal sights
of soaring along the
lovely meandering streams
I see as well that
I'm stuck in mesh
with claws
tearing at my flesh
and gradually it's
all too real
but when I..
I bandage your wounds
my own heal

I stare into you
And see my heart
It begins to
make sense, part by part
I am the claw, that rips
I am the hand. that whips
I gift wounds to one and all
I feel humbled, I feel small

I cover your wounds
and stroke your hair
I kiss your forehead
and put you to bed
and quietly walk away
relieved of my own pain
these lessons in life
will not go in vain

Sunday, March 20, 2011

guise

Too long to forget
Losing you
Why do I fret
Too stubborn to bend
Too honest to say
you’re just a friend
Too casual
to question why
might shed a tear
When I say goodbye
Too etched to erase
Intertwined in a maze
Blessed to know you
Too well to adore you
I’m you and you’re me
Lost in riddles
Where exactly are we?
I’m your reflection
You’re mine
We ride again
In the dead the of night
With the wind
We put up a brave fight
We race in vain
The truth chasin, yanking
its horse’s reigns
and we run and we split
so that one throat
is spared from being slit
when I look in the mirror
We both meet again
I raise my eyes
I feel overpowered
for I see you clearly
I see a coward

Saturday, March 19, 2011

outstanding

Whoever stored fish
in a can without a lid
n knew not that it'd
never be served a dish
had to be a rich man's kid
Oh the rich man's kid
in a blaring car
downing his pain
in an lavish bar

The pain of having less
Less being relative,
nothing short of a mess
ten pairs of swank shoes
for the eleventh
got nothing to lose

His wallet's a legend
blessed by dad's sweat
that appears on his brows
when he evades tax
or takes some bribe
In his circles
he can take pride

sweat shop cater
to his loud taste
he binges on colours
in a brazen haste
The only thing
he doesn't doubt
He must stand out
walking in the crowd

Friday, March 18, 2011

unme

You, isn't it you
I'm thinking of now
conscience creeping
into my dream's somehow

Slipping into a crevasse
you caught hold of my hand
Thought it was the end
but I'm alive and
grateful, here I stand

Isn't it you,
who just brushed past
to tell me you were near
when I stood in the fear
that I was alone

you're a stranger than strange
you're almost deranged
but wish to know you more
for I feel for us,
there's something in store

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Lovesickoflove

I’m lovesick, I wanna hold you so
I yearn for you, never wanna let go
I’m sick of love, don’t waste my time
So sick of it, won’t spend a dime

Come close, I wanna smell your skin
Too sick of love to call this ‘sin’
I’m tired of love, I don’t wanna fight
Just hold me close even if I ain’t Mr. Right

You are strange, you’re such a witch
Your selfish plans, immune to glitch
You’ll wreck my world, it’s such a trend
You’re beautiful but so are your friends

I’m lovesick when I break my bread
Even more so when I go to bed
I’m so lovesick I pine for a caress
So sick of it, I couldn’t care less

I’m so lovesick, I want you NOW
So sick of it, I know it’d be such a row
So lovesick, for you I’d sing
Too sick of it to explain…
…what you’re missing!

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Again it's the blues
my world's losin it's hues
It's been days and
I yearn for good news

or even a harbinger
No sweet sensations linger
Just when the mind's blank
and there's nothing to muse
there's nothing, I tell myself
so there's nothing to lose

Walls talk to me
ghosts are my friends
I embrace shadows
I cast myself from within

It's my own face
I gently stroke
between the mirror and I
there's a blinding smoke

I dream of greatness
lying unconscious
In the realms of reality
my hands extended for alms
I'll do big things I do foresee
I'm at peace with my tenacity

strength to strength
I heal and renew
As I turn
the blue to grey
I pick my colours
and paint my way

Friday, March 11, 2011

I was reading something about child-rights and chanced upon an article on the Times of India website. Having finished reading it, I noticed a link to another article titled "5 best positions to get pregnant". Though of no particular interest to me as of now, I still thought I should increase my knowledge.

