Crazy

They say I am crazy,

That I am not blind,

But have lost my mind.

And I laugh. 

They say I dont have a Job,

That I do not know to hold on,

But thats just an oxymoron

And I laugh.

They say I dont have money,

That I will fail to earn,

But thats none of their concern

And I laugh

They say I laugh with no moral fear

My life is doomed as is my career,

But my laugh is just a cover,

For I know to brave the future

The road ahead is not hazy

Thus they say I am crazy 

--

The End

the Slap from Brahma

The slap fell on Sangram's left cheek.


All the cosmic energy in this Universe that was created from the beginning of time, reverberated infinitely in his physical shape that summed up his existence. The initial impact of this pristine energy made him feel as if the big bang, that created the universe itself,and which he had always doubted as a concept, landing right below his earlobe. The ear drums started to oscillate like the balls of an angry bull charging across the field. The energy descended down through the throat which was now like a dried river bed, reaching the heart and lungs, which stopped beating altogether to analyse, contemplate and pass on this baton of divine energy to the stomach and others parts of the body, through the various communication channels available. The stomach churned and the kidney burned. The pancreas twisted further and as the energy dissipated with a mighty fury, every 206  of his bones started to crumble like a pack of cards. From the very atomic, sub-atomic to the inter galactic forces of nature that shaped this world, it all converged into the surface area of his left cheek and exploded with a bang. the big bang.
It is now important to know what happened next,
that he fell to the ground, with the skin the colour of Spanish tomato, is secondary to the fact that his brain, unable to preserve this energy, felt the sudden urge to release it all together. He ejected a jet of warm urine out of his pants and it streamed down through the left knee and enriched the earth below. It was a momentary bliss followed by sobs rising like a tsunami amidst the sea.
Sangram Dash was exactly 17 years and 3 months old when he first watched a raunchy young man riding a voluptuous woman on a 19 inch monitor and was overcome by a feeling of utter embarrassment. He was also 17 years and exactly 3 months old when he got caught seeing the raunchy young man riding naked on the voluptuous woman.


The reason for the slap was elemental, being caught at the oddest hour of the day, watching the oddest thing and at the oddest place. Simply said the odds were heavy against him. But even that slap from his father was nothing compared to the one rightly placed by Sunil Samarth. Fresher, Computer science, 2006 Batch, roll number 20718, village Barpali, district sambalpur.


Infront of him stood the reincarnation of Brahma, Sunil Samarth, with fury of the gods in his eyes and strength of the devil in his arms. He stood fearless, undaunted.
However Sangram had a peculiar appearance. He was over 6 feet tall and looked liked a stuffed Grizzly Bear. There were only a few strand of hair left at the edge of the egg shaped head, yet all of his body was covered with an inch of thick hairy fur. The eyes were bulged and appeared about to fall. The teeth appeared to be mummified.
The hands and legs extended and looked more like the mechanical arms of a Robot. And there many concentric circles of flesh surrounding the torso.All but 21 years of age, he had made a huge positive mark on the college campus ever since he stepped his foot in some three years back, thrashing the hell out of the new kids on the block.
For Sangram the last hunting season had just started, however for Sunil, it was the first day at college, first day that he would be staying away in a hostel, read hostile environment. As it turned out he was kidnapped and taken away from his hostel room to the senior's dormitory, on the very first night. He had some idea what was about to befall but was not left with any option, just to oblige and accept the inevitable, like the other two hapless goats ready for the butcher.




But what happened was alltogether a very different story...
The Sun had long set in the distant horizon. The sky was crimson with the birds making a marathon run to reach their nest after a hard days work. The little chicks remained perched on tree tops, occasionally raising their head to get a glimpse of their parents. They kept on chirping proudly as their parents flew competing against each other. Very soon it will be their turn to fly.

Bus number 2508 cruised along the vast stretch of the national highway. The Bus was packed to the hilt. Most of the freshers stood silently and looked like scapegoats about to be butchered. They stood huddled in between the row of seats, stressed for the most part of this 20 kilometre journey to the city. For once there was no age, sex or regional discrimination. Each one of the fresher stood as per the policies laid out by the seniors and they in turn had stood as per their seniors and so forth. There was no defiance.

