A Season of Mist

26^th December, 2015.

6 more days to the year’s end. And yesterday was Christmas. Was it yesterday? Or was it every day? Or none of the days were?

Anywho! It doesn’t really matters. It’s winter! The season of hot coffee, cold wind, flaky skins, smooth talk and a lot of poetry. Some being of joy, others reminding the basic pains of everyday. And a time when we all look back, or crane our necks a bit to south and try to ascertain where did we do wrong, what went good or better and where we could’ve, would’ve, should’ve done and what we did anything about anything. And we see that at times, during the year, sometimes we lost control, sometimes we lost hope and at times we held the sun in our fist, we took control and made lemonade.

Coming to an end of the year, we do reflect at these things. The most private moments of our lives when we stop, sit and think. Maybe with a few cigarettes in the night on the roof, facing the coldest winds. Maybe with a drink in our hand with the room heater to comfort us. We think and ponder and float around amongst the finest developments and smiles and amongst the deepest regrets and loss. Maybe that one song that was just ours now belongs to ‘us’ or maybe there is a whole ruined playlist with too many strings attached to delete it for good or even a whole new playlist, who knows? Just for perspective, there were times when all of us must have brooded over a song that reminded us of some beautiful moments, of love and the absence that exists. And similarly there were times, when some of us must have strutted around like John Travolta while playing ‘Stayin Alive’ by the Bee Gees. I strut a lot these days.

We think, about the first 9 o’clock class in room 313, or any other room for that matter with fresh faces, a lot of empty spaces and a whole opportunity even in the face of the most monotonous lecture and the insomniac eyes gorging down on Marxian theories regarding South Indian empires or the Colonial development, only to run out of the class for a lovely cup of coffee and salami sandwich, sometimes a king sized goldflake. And a lot of new laughs and some pre-determined taste which brought us together to new people. And we think about that unsent text, which we wrote 10 times but then deleted it, maybe now regretting, maybe deliberating that ‘what if?’, maybe even thinking that it could’ve changed everything amongst the ones who aren’t on good pages, or who aren’t on any pages anymore, opening the door, bridging the gap, bringing the wall down and letting the light inside. But we backed out because we are so afraid, or maybe we did sent the text, as a prayer, maybe, just maybe, I am just assuming, that we still have a draft, in our message box or in mail, I do!  We look at it every day in the morning or every night and maybe one day we will hit send it out, maybe we won’t. Then there are photographs same issue with them with the catch that we can’t really edit them. And we also ponder over, smiling sheepishly over the newly found treasures. We put our hands in our pockets and find a handful of wishful thinking, or just a letter that somehow crept in our dreams, a pocket full of rye. We find a reason for careless whistling, and if we can’t whistle, humming bird it is!

We reflect at these things, I know because I am just as human as everyone else and because I am right at the moment. We ponder over these while walking under a balmy sun or a frosty evening, while planning for the next one, resolving for a better time than the previous one, resolving against all the odds and quite magically we do end up in the miracle of Father Christmas with our wishes coming true. Sometimes it doesn’t happen; it’s really okay I guess. Wishes are like lotteries, or the scratch card.

So it was a winter of 2015, just like the last 22 winters. Or maybe it wasn’t! Or, just for the sake of an argument that I might put for myself, it still is a winter of Christmas past. Who knows? Who nose? It was a year of Charles Dickens’ first page from ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ for me, for us.

So before the clock strikes 12 on 31^st, I just will quote Neil Gaiman’s toast –

“To absent friends, lost loves, old gods and the season of mists; and may each and every one of us always give the devil his due.”

And if I may be audacious enough, I’d like to add - 

To absent friends, lost loves, old gods and the season of mists; and may each and every one of us always give the devil his due. And if anything, may this wine give us all the second chance we deserve, to love again and to forgive the past. 

Regards.

Chasing

30^th November, 2015.

Tonite, let’s all make love in London!

No, I am not high or anything, but I’d seriously consider being high right about now… anything with a concentrated 7% solution will work… I am so bloody done for now!

