Back to where I belong =)

Its been a year since I last spoke to myself, and somehow, now that I'm back I realize how much I have been missing it. And it has truly been a whirlwind of a year for me, with fleeting moments of happiness, a surge of emotions, a few failures, few succesess. And my year came to an end before I even learnt from my mistakes.


This time, life began on a new road, or rather, under a new sky, or should I rather say, a revisited sky, under which I first blinked, first walked, first laughed, first cried, and first felt and realized what it is to love and be loved. And now I am back here again, to push that restart button in my life which was stuck back in Bangalore, and I intend to make an absolute fresh beginning, a new perspective when I get back to what I may dare call my home, atleast close to it.

Long Incomplete!

Serenity is not the word. Neither is calm. Opposed would mean tumult. Neither of this. I do not claim to be a storehouse of vocabulary ingenuity. Definitons in Psychology, and legends in Literature, never fail to intrigue me. Philosophy has never worked for me, although I am quite an ardent believer of good versus evil. Numbers. Fail. Predetermined logic. Epic fail.


Failed to forever understand what really mattered. What really hit the right part of my brain. (Which lobe was that again?) Venting out thoughts, piling up, ant hill, buzzing, stinging, dead, foul, decaying. Buried.


If I ever try to sew my thoughts together, all that comes out is a badly oversized child's night gown. Living for a purpose. Mom says, "God has sent you for a purpose"- could someone please elaborate?


I find my own purposes, goals that I want to achieve, that I have achieved. Living a part of a greater dream, but clinging with the grasp of a storm tossed mariner to a spar at midnight- What to the slave is the fourth of July (Frederick Douglas) , Yes I gave my Literature exam today.


Dreams, rendered motionless. Clouds floating. Stars twinkling, not all that brightly though, and I still don't recognize the differnt constellations. *sigh*
What I really should be reading now, is not the constellations in the sky, nor why the rainbow has 7 colours and not 10..or maybe more.. (I used to wonder when I was in the 5th grade, and still do, sometimes, cuz a lot of colours are nice to look at!), but what I am today and what I am now. I do not want to think of what I was previously, and with a new year, a lot of things have taken shape, and the clouds are not all that dark and laden anymore, and yes, I see that silver lining, a glimpse of it, and I know that I'm gonna be there someday. I just have to keep refueling myself every now and then and say to myself, "you live only once!" :P

Self assessment, but done the right way, finally, has got me here today, back to being myself, and knowing, rather applying what I know as "prioritizing", and guess who tops the list? Me! I was told, that I have to be selfish in a lot of ways in today's world, and yes, I totally agree to it. But what I also realized from there on, that it shouldn't be the sole motive of one's life, MY HAPPINESS matters to me, but it is not the end of the world if I dont get a shawarma today and I am upset and cribbing about it. That's foolishness. And I am 20 now, long way down, and if i dont fasten the belt soon, maybe I will lose out on a lot of precious things and moments at which can just look back and regret. And no, I don't wanna do that.

All said and done, its time for action. No resolutions. No confusions. A focused head, with the least number of distractions (I mention "least number" to keep my options open :P ) and of course, determination.
A PJ, as one of my friend says, went like this once : If I was Nike and you were McDonalds, I would do it, and you would love it! Old, yea, I know, but for the tubelight that I am called, its okay. yea, so rephrasing and remorphing that statement to suit me (I always do that) if instead of u and me, it was just me, I would do it (what I wanted to and with determination) so I would end up loving it! And there lies my happiness!

I am not here to be judged, nor do I want to be a victim to people's non existent fantastical understanding of everythng that everyone says or does, I am here to build myself. Its still the formative stage of my life, and being determined is the best rule to any form of success. Following this, I shall make a start to my new year and hope I will not any longer cling onto the past or harp about the blunders that I have made. Its time to make a sincere new start and an effort that comes from deep down there.

Cheers to the New Year!

Death of a Candle

My inspiration will never know
The poetry it created
Through me

No one would know

What I saw in it.

I extinguished myself

In the wind

That killed the candle

When alive,

It sputtered smokily

Waiting for the throes of death

Blown in the hiss

Of life

The candle once burnt

In the corners of the West

The pail of water

Drips its soul

In which corner

Shall I light it

Where it can regain Life?

The ember of the fire

Collapses upon itself

Where do I put it now?