It was an unusually humid day. The crisp ironed shirts were no more crispy, sticking to the torso, and streams of sweat running down the entire body, it was left with patches of sweat everywhere. Most of them were too close for comfort, each body pressed against his friend to be. Few girls stood in embarrassment unable to scratch where it itched them the most. Boys, unashamed went about their business of scratching where it itched. And then in the gloomy darkness, sticking their head up to breathe, they were no more sure whose itch they were answering to. Thus few of them scratched their neighbours itch, releasing them of their mortal suffering.

Sunil stood hidden behind many of the fresh faces around. Yet there was something different about him. One look and you could say he was like no other. He was different. He was bold and when most of the others were gyrating, smashing themselves against each other, he stood still like a statue. 

The Bus finally reached the hostel compound.And one by one everyone started to get down. A bunch of guys including Sangram were waiting inside the phone booth cum Xerox shop round the corner. And as soon as they saw these three coming towards the booth rather than to the safe haven of the hostel gates, they pounced on them like a lion on a hapless deer. 

Two hours later, Balasurender was explaining the meaning of sexy. Eshwar was desperately trying to prove the existence of God. And Sunil was frisked away by Sangram to give the breakup of his body mass in kgs. It seemed he was doing well than the others and was beating Sangram at his own game. 

Unable to constrain his frustration after an hour, Sangram managed to say," Maaaa*****ia",  saying it as if he meant it. It was near perfection. The word is a local slang for having illicit relationship with your mother.A word fit for the kind of guy infested with incest. A derogatory word in every sense of it. But just like love which itself can mean a gamut of feelings, so is this word, and it really means a whole gamut of feelings for many different people. Some take it pretty lightly and some can drive a knife through your heart, if you are not careful enough.

And when Sunil Samarth, heard the word, he was not overcome with disgust. But he was simply teleported back in time to the precise moment when he had uttered the same word, and with a certain diffidence on his face. It was time for redemption of the guilt that had been haunting him for as many as 4 long years. It was his time to deliver the cosmic energy to the worthy successor.

And without wasting a moment he delivered the divine gift of Brahma to the worthy successor as he had received it from his brother.

PRELUDE

Four years ago..

Sunil returned home with ruffled hairs and unbuttoned shirt.

The tussle had lasted for a few minutes and post three sentences, it was all over. His brother stood on the stairs with fury red eyes and an exceptional hatred for him, shocked, his brother had asked only one question at the middle of their all important struggle, 

"What did you say to me?"

"Maa***hia"

Patassssssssssssssshhh. 

Post a momentary loss of consciousness, Sunil felt the whole world revolving around him, he could see the stars and planets in the vastness of the universe and he felt enlightened, there was immense energy all around him. Every atom in his body absorbed that energy. He knew as no one else did, when one humiliates the creator of life on this planet, Brahma, the supreme creator of this Universe(Brahmand) answers the mere mortal with an unimaginable force what he gently calls the SLAP FROM BRAHMA.

--

The END

Ajanta

Miss Ajanta Das was no stunner, yet you couldn't make the mistake of ignoring her as she walked by. In conventional terms you would even dare address her as the girl next door. Her hair straightened in accordance with the recent Bollywood trends, a slight hint of touch up heightened by the fragrance of morning mist. Her lips full and glossy pink without a hint of artificial gloss on it. And if you happen to have the audacity to enquire about her sensuous lips, she would politely let you know that it is the saliva that does the trick. Nothing more. Her walk is that of a person who is not confident of what lay ahead on the road, often gyrating on her toes,blessed by a centrifugal force which acts mysteriously upon her. However her head remains perfectly aligned to her torso all the while. She would lift her head high as she walked, with her eyes set on the horizon, appearing never too high looking straight at the sky or never too down as to appear having a toe fetish. She was fair and remained so until her death. Born to rich, powerful parents, she was always  humble enough to apologize for any stupidities she did. However those stupidities were as rare as sighting a tiger in the wild. her name had nothing to do with the Ajanta caves located in Maharashtra. In fact no one in her entire family had ever been there. She was the only child of Ajay and Anita Das. And they felt a divine obligation to name their only child Ajanta, the letters derived from their own name.
this very first instant itself indicated how madly they loved their offspring. She was their Darling. The crowned  jewel in their eyes. The person destined to make their name immortal in the society. They both were distinguished civil servants of the Government of India, honoured with many facilities that their lovely daughter would benefit so richly from.

