Destroyed

I am wasting and throwing away life,

Shattering it to pieces,
Reflecting in the million tiny fragments,
I see a miniscule version of me,
Defeated and denounced!

Can someone come and rescue my soul,

My mind, my body, the figment of my imagination,
Can someone pick up the broken pieces,
Weave through it a golden strand,
Like a Kintsugi amphora; and fill it up with all things happy and beautiful, my mirth and my laughter which are like a distant dream now?

I want to follow whoever will lead me out of this darkness, 
I want to rebuild, piece by piece, my soul, my heart, my broken self,
Dazzle in the sunshine the world can offer,
Sing and dance like no one's watching,
Create beautiful memories, savour them like old wine,
Craft and uncraft,
And till death comes knocking at my door,
And my mortal self, destroyed.

Coming back to life

Its been almost a year without posts. Strangely, since I never had that incessant urge that I used to have.

Maybe today, things would be different. Maybe I would have like to dream, to go beyond my routine, to expect. Maybe this is what I will call my intermission bell, for my post quarter-life lacuna of desire.

I am, sometimes, afraid to tread beyond. Rarely, I am dispassionate. Most of the time I just headily swing between lethargy of un-excitement, or the seeming uselessness of it all. But today, it is different. I can feel the ember starting to burn deep within, and the cool, comforting velvety covering of hope, overlapping it. Its a strange, a powerful, yet numb, feeling of happiness. In my eternal pursuit of it.

Today, I feel like falling in love. Once again, but like never before.

Untitled II

Can we start everything all over again? Can we go back to those days, when I was a loner in the middle bench, and I found you beautiful but couldn't compel my heart to think that way, only because you're too charming, too sought after, & too out of my league(I dint even have a 'league').

Can we go back again to those days? Days I thought we could walk, hand in hand, endlessly through the city-smoke and the fast running cars; the only moments I could brush with your fingertips was when we were crossing the roads? The only thing in my mind, playing endlessly, was how not to say something stupid, but make you laugh?

Can we again freeze that hour? The one we had spent, inches apart on the two li'l steps, talking endlessly about our passions, our whimsical dreams that our minds could conjure from the bits of cultural affinity that the City infected us with.

Can we again stop those minutes? Minutes that we had spent over endless calls to mend our broken hearts from the wrongs done to our innocent lives, or later, the catharsis over our wrong-doings to others.

Can we again live the moment? The moment when I, looking into your eyes, running my fingers through your hair, listening to you hear the truth of my self-obsessed life; the one moment when my mind was shouting inside me, to tell you that I need you, to be who I want to be...and I couldn't utter a word.

Can we turn back time...or let time turn us back...together?

Untitled I

I know that you should follow your heart. It says what it means, and leaves the rest to you. If you think it over, you may misjudge what it wants to say. You may take peoples' opinions, go for a cost-benefit analysis, ponder over the fact whether its risky, or otherwise willingly try to procrastinate your subconscious decision with your intellect. That's where the problems start.

I have tried to break free from over-exerting my brain with such reasoning, but not following the heart had'nt been a choice. A choice that I had'nt taken alone. 'Coz, I am not alone. I may be the decision maker for my life, but I will not face the consequences alone. Thus I think.

Well, its what I have been doing all the way...

A Christmas Carol

I did'nt stop cursing them as I banged open the door to my mezzanine floor. Infuriated by the lesser mortals that I have to share my living space with, I cursed my life thinking how I would...and then, I saw it!

A Christmas tree put up on our table. Standing on a corner beside the heap of old, torn magazines and cover-stripped old books, just where the glass top refracted out the tube-light rays through the brown semi/quarter circles of teacup stains. Cheap, brightly colored paper balls, crowding the tapering top, with two red woolen Santas; the tree wasn't any longer than my arm. Bells and stars, with the silver dust slowly falling off them 'coz of the cheap glue, sharing the little space in the arm-long wooden stick, with frills of green marble-paper leaves. A small teddy cutout and a single Mentos lay underneath, the only gifts to be opened. It was one of the best Christmas trees that you would have seen that day.

I feel, still, that there is hope in this world. And a wish for a brighter day, and maybe, a better tomorrow.

City...of joy?

My City. She's like my ex-girlfriend. Howsoever much she's hurt me, however much we have been there, done that, however she might have shattered me into pieces at times, and did'nt let me go beyond the boundaries of expected realizations; I just cannot move on. I still cannot get over the silly bits of comfort and the familiar imperfections, that make her mine. My joy. My City.

