Apples and Oranges

It's fascinating to meet different people, in the same City, who think differently. It shows sometimes that you aren't a recluse. It shows that people can have independent thoughts, have different prerogatives, and ideologies, living out of the same length and breadth of the City. The same chayer dokan, the same solving of socio-economic problems from around the globe in the chayer dokan, the same people solving it, the same pulse of the laid-back, procrastinating City driving the people, and the same chayer dokan giving back its signature pulse to the City.
Yet, I find people having the same difference. You feel you are'nt alone anymore. People have made decisions, or taken it through compulsions, as you have. You can finally find people who reads a para twice in a novella just to visualize the scene, who thinks that cheap Vodka is a slow killer, yet tastes great with Appy on the rocks, people who act like a Walt Disney animation film on Sundays, 'coz they know its going to be Monday sooner than you know it, who thinks Mithunda isn't just an actor, but a walking, talking, Shaolin Temple who can wipe off the scum of earth by his power packed dialogues, more than his punches, and people who think infidelity is as guilt-free an emotion as wanting to fall back in love,again.
...


Although, I am yet to find someone who feels sniggering isn't always meant to hurt :)

A post...long overdue.

Birthday. Friends with a heart-shaped chocolate cake. Songs and a lots of laughter. Eating till your belly bulges out first, farting it out later. Smoking up under the shade of broken bricks, under the open sky, as open as it can be in a thriving metropolis. Friends again, this time with a goo-ey chocolate cake(lotsa' chocolate, I know!). Cutting the cake, at the pillar-sill of a renowned eatery. With burning candles, and street urchins joining in for the song(mostly,the cake!). Shaking a leg. Smoking up again, with a Floyd playlist. Dreamy, hazy, unobtrusive and cross-faded, with momentary lapses of reason. Warm chocolaty moments of love, brushed away. Going to sleep; waking up again at the dead of the night to sing the birthday song, again. Going to sleep(or maybe coming off it?), at last.

Maya

Give. Take. Life is. will be. to die for. have. wants. desire. change. common. happiness(in pursuit of). Monotony(the order of the day). Defeat(only when you compare). brutal arrows of self inflicting pain(ha ha ha :) fooled you!). of pretty desires. dreams in a corner. of blurry red and yellow. lights. distance(how far can you go before you reason with yourself, Where are you going?). of love. of low self-confidence. of becoming. of getting away from it all. of a soft hand ruffling your hair. to die for. will be. Life is. Take. Give.

Frivolity of an Ecstasic Man and a Thinking Woman

"In sooth I know not why I am so sad..."
...
And there, over the wanton wisps of her hair,
Through the white sinewy threads of string,
She wreaths a poem with her mystic air,
A pensive gaze, a Monalisa smile,
And she waits for her Romeo, forever
...
As the salty breeze makes love to her hair.
...


Juliet...I wait by the sands of time...
The shores beckon me...to dive, and give it all up...
Yet I wait...for your cold gaze, to cut through my foolish desires

To punish, the audacity of my wanton thoughts.

Attacks on the mind, the country and the soul,
Recession cutting us out of our inevitable goals,
The journey is far, long and hard
And still we find ourselves struggling from the start.

I seem to wither, I seem to cower,
I try to see the burning beacon on top of the tower,
I seem to drench, yet I feel the fire inside
I burst out in flames, in a cold November shower.

The song of of the robin, is heard no more,
Its the Swan that sings of better days of yore,
Bloody hands, yet more on the streets
Little pink papers as New Year's treats.

I ponder along, when all of it would end
And struggle I do,till my wits' end.
...

A flash of serene white; and I hear a voice,
From behind a green apple tree,
Give peace a chance, and leave the rest to Me.

(The words didn't find meaning until they came out, better rhyme and reason could have been achieved; then again, so could everything else in the world...Happy New Year)

The only thing constant is Change - IV

The best thing about my life, today, is that I don’t have to pretend who I am. It’s real, and fortunately for me, there’s no pretence about how I am living it. Today it doesn’t have that satiny, adulterated veneer to cover up the shady parts which I am not really proud of. Its sad, its happy, its fun, its boring, its melancholic, its ecstatic, it has its momentary numbness of defeat, it also has its enlightenment of realizing that sometimes you have to take your defeat with honour. I had read in my school diary quotes long back – The strongest man is he, who fights alone. And I fight, to keep my life real, free from social brunt, which often leaves its scars from its bloody aftermath of the constant proving yourself above your own laid benchmarks.