Everybody in the university premise knew her. She was famous for she was a distinguished student, a faithful friend, a genuinely nice person to get along with, neither to shy nor a blabber. And under adverse situations, she always knew the middle path of peaceful negotiations. You know, most of us did not believe she would ever fall in love. Her aura was divinely revered that to imagine her with any coarse mortal was a sin. She was a princess . Yet she did fall in love, but not with any prince...

But this is not the biography of Ajanta Das,
It is about the energy that brings two most unlikely person into each other's arms and is responsible for the human species to survive and continue to grow. It is about the energy that surrounds us, engulfs us and consumes us day after day until the day we release our soul from the mortal sins. It is about the energy that is capable of with standing the brutal axe of time. It is something over which many epic battles have been fought and will continue to do so. It is the same energy that makes an introvert guy like me sit till the middle of the night and write with passion for all you beautiful people to read.
and mysteriously I believe this energy is slowly diminishing from our life and if not for certain heroic individuals who glorify and preserve this energy, it would have been completely lost along with many other species, devoid of it.

The Blind Man saga.. The girl who hoisted the Red Flag

Day -3
Blood lust

One more day passed by, when the Maoist have hoisted the red flag high up in the air. The red Corridor of blood lust is increasing ever so fast. No more the fight against the government is restricted to forests & villages. The smaller unknown peaceful towns on the border of the red corridor are the new decisive Battlegrounds and have been set as a perfect example of the inefficiency of the Government in tackling the insurgency.
More than the brutal deaths on either side, it is the constant threat of the apocalyptic future for the common man, that has made life miserable throughout the entire regions.
Survival in these trying times, across various ethnic groups, pose a major challenge for each individual family.
Yet the indomitable human spirit, fights on a guerilla war daily for the very reason to provide a secure and better future for the coming generation. The government cant sit back and afford to relax, as it has always done in the past. The actions must speak for itself. The Maoist fights for a change. A change that was supposed to have brought prosperity to the most backward and downtrodden of the society. Yet scams after scams have left nothing for them except to retaliate in the most inhuman way possible. The government the present and the past which had like a crippled puppet watching from the sidelines and consoling themselves that the threat is not immediate and is not possible on such grandeur scale, is now willing to draw these Maoist leaders to the discussion tables.
It remains to be seen how effective would that be, considering the inefficiency is profound & writ large on its face.
Whatever be the reason, the girl who was raped multiple times by the CRPF jawans, tied and hanged upside down, abused to the core of the human soul possible, is now rightly hoisting the Red Flag in the middle of the town square, marching over the dead soldiers, the  very same ones whose job was to protect her in the first place.

what an irony of life...

The Blind Man Saga... Lake View Apartment

Day 2
Dead Tired...

Relocating to a new place is fun and a bit adventurous, but with so much packing, moving and unpacking to do, it becomes all the more pain at all the right places.
Not to forget, the looping anxiety that brews all the while, about the well being of the goods. Today happened to be my first complete relocation, and a successful one to begin with. Except for a slight headache and stiff calf muscles, everything seems to be in order.
I have gulped down two aspirin tablets  with my usual drink, to soothe the tendons.
Hope things will be better tomorrow morning.

The new apartment is on the 3rd floor of the majestic building, located on the outskirts, towards the south of the city, As I say,far from the madding crowd. Its ambience is serene and with a balcony beside my room, I could easily view glittering new high rise buildings still under construction. There is a beautiful lake near by, some 200 yards straight from the apartment's premises. Water has always a soothing effect on my nerves, and to see the placid water of the lake, undiluted with a bluish hue was a good sight to my sore eyes.
With the evening simmering in the distant and a dazzling display of lights emitting from far off places, it does look elegant. Especially the reflection of the light on the face of the lake. The place is still not clouded with any new building blocking off the sight, but the prospects of it are increasing, with the constructions going on around it.

With all unpacking done for the day, I need to rest my poor self.
There is a new place to be explored and secrets to be unearthed. ..

The Blind Man Saga...

Day 1
Blue Hour 
refers to the period of twilight each morning and evening where there is neither full daylight nor complete darkness.


