Coming Back to Life.

23^rd July, 2016

How long has it been? A month? More than that? Possibly more than that. I would say 2 months and 7 days. To be frank, I have a feeling that it has been a long while since I wrote anything anywhere.

Now, one can ask me if I was practicing any sort of sabbatical or did I broke all my ties to blogging. Truthfully, I have no answer to that. I do not know myself the reason for this hiatus. Maybe it was nothing. But then, I say ‘maybe’, and this word has a lot of implications in a whole lot of ways. A seed of doubt that gets implanted around this word is a tough one to shake off.

I wish I can give one definite answer to this question, or any question that poses itself around me these days. One elegant answer to the questions that runs along the lines. I can try to accumulate all the fragments and build a makeshift answer but I am skeptical about the end result.

It was two months ago when I wrote my last rant, and I remember the reason behind it. Someone asked me to write that particular thing, I was happy to oblige. It was also the time when I was busy with my internship and other stuff. Things were going fine and happy and without any moroseness; I’d say that it was all good.

But then, I have a history of bad omens flying all around me and I know that such happiness doesn’t sticks too long with me. There will be a day that will arrive at my doorstep and will break everything that I build. I cannot do anything but watch it come down to rubbles and I have work from the scratch.

I don’t want to go to the copious details of everything, they don’t need to be spoken of nor do they need any more attention than the already have gathered. Infamous as I am to practically attract all kinds of stupid ‘controversy’, I try to be as far from them as possible. Suffice to say that it wasn’t pleasant what happened and what followed was equally repulsive, if not more. The result of that is basically a month long radio silence and my hapless hoping and effort, all in vain for the moment.  A grim feeling of resignation had already played its role on my days and as of now; I am suffering from both apathy and ignorance. Although I generally do not follow that but at the same time my efforts to build bridges has been ignored. Yes I know that sometimes it is way too long a wait, but at the same time, I am human being, regardless of my unnecessary denials of being one and I do crave interaction or atleast a bit of response. If we don’t reciprocate the feelings, if our effort to reach out is being ignored and makes us look like a failed clown in a circus, it is bound to hurt us after a point.

Maybe that apathy has been one of the many myriad reasons as to why I went to a hiatus. Not that anyone cares. Actually no one does, I suppose that nobody has even noticed my absence, something that I was accustomed to. Maybe that sense of solitude that has been so inelegantly imprinted on me had finally done its job. I was requested nothing but time, to fix what was broken, and I am more than happy to provide that. For the people I love, I have nothing but time. As much as they need. But at the same time, it won’t go amiss if my presence if anything is appreciated or even acknowledged. Some response will be very nice. A few days ago someone asked me if I ever had felt that the closest people to us hurt us or not. I believe that the answer needs not to be explained any further. The closest ones hurts the most and badly. That pain sometimes is unbearable.

I was told that some time will be needed for everything to get back on the track. But this is getting nauseous. I feel resigned to the cruel and demented design of the happenings and apparently I am the only one who cares. Or so I believe and never before have I been so eager to be proven wrong.

So anyways, the Saturday night blues must end here. I named this rant Coming Back to Life and yet, a hard irony abounds, the content here makes me anything but alive. It triggers my nihilistic sense and the constant rambles of a broken mind. If anything, I am dead man living.

Anyways.

Regards.

Appeal...maybe?

15th May, 2016.

Hello my dearest all! People of a vulnerable silly little blue ball which is always on the brink of snapping back to the cold days of medieval eras. Personally, I’d like a change in scenery.

Anyways, it was fine Sunday morning today and as my personal habit dictates, I was cleaning my bookshelves. I don’t have any particular reason for it; I am slob as my younger brother points out, with no regards for room hygiene. But I do this one thing somewhat religiously.  I take the books out, dust them off, flip through pages and at times I fix on a single page, reading or just staring at it. Believe me it causes a lot of inconvenience to my family, with all the books around in the room and me just sitting there, but habits I guess…

So while cleaning the rack (shelves, racks how does it matter?) when I found this old book I got from a local library – ‘The Golden Treasury of the best songs and lyrical poems in the English Language’. When I say I got it from a library, they were throwing it away and I just casually picked it up and put it in my bag and since then the book is a part of my literature family. Now this book is old, it belonged to some Seemita Anddy from 1981.

Old books have their own charm. The brittle pages, fading ink, the damp smell. The rustic attraction of a hardbound book in some dusty corner of a second hand book shop, yellowed through time. I have been, oh basically I still am an addict to that particular smell, that I cannot express in words alone and trust me, there is a large number of people who feels the same way.

There is something that attracts to them. I have a peculiar and maybe an accepted theory that any bibliophile loves old books for a primary reason – their previous owner. It is a curios little question and I try to form a mental image of how the old owner of the book must have been! You see, there is a certain bonding when you buy a book and you read it. You grow wise in its company and the book grows with you, like an old friend, who knows your taste and who is with you.  And that is something extraordinary. Like for example – this book that I have is from 1981, I know it belonged to a girl from English Hons. which is obvious. And I guess that after her education she didn’t kept the book for long, it traveled through many hands and ended up in a stack of books in the library. I know these because I have studied the book; it was quite amazing to see the first owner’s annotations in the book, as she jot down points here and there as she went on reading.

