Death

Cyanide
Sarin
Valium
To each his own poison
When death seeps in
It doesn’t matter
How you embraced her
What matters is
Her kiss,
Which turns the lips deep blue
Your breathlessness
Excites her
Your pounding heart
Tells her of your love
Your pale cheeks
Will glow under her gaze
She is your beloved
You better go down on your knees

would you come by

If you could see
How our love slips through my fingers
Even as I try and hold it tight
Would you come by
To put your hands beneath mine
To stop it from trickling down
And being lost for ever

If I told you that I was forgetting
How your skin feels against mine
And your smell that wafted around me
Is becoming a fading memory
Would you come by
To embrace me once more
Letting me breathe the aroma of our love

If you saw me
Today
Roaming in the garden
Alone and lonely
Would you come by
Just to say hello?

Loved and Lost

Crimson red
Of virgin blood
Oozing out of a broken heart
The pain and the sighs
And the tears shed
I want to cherish them all
It was the first time
This special ache
Will rise yet again
As nostalgia
Somewhere in the future
Let me paint the memories till then
Onto a vivid canvass
And hide it
Away from the prying eyes
This mark of innocence lost
Of an era left behind
A reminder
That even I had loved
And lost

Revolution

The grains in the field
Are all burnt

And in the drought
The tears have dried
On sun burnt cheeks

The wasted bodies
And wasted dreams
Are rotting in graveyards

Sweat and grime
Are turning crimson
With anger

When the heart cannot
Stand fear anymore
Angst simmers

Revolution is erupting
From the parched mud

Blessed with Love

With every moment spent together
We are making our memories
Here and now
Slowly
Breathing life
Into an otherwise
Listless existence
We have together seen magic
Been a part of a miracle
And we will never disbelieve again
We know wonderland exists
For we have been
Blessed
With Love

Do you realize?
How wonderful your absence is
It makes every next meeting
More poignant
More passionate
After every meeting
I carry you with me
In a heartbeat
In a breath
In an yet undreamt dream
You rest as dew drops
Just below my eyelashes
And whenever the distances
Keeping you away
Start to become unbearable
Your molten self
Erupts
To plant kisses on my cheek
And slowly moves down my lips
To remind me of the feeling
Of your fingers caressing my face
As I sit alone contemplating
The crimson sunset
Our memories
Crowd around me
Catching the slanting rays of the sun
Dancing in a million rainbows
And I know
Somewhere
You are remembering me too

Dream

In the dream that I dreamt
For you and for me
The gorgeous moments of solitude
Did not wither
Under the harsh reality
Of everyday life
The touch
Did not turn stone cold
We sat lost in each other
And as you enveloped me
In your warmth
I found a reason
Beautiful enough
To make life seem worthwhile

The moment of truth

Today the moment of truth arrived
Without much fan fare
Finally the honesty I deserve.
I should be happy
Yet I know now that truth hurts
What hurts further is the delay
I wish you had mustered the courage
to say this long ago
I wish you had not made it so impersonal
Now that I KNOW
What shall I do?
Walking away seems difficult
Yet staying is not an option
It probably never was
In my heart I always knew it
It is just that I never realized
These words would seem like icy daggers
Lodging themselves in the cavities of my heart
Where the pain will stay
Long after this evening has been forgotten

Random thoughts

The secret stash of happiness
That every one says is within me
I am still seeking it
Yet, I do not doubt it exists
After all I have been afforded glimpses of it
At unexpected moments
At moments of solitude
Or in laughter shared with a group of friends
In contemplating my life
Or in gossiping about the mundane
During winter afternoon siestas
And the summer mornings
While savoring the melting chocolate on my tongue
Or in the tangy golgappas
During those walks hand in hand
And even mixed with the tears shed for love
It has crept up on me
Enveloped me in its warm glow
Added a dazzle to my smile
And a spring to my steps
Still searching for the key
To open the treasure chest
To behold and feel the jeweled joy
To make it my constant companion

I read these somewhere today and absolutely loved them

Sometimes we create walls
Not to keep people out
but to see
who cares enough
to knock them down

There is nothing more artistic than to truly love people." - Van Gogh

As I talk to you
I see how futile words can be
How devoid of all the feelings
All the pain
You could hear me speak all night
But not see the tears mixed with them
Not feel the pull of the heart strings
Not see the pain pumping through my heart
Not see the longing throbbing in my veins
Not smell the love permeating,
every parcel of air around me