There is a saying, "The night is darkest before the twilight". I have wondered about it quite often over the last few days. How often does one wake up in the morning to realize that the darkness of the night before is not over yet. what's worse, it isn't going to be over ever again.The nocturnal creatures will not stop to haunt your dreams. You lay in your bed, tossing over and over again waiting for sleep to drop by. Yet it remains a distant cousin who visits you once in a while, bringing joy into your life. And with that you also accept the fact that the dark shadows during the early hours of the night are going to be your tenants for life. Nightmares become your alibi. The rainbow is black. Funny as it may seem that my dreams are the playgrounds of many a characters that are yet to see the light of the day. They are pleading me to rescue them from the shadows that grows ever so rapidly towards them and yet, I have in all probability, summarized that whatever disasters happen, be it personal, local or global, happens to someone else in some other country, in some geography thousand of miles away. I did not believe I could be the lead subject of some very extreme situation happening to me. I am now the architect of my dreams and nightmares, I am the creator and the destroyer of the characters that dwell in those dreams and nightmares.. 


I am blind, Its the part that I came to know a few months ago. It has been rough ride ever since. However I am not completely blind or else I would not be here on this blank page pouring my thoughts out. I am in that hour of my life where I can clearly see the Earth rotating to enter the shadows, where the once bright Sun is bright no more, calmly drowning over the horizon and the vast winter sky is about to turn blue waiting for the dusk to take over. This night is going to be dark and long, the day being too bright. And somewhere through this wheel of time, in between these vast horizons, in between the twilight, I stand with my head held high basking in the warmth of this magnificent hour, which I refer to as The Blue hour of hope.


This is my time, my only hour and this I must use to the best of my ability to produce the musings of my grieved mind.
Never shall I stop to write, never shall I succumb to the obvious. My fight is against me. My fight is with the time that I cant hold back. My struggle is to sail through the night towards the twilight. And I do not know whether you will appreciate or condemn my words. Whether you will find it vulgar or mesmerizing, whether the words will stir your soul or give you pain of passing moment. Immortality is not what I aspire to achieve, its the hope to survive the night's long ordeal, the hope to once again feel the zephyr of the blue hour lifting my soul way beyond into the Sun...

The Mourning Dove

PART 1.

"John, you got to wake up! Open your eyes lad, We are waiting for you!"

The shrill voice was my mother's, dead for about three years from now.  

As I opened my eyes to look around, I could make out that I was chained to the bed. The bed sheet had stains of blood and rotten flesh all over. I was not sure, how long I lay there. I was still wearing my favorite red checker shirt with the ripped jeans. There was nothing fancy. I could see my hands tied to the bed post on either side of my head as I lay staring at the tattered ceiling. There was no fan and the big chandelier threw up light  from a cross section. A pair of legs were lying by the right side of the bed at some distance on the floor, i guess those were mine. The black leather shoes with a flat heel still intact, it had to be mine.   

I was dead to begin with...

As i gathered myself, I didn't struggle to free from the thick set of chains. My hands just popped out. I sat for a while, confused as I did not understand any of this.  There was no bright flashes of light or winged angels coming down to take me on a flight. It was just me, fresh, light and without any pain, although dead. I crawled out of the bed clinging to one of the post for support. The first thing I needed was my legs and they were lying their to be picked up. I guess there were some better options to choose from, as it was heavily mutilated from the knee up. Yet I couldn't help wonder the possibility of sticking it up my torso, tried the best i could and it did stick, with minimal effort. I was surprised and it dawned on me that I had to think what I wished to accomplish and i could do it. I was handsome, vulnerable, confused, walking ghost.

The room was huge,could have been more than 20 feet long. It had a dungeon like feeling.  There were no windows. The room had a door huge enough to let an elephant in, and it lay to the side opposite to the bed. The room was dimly lit and a  faint shine came from the chandelier, up above. 

I had never been here before. I couldn't assume it to be hell. It looked more of a medieval dungeon to me or entrails of a prison cell marooned on an island. All I could think at that moment was that I must have been brought here on a Tuesday, the day I was wearing Red checker shirt with the ripped jeans. The day I was aware of myself being alive. The day I met Amy and her friend Eli. 