It somehow is suggestive of the fact that a book, especially an old book in a secondhand shop has a life. It has seen the owner as he/she read it; saw the expressions, happiness, sadness, anger, grief, disgust, anything and everything. And that goes even better if that book has some annotations, it shows what the reader thought of it, or even if s/he thought anything or not. Although annotations are just a matter of choice, but it feels great to read a book with ink scribbles and a piece of mind. I have a book with dedication of the first page, it was a gift to someone and I guess the person who received the gift must have been seriously amazing. I once had a book by Dostoevsky which had some serious quotes and thinking about the central character. Those scribble seemed more interesting than the book itself and  I had to read the book twice – once for the scribbles and then for the notes. These scribbles, for me they are the book’s way of growing old, in a very keen sense of living.

I got into a habit of scribbling in my books now and then too. Most of the times I don’t write anything but at times I do write some ideas. The poetry book that I mentioned, on the last page I wrote – “poetry can be found anywhere. But mostly it resides in the chaos of hearts.” Maybe just unknowingly, I want someone else to find this book and read it, and when the person flips to the last page, s/he might just look at this quote and find poetry in their own chaos. That’s a wishful thinking.

People read eBooks these days, kindle and whatnot. I get a bit disappointed, it just seems so unfair. Now I know that it is convenient and easy, no tearing pages, no bulk weight and  thousands of books at one go, it’s easy. But where is the fun? The fun to go to a bookstore and sit down in a corner with a book, maybe with someone who loves reading, get a coffee and indulge in talks. Or if it is an old bookstore with lots of second hand books, it is full of tender surprises – the delight of finding something new, hidden by the ornamental hard-covers, maybe a rare book out of print? And the bonus point? Some of the most amazing love stories happen in bookstores and libraries. Maybe that nerdy looking girl with glasses on her nose with big eyes, or that slobbish, awkward guy, who is a romantic of the world and beyond is waiting for you in some corner of that old bookstore. You won’t find such silly pretty things on the cold, unfeeling glass screen of kindle.

Well, I am just ranting, don't trust this boring rant – I love books and I can be so happy with an old, dusty book with quotes and tea or coffee stains, that's an old thought notion and I know someone will say you're old. But then, appeal of such a thing is, as Keats said once – a joy forever! I hope one finds such joys!

Anywhoo that’s all for this!

Have a cup of cinnamon tea!

Slug love to all!

Neelami.

Neelami

Aaj bazaar mein shor bohot thaa.

Goongi aawazein aur cheekhtein sannatein thay.

Vaihshi makhaul aur behuda guftagoo mein,

Aaj bazaar mein shor bohot thaa.

Aaj neelami thi,

Mere yaadon ki, mere afqaron ki,

Tere yaadon ki, tere shayari ki.

Bech aaya un adhjali season ko,

Jinhe thame hue zamana hua thaa,

Bech aaya un lamhon ko,

Jinhe beetay zamana gaya thaa.

Un yaadon ki keemat ada hui,

Mere tootay jism ke tukron se

Meri khwabon ki keemat thi,

Chand behke lafzon se.

Sannata thaa ab bazaar mein,

Tawwaiff bani mera afsana,

Ab bazaar mein shor nahi thaa,

Bikhre ashq ke nishaano mein,

Neelam hua ek begana!

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

don't bother.

16^th April, 2016.

A thousand thoughts are spinning at a speed of light in my head. Every decision I ever took until this moment are being retraced. When I say every, I mean the major ones, the ones that matters, the ones which made a difference for the better or the worse.

I am waiting for a text. I don’t know exactly from whom and I do not know what it might say. I am just waiting as yesterday seems so far and distant. Like it never happened. Or I am just suffering from the amnesia I think I have.  

Lately, my rants have become more self pitying and apologetic. Something I do not do naturally. The rants are becoming something I mocked about to a friend who had a penchant for writing like this. I mocked him because I thought he was being stupid and hopeless, but now I see why. He wasn’t being stupid, he was suffering. It was pain, although I know he might say otherwise. It was him, venting out the confusion. It is me venting out my confusion. And I know my confusions, they are lethal. I know after this, I will go back to sleep but I will get insomnia and I will be tossing sides.

I am confused because I do not know what did I do? I seriously cannot put my finger on it, I cannot pin it down to certainty. All I can do is assume something but even the assumption seems illogical. The train of thought derails and what you are left with is a meaningless presumption and hope. I know my hopes are meaningless. But I carry on hoping. I know something is amiss but I don’t know how to outrun the feeling. The songs are either very clear or are just loud music.

I just want an answer. Why? Why is it always me? Why not someone who might deserve it? Is it because that I care too much? Is it because I put myself at the end and put everyone I love at front, thinking that they deserve better? Is it because I have lost so many that the few are always on a verge to make me beg? Is it?  I cannot turn to stone, I tried and it made me inhuman. I was being better but again, I try to come out, I get dragged back.

Someday I will snap. I know. Someday will be the worst day and I will lose my last bit of composure. It will be bad.