Lovely little droplets
Limping onto my window panes
Laughing playfully
Lingering awhile
Loitering on the edges
Lounging in little mud pools
Lighting up the drab scene
Life giving droplets
Oh how much I love you

Raat aur sannata

Aasman me chaand kuch ungh sa raha tha
Tare kuch naaraj se idhar udhar chitke the
Raat kal kuch kam syaah thi
Hawa roj ki tarah gaa nahi rahi thi
Chat pe akele baithe
Maine kal dekha tha
Ek sannate ko aasmaan ko gherte hue
Dheere dheere raat ko apni baajuon mein jakadte hue
Sannate ki us aahat se chaand jag gaya tha
Tare ek doosre ko sehami nazron se dekhne lage the
Raat ke aanchal par silvate pad gayi thi
Chat par akele baithe
Maine kal dekha tha
Us darr ko jo raat ki aankhon mein sama gaya tha
Us ghabrahat ko jisne uske honth sil diye the
Us bechaini ko jisne hawa ka dam ghont diya tha
Hawa chaand taare aur aasman
Kuch na kar sake the
Aur sannata raat par daag chhod gaya tha

Do you still look back
And remember that time
That era when we were still strangers
The pain that binds me to you now
Seems to have been in existence
Since the beginning of time
Yet there was a time and place
Not long ago
When we were inhabitants of parallel universes
Almost unaware of each others existence

Here silences shriek
And the light casts dark shadows
Here time stands still
Memories rot and wither
Dreams fade
Desires burn
And hope shatters
Yet this place feels eerily familiar
An old acquaintance
As if from a past life
I have been here
I have walked these winding lanes
Leading to nowhere
I have smelled the now rotting flowers
I swam in the now dried stream
That was then
This is now
Once love blossomed with a promise of life
Now the wines of hatred cling and suffocate
Once open skies gave the dreams wings to fly
Now the menacing dark clouds weed out all hope
Once you and I were here together
Now… I am still here, alone.

Black hole

People have a way of blinking, and missing the moment
Moments that then come back to haunt them in time
The Ifs and buts enlarging to giddying proportions
The broken promises of those moments
The potential of the moments which withered before even taking root
Come back as a specter
Manifesting themselves in heinous forms
Feeding on newer moments of solitude
Tearing through the defenses of the time elapsed
The memories of the missed moments
Gushing in to the interstices of life
Until those interstices enlarge to become a void
A black hole

Let the river live

Let the river live
Let her breathe
Let her play
Let her transform from the adolescent girl
To a full woman
With all the vigor of youth
Let her fulfill the promises of love
Let her sprint and run with open arms
To the lover who waits for her for all eternity
See her passions alight as she embraces the waiting sea
And becomes one with him
As she shares the story of her journey
Reclining on his shoulders
See him hug her tightly,
As she is born anew as a part of him.

I felt my way through life
Through its varied twists and turns
I felt things and people and thoughts (yes I felt them)
I felt elation and distress
I felt love and hatred
I felt each dawn and every dusk
Every moment in my life has been a feeling

But now the realization of the futility of feeling dawns on me
I thought what I understood was enough
It’s only now that I realize that the not understood part has become so huge ,
There are few threads of understanding left
I relied more on feeling than understanding
And I discovered too late it would never suffice in this practical world
Rather in this world full of overly practical people

Waiting 2

Lingering awhile amidst the lengthening shadows
I think of tomorrow
When a new sun will alight in the sky
Spreading its warm glow
And as it would begin its journey in the sky
Would begin my wait for you
A hope that this sunset will bring you back in my arms
As the bird return to their nest
Won’t you return to me too?
Oh traveler
Have you not yet grown weary?
Of the roads that led you away
Do you not remember that someone waits for you?
Standing on her window sill
Someone watches the horizon
Waiting for a glimpse of you

Waiting

While I waited for you
The wind caressed me
I could smell you in it
Wisps of clouds began to gather
Did you send them to shade me?
The nightingale hidden in the branches
Sang ballads of our love
The tree branches hovering over me
Danced in the wind
They celebrated our coming meeting
And while you took your time,
Sitting on that old bench under that familiar tree
I weaved my dreams

Dreams

Butterfly dreams
Colorful daydreams
Gilded with the golden sunlight
Flying away merrily
Amidst vast open expanses
I run after them
Hold them, feel their softness
Admire their hues
Appreciate the varied patterns
And then set them free
I have been enriched by their touch
I have been invigorated by their earthy smell
Let them fly away and perch on another shoulder
Let them bring color to another life
Let them make another day bright
Let them fill different eyes with hope
While I weave a new dream,
And paint it with new shades.

