Me, myself and you

That day, playing around the park,
I felt, I'm no longer a child.
With no school, no parenting
I had a will of my own.
A grown up, a man I had become,
free finally, not to be reared.
I wanted to shout it out,
announce my arrival.
Feel the joy
and make it known.
I'm one of the club,
I have a say.

Realization then came,
of not knowing myself.
Of an existence, a being,
different from my reflection.
Yes, I could talk but not to myself.
Scold, yes. A number of times.
Consult my hidden fears,
ask them if they are comfortable.
But was devoid of words,
of thoughts to convey
to myself, to the world .

Not until I saw you fighting,
to pull off me, my cloak of silence.
Grappling with my resistance,
huffing, puffing and ranting.
But never giving up,
like a stubborn child.
That I talked to myself about,
how my desires still had hope.
Of getting unveiled,
of finding an expression.
Spring was tiptoeing towards me
from an unknown direction.

Tears of the sun

I want to cry the whole night today,
cry into the hollows of broken dreams,
for eerie haunting carcasses of vanquished hopes,
to deafen the depths of this unending silence.

But how can I?
I'm a grown up man,
with a stong will,
a power to ride over emotions,
a strength to wipe my own tears.

I want to throw this mask away,
that I have donned for eons now.
I want to be weak for a moment,
for the burden of strength is too heavy.
I want to cry, to laugh, to play, to fall down,
to rise awkwardly, to be a fool again, as a child.

But how can I?
I'm a grown up man.
With wisdom my forte,
I stand tall after my failures,
heartless, stoic, unruffled.

What if I want to have a heart,
for a moment, just for once?

Is mod se jate hain

The vagaries of life have not allowed me to think about it for a long time now, which is reflected in no posts lately. As I do not expect myself to write anything worthwhile soon, I am filling the gap with an interpretation of one of my favorite songs, penned by Gulzar. The words explaining the meaning are mine but the core idea is 'tap-ed' from a post in the Gulzar community at Orkut.

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Is mod se jaate hai – Aandhi

Is mod se jaate hain
kuch sust kadam raste, kuch tez kadam raahe
patthar kee hawelee ko, sheeshe ke gharondo me
tinkon ke nasheman tak, is mod se jaate hai…

Sanjeev and Suchitra, just starting their lives together ("mod" refers to a point in life), are thinking about various paths and destinations that lie ahead. "sust kadam" (laid back) and "tez kadam" (go-getter) are the ways that they may take in future. Both are aware that depending on the path that they choose, they may land up at different places -- in a "pathar ki haveli" (relationship with a strong foundation), "sheeshey ka ghronda" (a fragile one) or "tinkon ka nasheman" (nasheman = nest, a temporary fling).

aandhee kee tarah udakar, ek raah gujaratee hai
sharamaatee huyee koi, kadamo se utaratee hai
in reshamee raaho me, ek raah to wo hogee
tum tak jo pahuchatee hai, is mod se jaate hai..

ek door se aatee hai, paas aake palatatee hai
ek raah akelee see, rukatee hain naa chalatee hai
ye soch ke baithhee hoon, yek raah to wo hogee
tum tak jo pahuchatee hai, is mod se jaate hai..

"aandhi ki tarah udkar" (filled with passion), "sharmaate hui koi, kadamo se utarti hai" (shy), "ek door se aati hai, pass aake palatatee hai" (whimsical) , "ek raah akeli se, rukti hai na chalti hai" (slow, steady) -- Having so many ways to approach their nascent relationship, they share with each other the 'pleasant anxiety' that is teasing them and wonder, "There must be some way that leads to you".
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Marvellous, isn't it ?

Where ??

Continuing from here, here and here, this is another one in the series :

Not on the ground, not up there anywhere,
not a burning phoenix, not a shimmering glare.

Drenched, overwhelmed by rain's might,
stands the uninitiated, battling for light.

Thinks of a struggle, then thinks why,
the how of it, and above all by.

Thus stands there, with a longing trace,
buried deep beneath, shadows of his face.

O divinity! bless him the question,
the answers he needs,'n doubts he can shun.

--Not a pensive resignation this time, but an honest acknowledgement

Random thoughts

I did not want to write anything today, haven't got a topic on my mind. Whatever the thoughts are, they are too private to divulge here. Still silence is something I can ill afford. Its deafening. I was listening to music to lessen the effect but it did not help. So, cleaned up my room. It helped. But my room was not dirty enough and I am back to square one. I am thinking of eating something, but I am not hungry yet. Plus my flat-mate is in the kitchen and I am too shy to show him my culinary in-adeptness. Hence, the blog.