  

I wish it was easy to leave. I wish.

Accustomed.

Accustomed.

It wasn’t pain when she left.

when denial was her choice

and lies were convenience.

It wasn’t pain when she left,

because the heart wasn’t there

to feel it. Or so I thought.

But it pains now,

when you say it isn’t true.

It pains as you break me to pieces,

to smithereens.

I saw my heart beating and

it pains a lot.

But what can I do?

You know I am accustomed.

Monologues and Melancholy.

13^th April, 2016.

The taste of menthol rush fused the breath I let out in a melancholic exhalation. It tastes good, cool and minty. Irony is, good and melancholy never works together, not until you are hell bent on making it work. At times like this, I tend to distract myself. I go back to Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore. I tend to read the monologues and dialogues as I feel a sound of a crash inside, something broke. Almost a déjà vu.  Almost, because it is not the same, ever.

“All it takes is just one day to reduce the sanest man alive to lunacy. That’s how far the world is from where I am. Just one bad day.” – Alan Moore.

“Memories can be vile. Repulsive little brutes, like children I suppose. But can we live without them? Memories are what our reason is based upon. If we can’t face them, we deny reason itself! Although, why not? We aren’t contractually tied down to rationality. There is no sanity clause. So when you find yourself locked down in an unpleasant train of thought, heading for the places in your past where the screaming is unbearable, remember: There’s always madness. You can just step outside and close the door, and all those dreadful things that happened, you can lock them away. Madness…is like an emergency exit.” – Alan Moore.

“Memory is the great deceiver. Perhaps there are some individuals whose memories act like tape recordings, daily records of their lives complete in every detail, but I am not one of them. My memory is a patchwork of occurrences, of discontinuous events roughly sewn together: The parts I remember, I remember precisely, whilst other sections seemed to have vanished completely.” – Neil Gaiman.

The burning end of the cigarette comes dangerously close to the filter, I burn my fingers. I still can hear the music going on in the feast, trying to visualize the apparel of the social fabric they all are trying to wear. I look at myself again, trying to think, where did I go wrong? The answer eludes me. It always does. The sound of the crash inside grew large, deafening at a point of time. The cigarette dies and as a last attempt, I drag a huge one and exhale slowly, looking at the grey smoke leaving in the sky of Kashmere gate.

Melancholy stays awake, somewhere inside my head, somewhere locked away and it came out in a moment. I feel alone, or I am alone, I don’t know. I am invisible, that I can be assured of. The ghost in the memories maybe. The party goes on and I left them quietly. They never noticed, they never will. and those points, memories barge in, so does the anomaly, like a paradox. I start to laugh, uncontrollably. Madness creep inside like a  parasite. I want to scream out, but all I can muster is a laugh, a denial towards everything that went wrong. The joke was on me. When you figure out the joke, you will laugh, even at the face of utmost despair.

Figure it out, you will laugh too!

To life and other things

15th March 2016.

No I am not dead! Yes I know it really does not matter but yes, I am alive. Maybe the hiatus went longer than I intended. So hello earthlings!

So it is already a week that I am back from Bengal, and yes it was good. It was a bit disappointing too but then, everything good is stagnant and boring we need a bit of a disappointment every now and then to get a contrast. The bittersweet symphony I guess. And it is in this light only that I can say that my return has been a sweet one as compared to my stay in Bengal. Apart from the beautiful women! Dear god! Bengali women are just heartbreaking! Why are they so damn beautiful?

Anyways, I returned with a filled journal which I don’t think is good enough (I know one person who will disagree with me), a guitar, which has caused a good callous on my fingertips, but worth it! And to my surprise, I walked right into the sphere of being missed. Never knew that I, as a person, can be missed by anyone. But after a squeaky laugh and a whole lot of jumping around, I now know that I must stand corrected. There are people who care and it is a nice feeling. Well, it has been a while anyways.

That brings me to March. I hate March. Always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Well I used to like it, but then, I used to be something else. I don’t know, maybe everything changes. Long exasperated sighs and a quivering heart changed to a nonchalant shrug and grey ash of cigarettes, so yeah, screw it I guess! Although, I must admit, there are times when I just want to go on an exile and return after a decade and at times I am just laughing with Schubert.

Almost a month ago, I was introduced to someone new by a friend; I am not a social person anyway, so new people bother me initially, social awkwardness I assume. Anyways, I was asked about my writing habits, especially the phased habit of writing for other, why did I do it when it was not even working anymore, and the question was right, the person asked a very nominal yet an important question followed by an equally important message. Yes I was stupid and I figured it out the hard, well maybe in a stupider way. Well, the point is it was good that I did that, figured out the places I needed to know, seeing where everyone stands. Now I am doing which I obliviously ignored. Extending my gratitude to them and the world, I will just say fuck it! And I am doing it just fine! One thing I was told a month ago on this date by this person, I don’t have to care for people who don’t deserve it. Especially those who screwed it up. No More. And it feels better to be alive!

 So Bengal was the place I wanted to be and here I am where I should to be right now.  Coming back to life!

Aaaanywhooo! I kept this short, but I will be back. If I am not struck by a thunder or a curse…or both!

Till then!