Stranger..

Stranger to all eyes but mine
Oh mysterious knight
Hidden from all senses but the heart
Your eyes pierce through my soul
You are the one who shares my secrets
Who has explored the hidden realms of my being
Dear stranger your touch is so familiar
It’s the touch of dew drops on the morning flower
How can this touch be anything but pious?
Your touch has sprouted the seeds of love lying dormant inside me
You bring me the message I have long waited for
Let them judge me
Let them crucify me
The god residing in my inner shrine
Bears witness to the sanctity of my love

I have found you..

I have washed away the grime and dirt
The grime of passion and desires
The dirt of longing
The water droplets dripping through my hair
Mingling with the tears that run from my eyes
These are the tears of joy
Joy of beholding you
Joy of finding you near me

Now that I have found you
I have found my nirvana
I have found the bliss I was seeking
In you, I found myself
With you I have gained true wisdom
You became the mirror to my soul
You became my gateway to heaven
You have led me to the truth I was seeking

I have shed the flowers adorning my hair
I have taken off the ornaments
I come to you unadorned
I come to you unattached
I want to belong
I want to be loved
I need to be embraced
I need to be accepted

Pink petals
Green leaves
Pink of love
Green of envy

The flower in her hand was so tragically symbolic of her state.

Blue sky
White moon
Blue of sorrow
White of peace

Nature was standing witness to the conflict within her

Was her love greater than the envy?
Was the sorrow she was trying to vanquish more powerful than the peace she was seeking?

In this faraway place, alone yet not lonely, she was trying to find herself anew. This place which was so distant from everything and everyone. This place where the trees did not sway to known beats. This place where the birds did not sing oft heard songs.
The winds did not whisper secrets to her. The softness of the grass beneath her feet did not remind her of any touch.

She was not running away from his memories. She wouldn’t succeed even of she tried. She was just searching for the answers that had eluded her. She was not sure if she would find the answers to all her questions. She was not sure if she was seeking the answers in the right place. But she was sure of one thing. She would be incomplete without this search. Even if she were to return empty-handed this search would partly fill the void within her.

Would he still be waiting for her when she returned? Would he understand her need of setting out on this search? She would be happy if he waited, if he understood.
Yet what if he didn’t? Would she be left with any courage to again go on a search, to bring him back? Could someone who had left on their own will, really be brought back?

Questions and yet more questions.
Now that she had set out on this journey, she would not let these questions bother her.
These initial few steps of the impending voyage had required a lot of valor; she could not afford to turn back now.

She will leave everything else to destiny. If they were destined to be together all his paths would finally meet hers. Maybe then all the questions would become immaterial. Maybe this search would lead her to the place where they could both be together again. Forever.

We

Our lives are woven together for a reason
We met when we least expected to
Fell in love when we didn’t think we would
Went away when we didn’t want to
Met again when we had lost any hope

My hatred and your indifference
Out of it blossomed a love so true
Like blossoming of a tiny plant in the stone crevices
A shrine in an unexplored shore
An oasis amidst an isolated desert

Was it destiny?
A twist of fate?
What do I call it?
Karma or kismet?
God’s will or just a coincidence?

This beautiful secret that only the two of us share
Why did god choose us to bestow this gift?
Is it a connection from some past life?
Or the beginning of a journey into lives beyond?

Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of withering, of tarnishing.- Anais Nin

Trying to forget someone you love is like trying to remember someone you never met

Hold my hand and watch me fall; catch me now, or leave it all. Tell me you need me, tell me a lie; I know i will crash, but for a moment I will fly

Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough - G.B. Shaw

Judge a man by his questions and not by his answers - voltaire

He did not mention women
what about the questions of women?
What about women who question a lot?
And what about men who fail to anwer those questions?