So, a rhetoric question, what’s common between a dog chasing car and a guy who just got over with his exam and is heading to a month long vacation? Rhetoric answer, the euphoric feelings when you’re running and the sense of sheer cluelessness when you achieve it, both the car and the vacation. I have literally no idea what am I gonna do. Drew up a schedule, made plans and threw the paper down into the trash bin. A whole bloody month, and here I was making plans? What has gone wrong with me? I am not fan of pre planned things, for two or three reasons. What have I learnt is that it is better to be in Paris always! I know, no one will understand the reference or rather the relation between the December vacations and Paris, but then, it’s only human for humans.

Pseudo-philosophy isn’t a cup of tea to me. Neither is haiku poetry. Really, like, where’s the rhythm? But why shall it anyway mean that I can’t try any of them? On a second thought, forget it. I am just babbling.

So, there had been some developments around me, I don’t know if we can call them development, but in the unavailability of a good vocabulary, I’d stick to that. If I were to be as cryptic as Chinese philosophers, I’d say, that it really doesn’t needs much effort to mend your past errors, although, denial might just be the greatest err you’ll commit and you won’t get chances over and over. And it takes a lot to take one step to anywhere. I saw both these happen, well more or less. I don’t know what to make of them, or if there’s anything to make anyways, but I’d have my share of life as we know it. It’s not much, but enough to understand the underlying pattern of whatever that’s not really impossible.

Right now I am engaged in a conflicted conversation with myself (when I say myself…). I am talking about dust and sea, the chaos that raises them and the tranquil element of nothingness that just is overwhelming, haunting, dead, but peaceful which settles down. Right now, I am high on the taste of the overpowering winter cold that pierces your skin and burn you right to your bones. I am visiting my old rooms of sandcastle with nothing but a flashlight, hoping to find absolutely nothing but dust and damp pages. I am reading my old diaries, finding a leaf of eucalyptus tucked in, a bougainvillea flower, dried under the heaviness of inked words and my poetry and his love and all the dark nights and the madman’s quotes. I hope nothing from this; I hope nothing from the old archived mails from 2014. Oh well, I have tucked my hope for the time being. Time to be the doctor maybe!

Oh well, I went all Oscar Wilde up there! Forgive me! As I said, dog chasing car and I chasing vacation. It is not even day 1! I wonder what I will be by the end of this. Would I be what you knew me as? Would I be what I knew of me again? Or something for cynical? Or someone more loving and caring? Or something amazing? Absolutely fantastic maybe!

Well, I guess I’d be writing more this December. After all, it is December!

Oh and, to all of you or to you personally, one to one, whosoever is reading this, I must say this; I might am not what you expected me to be today, I might have changed, hell, I might am a complete new deal you know! But that doesn’t means that I have left you without any option. No! in the end, I was always thus! And always thus I will be! for you, for none!

So long then love/mate!

Regards!

P.S - December is here! i wish each and all a very passionate winter! And i will be always round the corner love! - morpheus!

Nihilist Diwali. (11th blog story)

11th November, 2015.

A Very Happy Diwali.

Ajay reached for his secret stash of cigarettes as soon as his family left for the Kali Pujo. The plan for this had been conceived right at the moment when Mrs. Sen, Ajay’s mother said that this Diwali, they will follow their ancestral tradition of Kali pujo, something they lost after settling in Delhi 20 years ago. Ajay was just a year old then.

Even after numerous request by his mother, Ajay declined the offer to accompany them to the pujo. He had a presentation to deliver two days later and he has been working on it for the last two weeks and much of his career was depending on this. Mr. Sen finally intervened and saved Ajay from his mother’s ‘loop talk’, something that Ajay called when Mrs. Sen gets stuck and keep on repeating same thing over and over. She sometimes could be overbearing, yet, she was his mother, couldn’t be helped. Only his brother Arnav said nothing.

Nobody in his family knew that Ajay was exceptionally good in carpentry, something he learnt from his father as a hobby. And nobody had any idea that in his room, especially in his wardrobe, he had installed a secret chamber, where he kept his stash of cigarettes, marijuana and other things which shall not be spoken in front of his parents. That chamber had saved his life numerous nights of sleeplessness and tedious, monotonous life in general when he had to make a long PowerPoint presentation or proof read articles before sending it out to the editor in chief for finalizations.

He opened up the wardrobe and took out the small leather pouch, the cigarette case and the lighter. His parents and brother had left for the pujo 10 minutes ago, he saw their car leaving.