Lets enumerate about some good things I came across in the last few days. The bad ones are too abstract, make me look silly, so I'll reserve them for a private audience.

1) Bought a new mattress a couple of months back after my back literally screamed for a change. The old mattress always reminded of a numerical analysis lecture in which the curve had to be convex as a pre-condition for some lousy stability theorem. But my back did not seem to like this convex stability of the mattress, which isn't unexpected as I never liked maths. My back's year long agony went away with almost no effort and money. The mattress cost me $10 only. I know you are thinking why did I not do this earlier. Not that I am miser and was sacrificing my back for money. Only a true procrastinator can empathize with me here. Being a sensitive person, my other concern was how will my generous good-natured 73 year old landlord feel if I threw away his beloved mattress, a dowry gift that he has diligently preserved since World War-II. So, I spent quite a few months thinking of ways to smuggle a new one into my room without his knowledge. Now mission being accomplished under the aegis of a dark moonless night, I exchange the mattresses every evening and sleep blissfully, without offending my landlord in any way . However, one disadvantage of the new arrangement is, unafraid of sleeping, I no longer spend late nights surfing and my blogging frequency has gone down, so are the hits on my blogs which further demotivate me to write. I still am looking for a solution to this vicious circle.

2) One of my friends finally launched the first service of his company after months of arduous labor. Its a text to speech converter, works on blogs and websites too. A god sent blessing for people like me for whom the act of sitting in front of a screen and reading, is too much of an effort. Extract from the launching mail follows

"I am happy to announce the launch of our product, the Proaxsys Reader Engine. This product brings the convenience of voice to PCs. You can create material for your iPod right from your desktop. The Engine runs on our web-server, and is most convenient to use and totally hassle-free. You are spared any painful installations and configurations!"

3) Worked as a volunteer for the ASHA dinner. A first for me on two fronts, in the kitchen and for a good cause. I hope this was not the last time for both the things.

4) Came across this great song Des mera rangrez hai babu from Jhini by Indian Ocean. It has Indian rusticity written all over it, asif one has been listening to it for ages.

That's it for today I guess. The silence has been alleviated and my flatmate too is done with cooking.

Ciao,
Ashish

Dream

I jumped off, just like that, from top of the world, into the meaningless milieu. I thought it will start off like my first sentence to a girl does; nervous, hesitant, fitful. But it was different, I took to the fall with utmost poise. Everything happened in a fleeting second and lasted an eternity, was so subtle that I had to tell myself I went through it.

The fall wasn't unpleasant either. It was blissful. I saw it, yea I did, the vastness of space clipped by the finiteness of perception, from the top. I looked down for a second. Smiled at the futility of everything. The smallness of it. But then realized that precious little time was being lost. I stopped looking and started assimilating.

Surprisingly, it never looked as if I will not be able to make it. It came naturally to me, from me. I did think of having wings for a second, to prolong the feel, but it felt like swimming with a life jacket, I felt chained within the comfort of safety. I threw the thought away. Unrestrained unabated fall had seduced the whole of me into its lure.

My India vs. The US

Was away to Buffalo this weekend. Stayed at a friend's place for Saturday night and got hold of this (hardcopy version). Of course, the topic was too hard to resist. Found the stuff pretty realistic, unusual for a foreign magazine. But I am not here to analyse the article. The real world seldom interests me enough to write about it and Murky-Reflections is all about my detours to dreamland. The article provided an ideal background for the journey.

It was on the back seat of a second hand sedan, driven (and owned) at 85 mph by a middle class Indian graduate student on a near flawless freeway, that my mind started personifying this great country. I thought of nations as students in school and the setting gave me little option but to see US as a brash topper of her class. She is 'the one' of the class, excels in whatever she puts her head in to, commands awe from her peers and is the apple of every one's eyes. Every fellow student thinks of somehow emulating her. The perfunctory humility she shows does nothing but embellishes the brazen pride she has in her status/achievements. There are people who love her, envy her, adore her, hate her but none who can dare to ignore her presence. Yea, she is a real person, was my classmate once. I guess I made it too obvious ;-)

India was the obvious next in line. But I had the hardest time locating India among my school mates. Every time I tried to attribute something/someone to her, there was a thought "Nay, my India is not like this." All adjectives I thought of, came along with their opposites and the line I had heard millions of years back started resonating in my head, "Everything you hear about India is true, the opposite is also true." But then I thought that the line was meant for foreigners and certainly the last 7 months that I have lived here did not make me one. So, did I even know my country? And then, I found myself smiling. I had now got the meaning of what I had heard in some sermon somewhere, "Realization is the purest form of knowledge. Every description is a dilution."