A friend is one before whom I may think aloud.

Thanks for being that friend
I may be mad at you for several things
but I have to thank you for just letting me be ME when I was with you.

This too shall pass..

If I can endure for this minute
Whatever is happening to me,
No matter how heavy my heart is
Or how dark the moment may be

If I can remain calm and quiet
With all the world crashing about me,
Secure in the knowledge God loves me
When everyone else seems to doubt me

If I can but keep on believing
What I know in my heart to be true,
That darkness will fade with the morning
And that this will pass away, too

Then nothing in life can defeat me
For as long as this knowledge remains
I can suffer whatever is happening
For I know God will break all of the chains

That are binding me tight in the darkness
And trying to fill me with fear
For there is no night without dawning
And I know that my morning is near.


- (Helen Steiner Rice )

You can love someone without understanding them.
Yes you can
But when you are in love, the desire of being the one person who understands the other completely becomes overwhelming.
I want to be that one person who understands him completely
I want to be that one person with whom he can share all his secrets
I want to be the one person before whom he can lay bare his soul
That one person before whom he can shed all his inhibitions, celebrate all his frailties, express his vulnerability.

I want to know everything about him
Absolutely everything
More than anyone else has ever known
More than anybody would ever know
That is my way of claiming him for me
That is my way of belonging to him

You say isn’t it expecting too much?
Will you ever be able to share yourself completely with him?
No, I won’t, rather I can’t
That’s because I am a woman
There will always be a part of me which would be preserved from everyone else
I am a woman and hence it is imperative for me to have my own secret self
I would be incomplete without it

I think every woman in every role has a bit of the Mother in her
All embracing, all giving
Yet enigmatic in her own way.
I want to embrace his secrets,
I want him to forget his worries when he is with me
I want to protect him in my own way
Still I want to have a piece of my heart veiled, even from him

What is that precious secret stash, you ask me
Why is it so valued that it is not to be shared even with the one I love the most?
That secret treasure trove is … my capacity for love
It’s the mystical power of love hidden in every woman
The elixir which can transform the world
But it is a potion so powerful that it has to be hidden
Only a woman can bury a secret so powerful in her heart
It has the power to transform everything it touches

You wonder why does love need to be hidden
You wonder why this ambrosia is not to be partaken
I can only smile and say
You would not understand if you are not a woman

I am......

The time that my journey takes is long and the way of it long.

I came out on the chariot of the first gleam of light, and pursued my voyage through the wildernesses of worlds leaving my track on many a star and planet.

It is the most distant course that comes nearest to thyself, and that training is the most intricate which leads to the utter simplicity of a tune.

The traveller has to knock at every alien door to come to his own, and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end.

My eyes strayed far and wide before I shut them and said `Here art thou!'

The question and the cry `Oh, where?' melt into tears of a thousand streams and deluge the world with the flood of the assurance `I am!' - GITANJALI (Rabindranath Tagore)

Monologues...

Our fingers entwined with each other
Our eyes peering down the others soul
Our hearts beating in one rhythm
Our feet moving down the same path

Still, are we moving closer
Or further apart
Is the kiss we shared an undying promise of love
Or is it a goodbye, sealing our fates forever

Our embrace, our moulding into each others forms
Is it undying passion
Or is it one last try to hold onto something which is no longer ours

She could do wonders

The blue of the sky had descended to her ribbon
The blue of the ribbon had become molten in her eyes

Piercing blue
Serene blue
Deep blue

They could make you loose your way
They could guide you amidst raging storms
They could entice you into sin
They could inspire you for great things
They could make you believe in god
They could lead you to satan

She could do wonders
The lady with the sky blue ribbons and ribbon blue eyes


Long black curls cascading down her back
kissing the curves along the way

The black of the night
The black of a poisonous serpent
Coal black

They could chain you to her forever
They could set you free
They could be playful
They could shy away from your fingers
They could give you the much needed refuge
They could leave you feeling dreadfully exposed

She could do wonders
The lady with the serpent black hair

Tic tock
The clock went
Seconds turning to minutes
Minutes coalescing into hours
Dawns and dusks slipping by
Days and years will pass soon

In these ticking seconds I am losing my life
In these successive seconds I can create my heaven