...the same bits of chayer bhar still go into my mouth, with the hot, over-sweetened tea and the warm, corrosive smoke of regular-sized cigarettes; beside the same doorsteps by the Academy canteen; where two souls can only sit together if they are in love, or one has to stand.

Recession blues!

or No, this is not another post on how "Since the economy is 66% consumer driven, when consumer spending slows, the GDP begins to fall. Consumer spending slows for a multitude of reasons: when the consumer can no longer get reasonable credit rates, when he's fearful of loosing his job, when his debt load is higher than is comfortable, when he already has all the stuff he needs. The economic cycle has periods of expansion and contraction. A recession is a contraction.(Yahoo! Answers)" End of theories, here!

...And finally, it arrives! What all began as the hush-hush talks about how our IIM-ed and ISI-d friends at Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns, would eke out a living without their 8-figured payslips and merely manage to survive only on cheap Frito (Leh)ys and Corona (Bear)s; and as it escalated to the serious talks of our end to partying on Thursdays(warm-up), Fridays(get-set-go) and Saturdays(the day before) and giving up on the single KF pint(that's the only revenue we bought to SPE/two people) and thinking of various alibis for our lady-loves to spare us on their next Chaitro/Year end/(50+25)% flat sale shopping sprees; and finally, all the brouhaha about the unforeseen, lurking monster from the past(1929) that is slowly going to relieve us from our jobs and meagre salaries for non-performance, that scared the living daylights out of us.

There was no silent way to go for the killing. It made a lot of noise, and spluttered a lot of blood and gore here and there. Although, it did conceal itself, like the Trojan horse, the frightening details in the seemingly lucrative package of an alternative and revised performance based variable compensatory scheme, broken up into individualistic and holistic goal achievement metrics, the message was loud and clear. Loud as the crack of the fidayeen bullet that took Major Unni's life at the Taj, as we all heard from Kolkata, while cursing our times; Clear as the intentions of the next political party that we are about to stake our lives into, this FY elections. Like everything else, that's also how we would have to live with the recession. On your mark, get, set...

Top 10 things that you should remember to get you going:

1. Limit spending. Spending is contagious, like a yawn or a sneeze, or like tucking into a Zinger even when you had lunch half an hour ago. Often our subconscious(and sometimes our girlfriends!) leads us into glitzy shops in super-malls with expensive things; many of which we have no need for. Believe me, you will survive without that Tommy red undie, or a 5.1 mp camera in your cell.
2. As good as it sounds, a bottle of Fosters/KF/Carlsberg at any regular bar is around a 100 bucks. Affordable, right? Multiply that with 2(at least) each evening(leaving apart the farewell parties/birthdays/treats and other social events), and 2 evenings(at least) every week, and for every week, for every month. As bad as it sounds, you can do the math.
3. (I would have said to turn of the AC when you drive to office, but thanks to CESC for your sleepless nights, and to Apollo for 42 degrees in the shade, I wont be that cruel). Car pool is good; chartered bus is better(fixed time, fixed expenses :) )
4. Power saving lamps, power saving fridges and power saving ACs should be the mantra to shed off that extra electricity bill. I sometime hear of power saving capacitor banks; don't know if they work.
5. If you are a sucker for downloads/torrents/P2P/iMesh/RS, better skip over to the unlimited version of your broadband, to save yourself from a shocking BB usage bill. Try as you might, you can never limit yourself to the quota, how much you schedule all your d/ls late at night!
6. Lunch from home is a very good idea. Its not pansy, sissy, or inconvenient to carry a small Thermos-box to work(Dude, it's your Mom or whoever cooks lunch at your place, who's taking all the pains, not you!). Its also healthier than the roadside crap or the Cheeli Chiken/Frayied Rise that you have at your local food street.
7. Smoking kills your sperms. Unless you want to be celibate or suffer from ED, cut down(I didn't say quit, I know the pains!) on smoking. Alternatively, you can also do the math to get a tentative figure of how much you actually spend on ciggies.
8. Go for investment in real-estate and other bearish options like LIC, FD, MIS etc. unless you really know what you are doing.
9. Credit cards.(Should have been way up the list, forgot all about it). The 10% cash-back on dinner and movies is nothing compared to the remaining 90% that is being debited from your account. And, Titanium and Super-Platinum cards are not being given to you alone since you are a loyal customer; every fool walking with an i-card in Sector 5 has one.
10. Use Blackle.com. 1,204,510.432 Watt hours will be saved.