The article turned out to be quite a farce. It mentioned five "things" as being best to aid conception (pardon me for this but it really was there on the website so here goes):

Missionary
Raised hips
Doggy-style
Side-by-side
Orgasms

Now the first three are man-on-top, the next on the side. Ok! According to my diminutive knowledge on the subject, apart from kinky fetish and kamasutra stuff, the only broad category left is the woman-on-top, which apparently another article by TOI suggests is one of the most successful sexual positions at giving woman an orgasm. So they're contradicting the story as a whole. And last but not least, orgasm. This pretty much suggests that any form of penetration will cause pregnancy.

They also forgot the most important point: Erection. Ah! We Indian men just circumvent all our responsibilities LOL! Articles like these really amuse me. They really don't disburse any real knowledge.

Since TOI seems to be covering sex well, here's a link to another one of their articles on sex

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2009-09-30/health/28082731_1_orgasm-g-spot-female-sexual-dysfunction

I will refrain from adding my own experiences about the topic but I wonder if it's as bad as they're saying it is. What I can't refrain from is quoting a part of the article, here goes

"Technology can help: Perhaps the most extreme solution for sexual dysfunction among women is the so-called "orgasmatron"-an implant inserted into the spinal cord, which stimulates the user when switched on via a remote control. Despite an initial struggle to find subjects for clinical testing, the device is now in development."

Wow! A remote controlled babe to make out with, what could be more utopic than that. Talk about technology.

Here's more TOI on technology for you:
Female marrow could turn to sperm (eeks! Brothers our balls will be redundant soon)
New reproductive technology could render men redundant (wonderful! not just the balls they mean)

They're talking ways to address pregnancy. Really, tell me, do we need this, there's a kid being born every other second in our country? Why not concentrate more on enjoying the experience. You should be a traveller, an adventurer, enjoy the journey while you reach the destination.

& Have less babies please.

Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Into the Wild

Christopher Johnson McCandless
Feb 12 1968- Aug 18 1992

I just finished watching the movie Into The Wild. I think I'm becoming more perceptive to movies. It probably has something to do with the fact that I've loved all the movies I've watched recently. Into the Wild was a great movie. I'll probably write my thoughts on it later but the spooky part is that H.D.Thoreau seems to be chasing me. I've been (slowly) reading Walden, then the last movie I watched had Walden in it (The Great Debaters) and today, into the wild also mentioned Walden by Thoreau. I guess I gotta speed up my reading.

Only that I really don't think McCandless and Thoreau were talking about exactly the same thing and McCandless was probably a little delusioned, if I dare say that, Thoreau probably was constantly there somewhere in his head. I'd like to add that though I used the word delusioned, I would love to admit that men like McCandless inspire me and I do, in many ways, relate to his childhood. I've had thoughts like the ones he did. Only that probably as an Indian, my parents had too great a role in shaping my life, though not thoughts, and my life would've never gone the way McCandless' did. Maybe it would have because I started to read Thoreau when I was 22 but my vocab hindered the progress and I gave up reading it; thank god. Besides at that age, silly me was too madly in love with a silly girl. All the stupidity saved me to grow older.

How I wish that McCandless was alive. If he were alive, maybe his story wouldn't appear to be that brilliant but what the heck, even a degree less, it would still be awesome. But I doubt if he would've had the realizations that he did if never went that close to death...before he actually died. Sad as I am right now after watching the movie, I know I can't change the past, I can learn from it though, "Happiness is best when shared"

Hat's off to him and to his amazing sister and to their words that changed the people around them and their story that will continue to affect all that hear it and watch it as a film.