Every moment an opportunity is born
Every instant another one dies

Each day a promise emerges
Each day a hope is shattered

Time will not stop for me
Though I have pieces to pick
Thoughts to arrange
Memories to savor
But move I must
Before it is too late

A new beginning

Isn’t every new beginning an end of something that already was?
As I walk towards new horizons, I am leaving so much behind
As I enter a new phase I am saying goodbye to the earlier
No heady rush
No overzealous curiosity to peep in the future
Just a hope that things will be alright

Goodbye

I now see how futile all this is
This meandering in circles
Circles of leaving and then longing
Circles of believing and then disbelieving
These spheres have riddled my life
I am losing myself somewhere amidst the endless loops
There is only one way out of this puzzle
I have found it now
So I am saying goodbye

It was you who was the centre of all circles
I kept pacing the circumference in hope of reaching you
Every step, neither closer nor distant from you
I can’t tread any further
Hope of ever finding you is dead
The dreams I weaved have lost their color
So I am saying goodbye

Bazaars of Jaipur

Sounds and smells and color strewn everywhere
Peals of laughter of a group of school girls
Aroma of a freshly roasted Bhutta
Deep mahogany of the carved furniture

Sounds and smells and color permeating all interstices of space
Cry of the street hawkers
Fragrance of perfumed sweets
Bright colors of the earthen pottery

Sounds and smells and color overwhelming the senses
Wails of a crying child
Stench of sweat of strangers intermingled
Deep hues of the batik Sarees

Sounds and smells and color exploding in a medley
Frustrated honking of horns
Oily odour of fried snacks hanging heavy in the air
Bedazzling colors of the beaded jewellery

Sounds and smells and colors coming together in an earthy dance
Sounds and smells and colors reverberating in frenzied celebration
These are the sounds and smells and colors of bazaars of Jaipur

Memories

Memories are all I have
Memories…
Vivid and half baked
Sepia toned and bright hued
Bland and tangy
Coarse and oh so soft
Near and distant
Warm and frigid

Memories are all I have
Memories
Of Love and Hate
Of Smiles and Tears
Of Friends and Acquaintances
Of Dreams and Experiences
Of Pain and Pleasure
Of You and Me

She sat on her bed looking out of the window at the setting sun. Was what she had held so dear not hers any more? Were things really changing? Why couldn’t her story be a little different? These questions were a constant companion of her solitude.

She remembered his having asked her once whether she had entered his story or if it was the other way round. She wondered whose story was playing out on the stage of their partially shared lives. Who was the central character of their story? Did THEY have a story at all? Or was it that they were two characters of two different stories that had bumped into each other by a sudden twist of fate?

He always told her that she asked too many questions. Far too many questions for him to answer. Questions to which there were No answers.

There were not so many questions to begin with. Earlier there were more shared silences, sidelong glances, a sudden and ‘accidental’ touch or a few words not really meaning anything but conveying so much. She was not sure when the questions had crept in.

Somebody knocked on the door bringing her out of her reverie. She went to the door. It was the girl living in the room across from her’s. She had come to borrow a nail paint. She pointed to the shelf where she put all her toiletries. The girl chose a nail paint to go with her dress. Her blue eye pencil was lying close by; the girl picked it up and smiled at her. ‘Do you think blue eye liner would suit me?’ She nodded her head. It would look very pretty in her dark big eyes.

She remembered how amazed he had been when he had noticed the blue eyeliner in her eyes. ‘You put blue kaajal in your eyes? What else? Green, Red and Brown too?’
She loved it when he noticed those things. What she loved further was that he was as clueless about the latest fashion fads for girls’ as a guy should be. He had quite the old world charm about him. She could not stand the newfangled metrosexual males who knew more about facial and waxing than she did.

She closed the door after the girl had left and came back to the bed with a magazine. She flitted through the pages, not really reading, her mind in some faraway place. She reminisced their first walk together, the first time he had told her that she looked beautiful when she left her hair open, the first time they had shared an ice-cream, their first fight and all of their firsts together. She looked up into the mirror on the adjacent wall and found herself smiling at all the memories. She had been told that she looked pretty when she smiled. She picked up her phone and dialed his number, suddenly wanting nothing more than to talk to him.