Metamorphosia....

John Gray, as the neighbourhood knew him was an ugly duck in a perfect sense. there was something uncanny about the way he appeared. Hairy nose, toad eyes, crooked half smile, pierced ear which the neighbourhood kids often found scary. The hairs on his head had long left on a journey to the unknown realm.
Once he stood in the sun, there was always a silver lining running around the neat shaved head. Funny as it may seem to look at the guy,  there wasn't anything going on in his life that he himself would be happy about.
But then, he was happy. For the day was coming close for the transitions to happen. Pretty close.
John Gray, born 15th Aug, 1967, 5 feet and 10 inches in all, broad shouldered, pale white all the way, walked like a mummy with hands down, and a jiggling pot belly with a knife scar on the right side. Born into the neighbourhood of a working class family, he had always wondered about the intricacies of life. To begin with, John Gray was an overtly brilliant guy. Blessed with a above average IQ. He was good with numbers and often found solutions to the daily financial problems his family faced. Over time he proved more than handy with his skills. And by the time he was fifteen, he was able to feed a family of four  working in the local drug store. His speciality lay in the fact that .

 

There are seven deadly sins.
And more than half of them, for more than half a century have been dwelling in the sinister heart of Mr. Alistair McCovey. The vicious secret lay in the depths of his heart, fenced against the world that he lived in.

Knight on the Red Corridor

There are two parts to a story, one that is told and the one that is supposed to be told. There is a certain important difference between the two. The former is a lie and we will soon discover the later.

Sitting alone on a plush table at "The Bay(Cafeteria)" on a cool summer evening surrounded by Google, Ernst & Young, indi-joe, Subway and trying to gulp down a big fat cheesy burger , I looked around to see something new,may be I was expecting aliens attack, flood, a car turning into Optimus Prime or just a spaceship land right in the middle of the courtyard surrounding the BAY and Jedi knights pop out to fight each other, yet I saw nothing new. And to be honest I was a bit sad, so I gyrated my eyes towards the Lovely Ernst and Young employees. There were all petite chicks who at one time early in my career made that over stressed mind of mine delve in to the depths of erotic fantasy. But after two years of staring the cantilevered maidens, the cascades of hair settled on the shoulders, kajoled eyes, long thin legs; I summed up that it fades faster than most of the flowers in the world. So in a way you could say, It was just another day at office fore me. One of those days where I could afford to take a break during office hours to have a cup of coffee or a McDonald's Veggie Burger with extra cheese along with a Coke.

My office shared space with Google, Ernst and Young and some of the best organizations of the world. And no doubt the place was as cool as any other office complex, if not better.

With two good pubs and plethora of eateries it did provide a decent choice to an average over stressed working professional.

But that day indeed was different from all others. As I was gulping my burger, the fat cheesy one, I couldn't help myself wonder why exactly am I eating a burger? Yes! I was hungry, the obvious answer but why not a Dosa or Samosa or a fruit salad. Why a burger?

Absurd as it may seem, i felt that my eating a burger had lot to do with the fact that it was marketed, presented to me as a better option when I wished to have something prepared fast and easy to satisfy my hunger pangs, which I would say the Dosa failed to do in the marketing department.

I stopped, journeyed to a dustbin, dumped, travelled back to my seat and had a hot cup of tea thinking all the way at the Non-marketed options available to me. Finally I settled for the Sprouts salad. That's my story. Why I threw it, Lets discover it...

In this era of marketing and sales, the dreams and aspirations of the nation is being subdued in a very grotesque manner. We the people of this free nation are being pulled towards an non existing utopian world, where our very own existence is camouflaged as a means to serve the rich and the powerful.Every where around me, I see American products swarming with their righteous claims to provide me the most sensous moments without any compromise to quality.

Everything is marketed so well, and researched so religiously that I soon enough my writings would be carbon dated to determine which age I belonged to.

A heretic at the dawn of the new millennia would I appear to the teenagers that live the burger infested all new American dream.

If any other country claims that we have taken their share of Jobs, I can still understand. But not with America incorporation. They have not only brought Ipods to our tinsel towns but have made themselves richer in a multi dimensional way by defining the rules of the game. The "Dude" and "babes" are lost in Disneyland oblivious to the fact that at the Grass root level things are very different. The divide between the rich and the poor is growing at an alarming rate.