Sunday, March 06, 2011

Right to Disobey

Some things just inspire you and spook you at the same time. It all started with me, a non-reader, watching a program called Great Books on the channel I love, Discovery Channel. The topic of discussion was the book Walden by H.D. Thoreau. The discussion was enchanting and I was captivated by Thoreau’s idea of living all alone next to a pond/lake, in a self-built house and eating self-cultivated food. My tryst with the book ended as soon as it began when I downloaded the e-version of the book and began reading it. Back in 2002, my grossly limited vocabulary impeded the progress of reading that book to an extent that I gave up in frustration after perusing a dozen odd pages but the wish to read the book still lingered in my head. Then last year, when I went to meet my prospective bride in Bangalore, who happened to be a voracious reader, I was shown around the city and soon landed up at one of her favourite haunts, the book store. There, as I walked around hypnotized at the sight of so many books, reading as many title names as I could, I found Walden sitting pretty. Without a second thought, I purchased it, despite the reconciliation with the fact that I would take eons to finish reading it even if I started right away. Methinks that the reading part of my brain is either underdeveloped or skewed.

Anyway it’s been a couple of months since I bought the book and after finishing the other book that I bought along with Walden, The Wind in The Willows, which I totally adore, I picked up Walden. Thoreau’s writing left me awed. I was reading about things that I personally pondered upon so many times since the time I was very young and of course, much more than that. For as much of a thinker I thought I was, Walden made me think even more than I ever thought I could think. I was delighted to find that one of my favorite quotes, “men have become the tools of their tools” is actually an excerpt from Walden. More awed I was when I read the preface that threw light on the fact that the idea of Civil Disobedience was Thoreau’s and that the people who drew inspiration from it were none other than Martin Luther Kings Jr. and our very own Mahatma Gandhi. Here I would like to mention that Walden is a very old book and was written in the 1800s.

Anyway a few hours ago I was scanning through the sea of movies that my buddy Rick had loaded on my computer more than a year ago. I am not one who’s interested in movies and therefore they’ve been just vegetating on my computer. I’ve watched one or two in this span and liked Training Day. A few hours ago, I reckoned that tomorrow being a Sunday, I could take the liberty of watching movie and since I was feeling very lonely and morose anyway, I thought that a movie couldn’t worsen it any more. So I got down to deciding which movie to watch and after much deliberation I clicked on The Great Debaters. It turned out to be an amazing movie, just like Rick had told me. It is a true story from the 1930s in which a group of black students from a non-descript Wiley College went on to win a debate at the Harvard University; a truly captivating and an inspiring story. I’m still reading Walden these days and owing to my poor attention-span with books, am just on the second chapter despite loving what I’m reading. Why I’m mentioning Walden here is because a strange chill ran down my spine by the end of the movie as the last debate is on Civil Disobedience and guess which book these have in their hands in the movie, you’re right, Walden; a great debate, a great movie and truly a great book. It felt nice to know that I’m trying to neuro-wrestle with the pages that have truly inspired and spawned greatness in history. I hope a bit of it rubs off on me as well. I couldn’t help but write about it at this hour, right after the movie concluded.

Saturday, March 05, 2011

Cleaning season

Over a period of the past few weeks, my room has been growing messier. Of course I dislike being in an untidy room but sometimes I just let it be. Then today morning Ramrati, our cleaner-maid, who’s worked at our place for more than a decade, started to complain about how cluttered my room was while she was mopping the floor. She’s in her 50s and I’ve watched her grow old over all this time. What I dislike about her is that at times she talks about unnecessary topics with my mother. My mother gives her tea and food in the morning because she comes to our place very early. This was fairly commonplace activity till the time my dad objected to it, saying that my mother was spoiling her too much.

The problem is that Ramrati and my dad don’t get along at all and strangely, it’s because of her punctuality and in some strange way her love for our family that she still works. My father is not the kindest of and Ramrati is quite good at answering back when treated unfairly. My father and Ramrati have had terrible fights; in a normal scenario the maid would either leave or be fired. Both scenarios have taken place; more than once my dad has told her to hit the road and Ramrati herself has quit three times, the longest for a month but always returned home. My mom sides with her and quite frankly when my father becomes unreasonable, I too have sided with her in the past. Such scenarios have led to a weird tension between my mom, dad and me with my father interpreting it as we both going against him for a lowly housemaid. Not once has he ever acknowledged that he can be outrageously and unacceptably rude. Anyway dad’s not always rude and unreasonable, he a nice guy most of the times.