The view out of his 6th floor apartment window was as same as it was and would be every year during the Diwali night. He exhaled the smoke out his lungs, feeling light headed. The marijuana in the cigarette was strong stuff. His laptop was on his study table, with numerous tabs running on the browser. The music system was playing Caprice number 8 of 24 by Paganini, instead of blaring out Avenged Sevenfold or Lambs of God. Quite deliberately he had turned off the lights; only the fairy lights were twinkling in green, red and blue colors. Butting out the fourth joint of the night, he came back to his laptop. It was 11.40 on his wall clock and he hadn’t typed a single thing for his presentation. It was never about the presentations actually. Like many times before, he lied to his parents.

He looked at his phone; ’57 messages from 4 chats’, the notification said. Tossing it back on the table he lit the fifth cigarette of the night. Moments ago Mrs. Sen called him, reminding him to eat his dinner and take his meds on time. He knew she’d do it. His mother would forget salt in dinner butt not reminding him to eat.

He started typing again. It would have been the 5th time he was typing the last 4 were deleted by him. He knew it happens, not always one can write nonstop and expect it to be satisfactory. Either that or it was his head, stuffed with marijuana. “Fuck this shit!” he mumbled. In the other tabs, he was reading his old mails. Almost a year old now, which he had archived for no good reason at all. So much so, before this, he didn’t even bother to give them a second look. There was always something, either his business which he so skillfully made his priorities now, or his general sense of dejected nonchalance. He read them many times initially, but the need, the urgency, the longing for one closure was now at the bottom of everything, although he never deleted them, he never knew why not.

Still 10 notifications on his Facebook page, each of them pertaining to his birthday which collided with Diwali this year, for which he had no interest at all. His birthdays had been ever so boring for him. Although he never said it, such days never held any interest for him, unless his friends came around to visit him. They weren’t coming this year for various reasons or none at all.

He returned to his blog page, something which he kept inactive for a few weeks now. Exhaling another weed smeared breath, he rubbed his temples, he finally wrote –

                                          “Happy Diwali to all, and thanks for the wishes!”

He knew he might not have meant it wholly, but he hoped that the message went for whom it was intended for!

But how would it matter anyways?

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx END xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Too many!

13^th October, 2015.

Yes, before anyone starts losing their minds over this rant after almost a month, I apologize beforehand. Unreserved and unconditional. The illusion of a student of masters course being all about laid back and flipping the bird (refer urbandictionary.com) is shattered like a prop glass on the hero’s skull from the movies (yes, throw tomatoes now, this can’t get any bad).  Hardly I was able find any time to sit down calmly, enjoy a cup of tea with cinnamon stick and write, most of them were reluctantly devoted to all the assignments (I need to stop mentioning them here) that needed completion before the inevitably extended deadlines. Well, we have an easygoing gang of professors.

But, as the ‘War Doctor’ said, NO MORE! No no, I am not abandoning my studies for good, don’t be stupid! I am not that audacious, although I wish I was! For now, no more endless devotion to the godless, cruel theories and ideologies. No more head ramming to the subaltern thingamabob. Let’s move out of it. Let us walk into the setting sun on the blended vista, or just dance with the fireflies, slay dragons and kiss the princess saved! Or just let it be and don’t die. Let's listen to Jeff Buckley and lip-sync hallelujah, while we see the departed making a toast to the ones who just arrived.

Let’s write a poem. I have a cup of tea right now on my bed, and I know it is as irrelevant as the fact that a duck’s quack doesn’t echo anywhere. Just wanted to set the mood, which seems to be ruined. But I can write it anyway! The poem –

                                    Cigarette and Virginia 

 “A ball point pen,

a page, white, again!

so clichéd, so mundane,

so everyday!

The page still blank, just as the brain.

Cup of tea, empty,

used as a makeshift ashtray,

the blue-gray smoke still rises from the

extinguished cheap cigarette

like a figment, like a dream; wait!

Dreams! Memories!

Things that never happened, things,

which went down in the unsaid void of infinity.

And the things that now exists duly somewhere,

on a dusty shelf, with other versions of truth.

All that was gained, the entire laugh,

All that was lost, the tears (clichéd),

Every second, minute, hour, day, week, month, year

 the entirety of spent eons came back with the

silver smoke of the burnt out cigarette.