Do feelings have a title?

Ashtami. A very bright day. I had no plans for that day, except for being forced to go to a Dandia thing at a friend's place. I needed to get out of the house. Panchami, Shoshti, and Saptami went eventless...with the usual pandal hopping the entire day. That kept me busy. But I asked myself, what next? After all this is over?

What? Nothing. The same days, and the same nights, alone. Though I shouldn't be missing him much, but it does take time.

While I was walking down,barricaded between two rows of bamboo fences that have always been put up specially during the pujas in Calcutta, to "maintain discipline", as is said, waiting for the crowd to turn so that we could enter the telengabagan route to the mandap. It seemed, that day, as if there were just people madly in love with each other, all around me. Was it just a projection of what I was missing in life? Or am I really the one alone?

I have good friends to help me walk through, and they've always been with me. But do friends always fill that space that was once(it would be dishonest to say not now), filled by somebody else?

I dont know.I have no idea. How do I trust?How do I believe in you? Not again, or yet again?

The cars drove past me, I was standing on the edge of the road, waiting for my bus. I was thinking, I missed mine.After 20 minutes of more waiting, with the gauging eyes of people down and up, really disgusting me, his words blurring my mind, I somehow managed a bus, got myself a seat, and again, started dreaming. Of what? Of all the good times. A tear dropped to my cheek, and the woman beside me looked at me worriedly. I am fine, and I managed a bleak smile.

The ride was excessively long, maybe because time seemed to go slow motion for me that day. Each instance was painful. Re-remembering you, on every little thought, and that day, seemed to be just us, like the year before. They were doing all that you had done. How was it that way? They didn't even know you.

But they all reminded me of so many things. Was this a new beginning? Or was I losing out on something? On you.?

I've stopped looking for them.I talk to you everyday, but yes, without wasting your time.

I feel you everyday, but without you having to touch.

That's how life has turned for me. From that Ashtami.

Near Madness

A time when lights could not be shut off
even with their cords pulled from the wall
Harsh and bright and made of nameless stuff
The hidden facet of my every wish and fear
shining for friends and enemies alike to see

A time when every word spoken low and softly
rang amplified a thousand times and more
Shouted from rooftops and silent streets
My every thought a known thing, naked
No secret too submerged for common view

A time of weariness and wariness combined
Close to madness, yet not so well defined
Transparency of soul if soul I even have
Where's the madness to be seen through glass
A life better lived with uncurtained windows

Comfort to be had, a settlement of all disputes
where those for and those against can come
to see well lit, amplified, diaphanous displays
of every treasured love and art I hold
No longer covered and withheld but spent

Flickering Images

Illusion makes a mockery of reality
and we have thrown in with it
Suspending lives in hopes and dreams
as etherial as disappearing mist

Hungering for there instead of here
Thirst that turns away from inward wells
The hunt for a light that never flickers
Forgetting the romance of wavering candles

The chase its own game, never ending
No pause at the top of darkened hills
to gaze at waves of grass that roll away
toward a horizon of self discovery

Human doings, disguised as human beings
flashing false credentials at the borders
Searching continents with outdated maps
Forward, always forward, damn the sideroads

A destination finally achieved, left wondering
why the streets are empty, no friendly face
at the end of all that troubled journey
The miles winding down to spaces emptied

Never savoring the steps along the way

Going Away

Walking to-day on the Common,
I heard a stranger say
To a friend who was standing near him,
'Do you know I am going away? '
I had never seen their faces,
May never see them again;
Yet the words the stranger uttered,
Stirred me with nameless pain.

For I knew some heart would miss him,
Would ache at his going away!
And the earth would seem all cheerless
For many and many a day.
No matter how light my spirits,
No matter how glad my heart,
If I hear those two words spoken,
The teardrops always start.

They are so sad and solemn,
So full of a lonely sound;
Like dead leaves rustling downward,
And dropping upon the ground,
Oh, I pity the naked branches,
When the skies are dull and gray,
And the last leaf whispers softly,
'Good-bye, I am going away.'

In the dreary, dripping autumn,
The wings of the flying birds,
As they soar away to the south land,
Seem always to say those words.
Wherever they may be spoken,
They fall with a sob and a sigh;
And heartaches follow the sentence,
'I am going away, Good-bye.'