When you are real, and you don’t have to pretend that you are somebody else, just because the world needs you to be, you can be much at ease with yourself. You can laugh at our own stupid jokes, be ashamed of your folly, and get annoyed and angry when life doesn’t give you its right deserves, and pamper yourself to a honey-dew smooth B&H when the day goes well. And never feel guilty about doing all that, thinking of how your image can affect because of all these randoming. ‘Coz, in the first place, you have let go of that image, forever.

Life changes, or does it? Just a few weeks back I was happy going to SPE, looking at the throng, an obscenely priced KF pint in one hand, and perhaps, a shared smoke in the other; with my constant partner in our newly-found addiction to the Kolkata night-life; staring at the other, more regular “business-bringing” revellers and their skimpily clad “rock chicks” (for the uninitiated, these are the pretty young things that flank the ultra rich, ultra smooth, ultra suave party men, showing off their ultra-deep necklines) who were trying very hard to bring home the fact that SPE is their second home; its music being the sole food for their souls. And yesterday, at another night joint, a girl, who I had probably given a few cursory glances, came right up to me to the comfy divan where I was sitting with my Vodka n Sprite, and asked me my name ‘coz I looked familiar. Hmm, I was no way familiar to the night-prowlers in Kolkata, and recently my photo never came up in the papers, neither was I some Ashton Kutcher/Brad Pitt look-alike. Without going into the finer, saucier details, all she wanted to do was make a laughing stock out of a sheepish guy with the nerdy glasses, in front of her groupies. Well, I dint give her that chance and she looked royally pissed off. My partner-in-crime and I had a hearty laugh over it later that night… I think I’ll go back to trying to look in cool at SPE with my blue rubber slippers; although I really wouldn’t mind more such encounters with unfamiliar hot women at night-clubs, once in a while. Heck, nothing changes actually; I am sure I would never be able to imbibe the supernatural powers of Suave Serenading from our local bearded god of womanizing, with his trusty back-pack and firang followers, even if he chooses me for being his lucky protégée :)


The only thing constant is Change I, II and III.

Five feet Six

The other day I chanced upon hearing a very old favourite of mine – Words by Ronan Keating, as a ringtone in a female colleague’s phone. Regardless to say, I had quite grown out of Ronan, Backstreet and their boy-band brotherhood a long time back. It is the age of rap, house, alter, metal, progressive and punk rock and I am neck deep into it. But something lingered on just as she took the call. Its only words, and words that all I have to take your heart away. It suddenly struck a chord somewhere. Really, what about the people only with a few lovelorn words to say, fragmented and out of sync mostly, not at all with the great suaveness and panache as in the latest James Bond flick? What about those who don’t have a guitar slung to their shoulders with a day old stubble, who cannot croon to the starry eyed women at SPE, with a Calrsberg in one hand, and the beau’s fingers in the other? What about them who cannot play a piano, high on weed all night long, while charming a friend sleeping over at his place, with a wanton desire of something a little more exciting than sleep? What about those men, who are just plain ordinary and simple, having no other extra talents to flaunt than the regular, decaf guy next door? What about those guys are plain available, and just hopelessly in love, and just cannot go without not giving the regular call everyday to his sweetheart, with the simple pretence of discussing some out-of-the way topic, just to beat around the bush, before blurting out one simple, silly compliment, or a silent, hushed “It would be great if you were here” or “I missed you yesterday while watching Harry and Sally”? Are they not eligible for love, for care, for momentary lapses of reason, for small trinkets of soft touch, or at least, for a goodnight SMS?

Intangible as love is, I seem to have finally discovered the yardstick (maybe even quite late!). It’s called difference, how unique you can be from the plain, unremarkable, unattractive, untalented version of Boy 101. Its all about your guitar pick, your joints and how you crush the weed, how many more pegs you can soak up and yet be deft enough to satisfy the moments of lust that she needs from you, its about the goatee, the piece of metal sticking out of your right eyebrow, the smooth jives at the dance floor and the suave nonchalance of midnight serenades, the moments of envy rising out of the time partitioned for other women and on a rarer scenario, the self-help-book-mugged philosophical rantings. And of course, the perennial six pack abs and day-old stubble would give you the necessary brownie points if you miss out on some of the points above. That’s how you take your love to greater heights; maybe even a six feet two.

…

That’s where I start. At five feet six.