The page wasn’t blank now,

it was scribbled blue.

Just one line, a quote read somewhere, on another page,

‘life is not a series of gig lamps, symmetrically arranged – Woolf, Virginia.’

The page was all full!” – Rishiraj.

Hey hey! What do you know!  I haven’t lost my poetry yet! Not yet! too many exclamation marks? Sorry!

Well, now I must retire to my other indulgences, maybe another blog post after this, maybe nothing now, maybe later. So many maybe, but then, this might turn out good on anticipation. As one of my friend says, ‘Vorfreude’!

Just don’t forget to live… ‘memento vivere’.

Love!

Regards.  

In search of iridescence

09^th September 2015.

I actually started with an assignment, but as it seems, I ended up here! Oh well…

So how are my obnoxious readers doing these days, apart from following their heads ramming right into the pathetic perplexities of their trivial lives? Well, I assume everything is fine, provided that I haven’t got any news from the world outside.

Aaaaanywhoooo! So, I might have promised that I would be quite frequent in my writings here, but I see that I am nowhere near writing anything apart from my assignments on analyzing and critiquing the ideas of nationalism in India. Next will be providing a view on E.H Carr’s idea of human agency and… well, I suppose those are just quaint details. The days are tiring; classes are filled with sleepy eyes and sands from previous night, followed by cups of coffee and abuses against the eminent scholars who lent the ideas on various socio political issues round the world. Well, I try not to cuss, but I find vanity in that, concealing my own ineptness and inability to perceive things at one go. Suddenly, I am reminded of Kafka Diaries, where he says, and I quote “my education has done great harms to me in some respect…” forgive me if I quoted it wrong, for look at the ungodly hour, and I am still trying to figure out what am I going to write, if not indulged in the various movies (Oldboy, Chef, Dr. Strangelove and some x rated movies), when I should be actually reading.

But I would be doing a great injustice to my faculty and other things, if I say that I am not in a good position. For as much abject cynicism I try to impose on the new academia and the syllabi I am involved in, I might assure me and maybe those who are vella enough to read this that amidst all this phantasmagoria (not really) there are occurrences and events that are proving rather useful or perhaps what people call ‘fun’. Like, for example, being a member of a Literature Society, that too being a core member for the upcoming events is challenging and sublime at the same time. Wait, sublime?  Okay, maybe not, but I cannot find any other word. Try exuberant! Sure, challenging and exuberant!

What else? Well, there is another thing, a very hush-hush thing! Not an NSA level stuff, but it’s important! Or so I have been led to believe. Suffice to say, it has me made to take my old dabba camera out of the box and my writing “skills” might be put to a test. Taking out the camera wasn’t a very bright idea, some photographs can bring out things you have tried and put in a box, burying it under a willow tree. Reminded me of Gulzar when I was going through the photographs or rather one singular piece of moment captured in a digitized frame, main cigarette toh nahi peeta, par har aane jaane wale se maachis puch leta hoon. Aisi kai cheezein hain jinhe phoonk dena chata hoon! One photo and a sher… WAH! Funny how history teaches you to connect things!

So such is the banality of my trivial life. No, not trivial. I cannot say my life is trivial; it is more of a journey to an endless vista with a madman’s color palette! Somewhat like Van Gogh or Dali! (Forgive me o great masters!)

Well, before I finish this madman rant, I must apologize to an old and dear friend of mine. Why here? Because it was one of my stupid writings only which had somewhat wounded a heart, it is only better if I apologize through the same. For wounding hearts and besmirching a soul is never my intention, unlike some! So, apologies, unreserved and unconditional! And to another, have a good life, you earned it (do meet sometimes, I have something for you).

Regards my lovely idiots!

Love to all and one!

 p.s - i might write something later, something more delusional on the account of new findings and a new journey! stay tuned, or whatever!

projects : letters #9

09^th August, 2015

Letter 9

“6^th November, 2014.

Dear S__________

I’ll just get to the point, love! Apologies if there’s any mistake!

“ Taake peyechilam!

Ajana kono aaborte noy, shwopneo noy.

Taake peyechilam shonddher aakashe,

Peyechilam janalar kaanche brishtir phontaaye.