What I’m trying to say is that I cleaned my room so that Ramrati doesn’t mumble/curse and in the process wake me up early in the morning when she’s cleaning my room. That’s one thing I hate and lose my temper at spontaneously, when I’m woken up from deep slumber by something unpleasant, be it my parents talking too shouting instruction to each other early in the morning or Ramrati incessantly mumbling curses at me. My folks have faced my wrath once due to this habit and I don’t want Ramrati to find out the hard way that I, afterall, carry my dad’s anger genes; oh the big fat male ego!

inferno

Mr. Seth's ground floor apartment was set ablaze by an electrical short circuit exactly a week ago. Our apartment is right above his. They say it was a frightening site as two fire engines and many firemen braved the smoke to put the fire out. The aluminium wires gave way after 20 years of constant usage and the result was frightening. Quite luckily no one was in the room when the TV exploded projecting out shrapnel and setting the wooden closets on fire. I now understand the big deal about fire-proof building material.
"A spark neglected burns a house", it never was so real and literal before. Whenever there has been minor sparking in the meter and/or the electrical points in the house, we've never really appreciated the gravity of the repercussions. A visit by the electrician to tighten loose ends generally solves the irritating hum. I never could imagine that an electrical fire could break out in a matter of seconds and go out of control just as quickly.
In order to not meet with the same fate, today we bought a various sets of copper wires to replace the whole wiring of the house. Havells wires are good and you get a good deal if you buy from the Industrial Area. We could purchased the same material in about 60-70% of the price 6-7 years ago as copper wasn't as exorbitantly priced back then. Sometimes the only cogency is provided by a demonstration of disaster; well we stand convinced.

Friday, March 04, 2011

headliners of hardliners

Apart from the disturbing event that occurred in Pakistan, where a Christian leader was shot dead for raising his voice against the Blasphemy Law, another headline caught my attention, in which a lecture at the Northwestern University ended in a graphic manner in which a couple demonstrated the use of a sex toy. About the former all I have to say is that although it is bad to slander about any religion, unless the some practice in it brazenly questions the very essence of humanity, such laws can also be used as weapon to wrongly indict people of other faith. Well what can I say, the victim, a minister of minority community in Pakistan, Shahbaz Bhatti is dead so it doesn't matter anymore. Maybe there'll be more who'll raise their voice and more who'll die. I wouldn't call them martyrs. I wonder if Bhatti has met Jesus already, something he firmly believed he believed he will after dying. If not, what a waste.

Let's talk about the latter, the event faces investigations by the University authorities as they say there have to be guidelines for pedagogy and not everything is demonstrable in public.
In someway it brings memories of the time when one of my close friends Nipun Kalia was to present the subject of his PhD research in front of a Dissertation-Commission at the Punjab University a few years ago. I cannot recall accurately but Nipun was studying some aspect of Catherine Breillat's movies. The big deal about the whole thing was that Breillat's movies were about sexuality and were misinterpreted by a some members of the commission as pornography. In vain Nipun tried to explain to the clamouring members that there indeed was a difference between the two. There were people on his side but there were also many many against him. He stood their being judged as a pervert because he wished to investigate something that was related to sex. Media dogs sniffed the controversy and soon there were articles about the incidence and Nipun was portrayed as a nymphomaniac. Happily married, he's anything but that. Moral fingers poked him from everywhere but that did led him to have a celebrity status within our circles and even more so at his wife's workplace.

I don't know what to say of such a contentious issue at the Northwestern University, I really don't think having a live demo of a sex toy in a university is acceptable but then again that's not what the lecture was about, it was about "Bondage, swinging and other fetishes". Well if they're investigating that at the University, then it's probably no big deal to have a demo of a sex toy. After all it's something that people do engage in and it doesn't hurt or kill anyone and is for pleasure. Anyone that says that he/she doesn't have any interest in pleasure of those kinds would have to be totally asexual and most people aren't like that. The couple that performed were exhibitionists and were more than happy to oblige. This act was performed after the lecture was dismissed and the audience was cautioned a dozen times that what followed would be extremely graphic. For me what stood out was the way in which Channel24 titled their article as opposed to the others. Following are the titles of the articles by different news agencies.