Ring. Ring. Ring. ‘Hello, Listen I am really busy. I will call you later. Ok? Bye’
‘Later? Ofcourse. Bye’
She looked out of the window again. The night had arrived. It was a moonless night.

Nothing at all

Want to write
Sooooo much
Want to let my creative juices flow
But no
Nothing
Nothing at all

Never knew the writer’s block can hit so early and could be so frustrating.
Its strange when your fingers are itching to start typing, to write something, anything and yet your mind simply refuses to cooperate
It can come up with weird ideas and thoughts at the most inopportune of times and now, when you are almost begging it to think of something, it is in no mood to oblige.

It is so completely void of thoughts that all the yogis and rishis would be jealous of me. After all I managed to achieve without any effort, what may take them ages to master – a mind bereft of all thoughts of the mundane and not so mundane.

So much resides in the winding lanes of our mind. Thoughts and ideas and memories. Memories of places visited, of friends & acquaintances made, of love and hate, of books read and odors smelled. Of certain looks and feelings. So much information is stored within a mere 1400g of an organ.

Yet everything stored within your head is suddenly locked in an attic which becomes inaccessible. You may find the key to the lock suddenly in another minute or few or maybe a few hours and if you are really unlucky then who knows a couple of days.. a few days … months..?? Naah… that is probably going too far. But whatever the length of time that you will have to undergo this agony of looking for the key and not finding it, would seem like a millennium.

And then suddenly just as you sit down to finish the really important official report you had been putting off or finally get down to cleaning your almirah or maybe simply going to pee, a thought will emerge from deep within and will firmly lodge itself in the upper reaches of your cranium. No matter how important a task you were busy with you will become unsettled. Dying to start writing again. It could be the most unimportant of things that you would want to write about, the silliest and most commonplace things, but still you would be unable to stop that urge of stopping everything else and simply get down to writing. And write you will. Till your finger tips start hurting and your neck would start aching. Only once you have typed everything will you stop. And there in front of you will be your little master piece.

How does it matter if no one will ever read it or if people who read it are left wondering why on earth did you waste your time like that? How does it matter if everyone else trashes it? It was a novel experience. You will remember everything… all the frustration... the mind numbing emptiness and then the sudden rush of thoughts and ideas every time you will read it again. You may find many faults with it when you read it later but it would remain beautiful to your eyes just the same. The experience will form a part of the storehouse of memories in your mind and maybe it will spring up on you again someday, someplace in the future, when you are similarly at a loss of ideas.

Blabbering a bit..

I am adrift, a little perturbed. It is as if I have kept something precious in a safe place and now I am unable to recall the exact location of it. There is something just beneath the surface of all the gibberish floating in my mind right now. Something scratching and struggling to be let out. There is so much that I have to say, so much that I want to say and yet nothing that I am able to say.

Maybe these words appearing on the screen which are not making any sense will magically group together and through some permutations and combinations turn into something meaningful. An insightful piece of writing. Something I would be proud of as an achievement.

But even if they don’t would these words cease to be mine? Are they not a creation of my mind (Can’t call it overactive at the moment, given the dearth of ideas I am facing) They have all taken birth in the womb of my mind though there were no birth pangs. Just because they have not turned out to be as adorable as I expected them to be, shall I abandon them? Of course not. They are mine for better or for worse.

I have an unexplainable attachment to the words appearing before me as I move my fingers on the keyboard, I somehow feel tike I am abandoning an infant even when I think of editing one of my raw pieces of writing. It is probably because the words that first begin to form on the word doc are my real feelings. They are the real me. As tactless and straightforward as I am and I would like to believe they are similarly lacking in pretence and artifice. Any additions and deletions feel like an act of hypocrisy

10 Guilty Pleasures

1) Chocolates and Ice candy (Orange flavor)
2) An afternoon nap on the weekends even though you were in bed till 11 in the morning
3) Turning off the alarm (not putting it on snooze) even when you know you should have gotten up at least 15 minutes back.
4) Watching T.V till your eyes start watering and your spine is in danger of splitting into two ;)
5) Procrastinating
6) Endless cups of tea on winter days
7) Long phone conversations on just about anything under the sun
8) Shopping like mad for clothes even though your wardrobe is full of clothes you bought in a hurry and never wore twice.
9) Trying out all home beauty recipes you can think of on weekends ;)
10) Daydreaming

The blurring divide between the private and not so private

At times even when your mind is brimming with thoughts and ideas, it becomes difficult to put pen to paper or more aptly for the modern times, to work your fingers on the keyboard. The various meditations which have taken hours of your time are so difficult to be put into words.
All your dreams and aspirations and deep soul searching somehow begin to look strangely shallow to your own eyes when expressed. Are some thoughts more beautiful hidden in the labyrinths of your mind? Are some feelings more sensuous, residing in the province of your heart? Is it not in our interest to maintain a divide between what we may truly call personal or private and the not so private parts of our life?