Its heartening to see the young future of our country sweeping across the filthy railway platforms.

No where is it better portrayed than in " Slumdog Millionaire". The movie was not received well by Critics and Actors in India. The film fraternity of India protested that the west shouldn't see India as poor third World Country. I feel selling dreams have made them numb to the fact that what is shown is just the tip of the ice-berg and it exists outside the gates of their dream world. It would be naive not to acknowledge the fact that the condition of poor down-trodden people of this country is in the hands of the well to do individual of this Country. why hide ourselves in the doctrine of " Ignorance is Bliss"

There are many such instances of the lie that we live in. The Print media, the films, the advertisements are all moving towards a direction to justify this utopian world which exists only in their films and glamour shows. On the contrary The Maoists, terrorists, revolutionaries, conservationists, soldiers and the dead farmers all cry out together fighting a battle with their lives across the "Red corridor" bringing us face to face with the reality which we are not willing to acknowledge.

I would thank the West for giving us the medium, the technology to find solutions to the problems at our very own backyard. There is a great hope to construct a new India with an unmatched vigour that must be implemented at the grass root level. To build this side of paradise is our responsibility.

However, this mirage of marketed materialistic dreams that we don't want to wake up from, cannot guarantee a better future for our coming generations because a time will come when a few hands that have just finished the last rites of their children, will be holding a gun pointing towards us and the reality will hit us with a BANG!!

THE END

How positive are you about "positive thinking"?

How positive are you about "positive thinking"?

With the Bhagat-Hirani issue doing rounds across the leading newspapers here in India, its a good time to look at the so called Self help books .... The following article is my personal take on the highly successful business of Self help books.

With the markets being flooded with Self help inspirational books of all genres, from business to career, from losing weight to getting married, it does make the job difficult for a person who actually needs help in taking decisions on how he wants to spend the rest of his life without being mislead is minimal.

In this world of technological marketing, even the creative mass is appalled at the onslaught of mass propaganda of humans failing to achieve success and happiness in their lives. The chances of a person not having read a self help manual is becoming obsolete by the day.

The premise is based on the fact that we as humans lack the exact emotions required to excel towards pursuing happiness. On this journey we need a certain companion to guide us towards our goal. Nothing wrong in that, except for the fact that it gets crowded over time with each guide coming up with his own version of what is right and what is wrong.

Nothing in this world comes free, the companions pile up a huge profit at my financial expense. I am weak and I pay for the expert advice but does it really work. Of course not, because the person who actually makes something out of life must not only be creative but also be good at marketing his creativity. He must market himself well over time. It is a requirement that we always forget. But I would leave that up to the readers to decide for themselves, what is right or wrong from an ethical point of view?

Moving over to Hirani-Bhagat fiasco, it is so obvious that it is a marketing gimmick. If the contents of the allegation are read with a probing mind, it can surely be known that both the parties ask the mass only one question," Have you read the book?" Of course if you haven't read Five point someone or haven't watched 3 idiots then you are missing the point.

Its a well orchestrated marketing symphony. And if this can be plotted against the unsuspecting youth of India, what a niche clientèle the self doubting readers turn out for the American publishing markets. Self help books mislead the reader into believing at his own weekness and create room for more doubt at his own abilites. How this is carried out a mass scale requires a willingness to probe, discarding our current myopic stance that we seem to have surrendered to.

In the business of creativity there is always money to be made and dexterity at duping people to be proved. Let us not turn victims to our self doubt.

After all I am not very positive about " Positive thinking" :)

The End

Towards light...

Darkness somewhere confines

The light that is about to shine.

And swirled in the shadows it pleads

" Free me, for its my time!"

Unaware it is to my plight

Of seething pain and ever blinding sight.

My face is furrowed and grown many a lines

Though Time laughs and says, "you are doing just fine."

Draped in dreams, I gaze at the stars,

Take me away to the world I feel so far.

Moist honey lips,

twirl of hair,

dark eyes,

and face so fair

Who are you that lay in my arms

Wrapped with such soft wily charms

Are you a speck in my dream or

Are you glorious reality...

While I muse lying beneath the stars,

I believe

Love wins over many a wars

The end