Channel24: Live sex show spices up college class

The BBC: Northwestern University sex toy show 'disturbing'

The Times of India: US university to investigate sex toy demonstration by professor

NEWS24: US university to probe sex toy demo

The New York Times: Extracurricular Sex Toy Lesson Draws Rebuke at Northwestern

Wednesday, March 02, 2011

Lost and found

I don’t know why I started punching the keys now. Maybe because it’s been some time since I’ve spent time with this word file (.doc) that I’ve titled Hard-Wired. It has sequels and I have most probably lost HW1, 2 and 3 or maybe they’re there on some CD. I still remember how blogging started for me. I had been writing diaries for a few years then, if my memory serves me well, I started to write on the computer and pass on my articles, anecdotes to friends on email. I am not too sure if this habit prompted Ashish to create a blog for me. I remember it was the year 2006 and I’d gone to meet him at the Bible College in sector 47. He created my account and he was the one who named my blog jesslikethat (an interesting parallel to just-like-that containing my name). I was excited and in Ashish’s words, “You took to blogging like a fish takes to the water.”

Every night I’d sit alone in a dark room and punch in anecdotes or sometime just random thoughts that led me punch keys like a mad man. I remember it turning into an obsession. I couldn’t sleep without writing something or the other. I always had something to write about and here I am now, writing about the days that were. I initially named my blog the Sargasso Sea, owing to the meta-genomics project that I was working on. This project was bolstered in India after an American scientist named Craig Venter exploited the meta-genome of the Sargasso Sea, found novel genes and started his own big venture. We Indians followed the footsteps and explored the whole of India for a metagenomic lead to wealth but after spending crores and crores of rupees, ended up with nothing. Nothing except that being a member of the project, my interested in scientific research was kindled and I went on to pursue PhD (of course not in metagenomics) and other crazy plans that I’ve yet to execute. Anyway I changed the name of my blog to “purgatory” after realizing that I was indeed writing any and everything that crossed my head. I then changed it to something that I was at peace with “the long and short of it” for obvious reasons.

In 2006 my blog, in connivance with cupid, caught someone's attention who I started seeing for a while, during a time when my relation with my then girlfriend had slipped into a coma. The end of 2006 brought one of the greatest mental depressions I’d faced till then. I kept posting on my blog. I deleted many of my initial posts in that depression, an act that I still regret.

2007 was the Launchpad of my career. I don’t remember how much I wrote then. 2008 my PhD started and I don’t think I blogged too much in those days. Life was suddenly full of other things and I no longer had the time to write but I doubt if I ever stopped writing completely. 2009 is the year that I don’t recall much of rather a period I have willingly erased from memory (ah! rather it just faded quickly of late). This also was the time when I started to miss those moments that I spent alone in a dark room, in front of a computer, writing my thoughts.

Strangely though, I wrote articles for an online newspaper and I think I wrote three of the total four in 2009. So in many ways I was undergoing a transformation as I’d started to write about more relevant stuff about the world. 2010 turned out to be the most happening year of my life till date. My breakup, arranged marriage plans, the explosions of confusions in my life and then finally…FREEDOM from everything...and then a chance meet with a stranger that...but then maybe not. My PhD work that doesn't really invite much of my guide's intellectual input barring a few spurts once in a few months (y'know just to keep me busy). Where are we headed, what's the relevance of this work? I dunno and no one's answering anything...workwise, I feel like I'm walking blindfolded and being lead by the blind.

But writing liberates me from so many mental shackles. I can breathe again; I lost a lot but in the end I'm reunited with myself. Again, I don’t know how much I blogged in 2010. Too much happened in these 365 days, most of it too emotional, both in a good way and bad, for me to pen those thoughts exactly but I did keep my blog posted. I must admit that facebook annihilated my blogging to a massive degree. All I know is that writing is important for me and though there may be a hiatus here and there, there will always be comebacks and for now, I hope I’ll start to write the way I used to; possessed and obsessed.