Aren’t we as a society to be accused of over-expression? The most personal of our emotions are out there on display for the world. The World Wide Web has brought easy access to all information, even the information which may be redundant or highly inappropriate at times. People today are washing dirty laundry in public through blogs and media. They are putting their most intimate moments on you-tube and the likes for the entire world to watch.

Have we as civilization become peeping toms, deriving vicarious pleasure from watching/reading about others private life? The rising power of the paparazzi is a proof of the secret pleasure we derive from getting the dirty details of someone else’s life.

What is the reason for this phenomenon? Why is this whirlpool sucking us all in?
Maybe the easy access to the private life of others and the reaction of the society as a whole to it only serves to underline our basic human nature. Once stripped of the veneer that today’s so called civilized world has forced us to accept, we are all the same. Somewhere hidden deep in the recesses of our mind is the mind of the ape man who wandered on earth thousands of years ago. All the basic instincts of the raw animal crouching inside us remain unchanged.

We are all capable of shedding our masks and acting out our base instincts when we know that no one else is watching. Today people are moving a step further and are doing a lot of things in the public arena which till date were reserved for the most private of spaces. Public display of affection is a fast spreading epidemic and so is the indiscriminate use of the www for laying bare the private life of self and others. For the gen Y this phenomenon is fast catching up and is becoming the new magic drug for that ultimate high.

In the name of democracy and more openness we have forgotten the reverence for personal space. The media may be blamed partly for it, but isn’t the media a mere reflection of the society? The mass media be it Television or newspapers and magazines dish out the fare which will garner higher TRPs or sell more copies. Simply put the media serves to us what we are craving for the most.

It is time that we as a society take stock of where we are heading to. It is imperative that we learn to appreciate anew the joys of the moments and memories that are entirely our own and not a part of a public spectacle. We also need to learn to respect the fact that the right to personal space is essential for basic human dignity and no excuse can be valid for trespassing on that space.

This place I am in ..

Am I losing myself? This is the fear gnawing in the deepest realms of my mind and my heart. I am wandering in an unknown place. I don’t know which way I came in and it is increasingly becoming difficult to find a way out.

What is this place called? This place which is midway between what was and what would be or rather what could be.

It is not an ugly place to be. No it is anything but that. In fact it has the potential of getting morphed into a beautiful abode. The wild untamed Brooke that runs through it could become a serene lake somewhere. The wild flowers may not be sweet smelling but they are bright and colourful. The undergrowth may be running helter skelter but the wide expanse of its greenery may put the manicured gardens to shame.

So why am I restless here? Is it because it is not the place I had started off for or is it because I am too languid to take up the challenges this vista before me is throwing up at me?
Quite likely it is the later. I have never been a planning person all my life. When I started off on this journey there was no particular destination I had in mind. I was content to keep walking as long as I was moving ahead, as long as the scene before me was changing and somewhere deep inside I was harboring the hope that I will reach someplace which would not disappoint me.

So this unknown place that I am in which is brimming with potential is not the worst one could do for oneself. There are thousands of small paths meandering in and out and I could take any one of them and begin a new journey from here. Or I could choose o remain here a little while and enjoy the exotic sights and smells on offer.

Yet what scares me is that if I remain here too long I may be left behind, forgotten and become a figment of someone’s memory. So should I proceed on one of those paths which are only partially visible from amidst the outgrowth and journey towards the unknown? What if there are perils on the path I choose? What If my chosen path takes me to an arid and barren land? A land where no opportunities thrive, where peace and serenity are nowhere to be found.

My mind is fraught with these questions. Questions which no one else can answer for me. I will think a little while longer. Maybe the answers will come to me on their own. Maybe a little time and some soul searching is all that is required