Khuje peyechilam take purono boiyer

Holoud paataye.

Kokhono shey jibonanoder bonolota sen,

Kokhono shey Browinger Porphyria!

Naa, shey aasheni cigarette dhonyaye,

Aashto na teto moder shwade;

Taar bhalo lagto naa.

Shey aashto poore jaoa dupurer rode,

Aadh bheja bikeler meghe,

Aashto, eka chhade jokhon aami

Thaktam eka. Petaam taar buker

Aalto norom choyaa.

Shey aashto aamar obaantor boka boka kobitay,

Taar maatha aamar kaandhe, aar amar kobita taar thonte.

Hain, take peyechilam.

Naam jaanina taar,

Taai taake daaktam

Bohemian bole!. ””

There! You wanted a bangla poem for you, here it is! Happy? Boddo aabdar hoyche tomaar!... (okay fine, your aabdars are basically what my poems are! You know that pretty well!)

 Please  mind the handwriting, it’s been ages since I wrote anything in bangla, maybe there are some silly mistakes.

Oh and, are you going to get bald or what? I have thought a name for you! Taklu bahadur!

It’s late, around 2! So, I will write more later!

Until 6^th then!

Love!

R.B (sign)"

regards. 

Catching up!

05^th August, 2015.

So! A long time I guess! It is times like this when I have this urge to imitate a ridiculous Hindi dialogue from an equally ridiculous movie like, swagat nahi karoge humara?  Alright, alright! I admit that it sounds stupid. How about I imitate Marlon Brando from Julius Caesar? “Friends! Romans! Countrymen…!” No? Well! (Well atleast you can rejoice that I am not dead!)

So, I assume there’s a lot to catch up huh? Let’s start from the beginning! 

There are a string of good news and strings of not so good news. I won’t say bad news because my definition of bad is slightly different from what people actually have for that particular word.

From my last blog it was evident that I was engaged in some examinations and exhaustive as they were, I am glad to inform you, my readers (if any left) they proved to be good. For one reason, I did crack the entrance for BHU, was called for admission, but never went. Why? Well I leave that to everyone else’s deduction.

The last few weeks have been really a roller coaster journey. Tiring and arduous, sometimes with a bit of frustrated dilemmas and unnecessary repetitions. Running here and there, an awful lot of running I assure you! Sometimes I had this feeling that I shall just sit on the road and ask for a lift to home, but at last, it’s over now.

I am admitted in Ambedkar University for the Masters course in history, although I was asked to opt journalism by many. Like it’s mandatory in India to be a journalist after completing your B.A degree. Well, my answer was the same and it remains unaltered! I am not gonna do journalism because I am not stupid. I never wanted to do it and there is no way in hell that I am gonna do it now! It was a fantastic feeling although, to call up my friends and informing them. Especially Trisha and Doc. I didn’t call Dishant first, I called them! So yeah! They were happy! And if they are happy, so am I!

Oh and by being happy, it reminds me, I never had been so damn happy like I was three days ago when doc called about something! Oh well, her life is turning a new leaf, for her, the skies will be bluer than they are, the raindrops will be tasting like the sweetest honey. You get the image; it will be romantic and blissful and I hope they do! So doc, if you’re reading this, my friend, I raise my glass to you! To the days to come and may they be the greatest of all! You have my best wishes and blessings darling!

On not so good news, on the polar end of doc’s new life, I see one of the closest friends being deliberate idiots and skillfully morons. Being a moron really needs a skill you know! And they are in a constant practice to prove that whatever I try to preach (consciously or unconsciously) is in vain. Love is not something you can stop feeling after one fine night. It is not like you’ll just decide that the feeling’s suddenly faded and you say your “official” goodbyes forever. I hate that kind of stupidity, i become unforgiving. If that’s not real, the love, then nothing is! Well, I have said enough and I am fed up. Really!

So, there was a lot to catch and I was a bit absent in my writings. Someone eve reminded me of my letter project and asked me to complete it. So yeah! Apologies for being shut and I will finish it. And plus, now there is everything new! New teachers, new ideas, whole lot of new souls and an awful lot of mental chaos that I am looking forward to. Fantastic! Absolutely fantastic!

So, to the new world!  ALLONS-Y!