Ignominy

~ revel in revelation
~By a Unknown Artist

Unknown, I am
Knowing so much yet to be told
About here where then when; among others
of trivial tragedies and surreal farces.
A deeper understanding, unwittingly old
A secret, unassailable in hiding

Unknown, I am
Knowing so much yet much unknown
Of rows, alleys, and streets, and mazes
natural and unnatural, that ceaselessly amaze.
A deeper understanding, hollow and vain as shown
A secret, incomplete in hiding

Unknown, i am
Knowing so much yet no more
Composed of empty boxes and songless words;
effective in a fight, like a sheath without its sword.
A deeper understanding, shallow at the core
A secret, inconsequential in hiding

Stories Happen

A simple move, not at all that easy, must be done. If you change the place you live, you pack up all your stuff and go. Me, it is a complicated matter with its own rites of passage–

I need to reminisce about how many happy memories were spent in these walls. Of the many victories celebrated and the bitter taste of defeat sweetened by a hopeful word. I remember the parties, the get-togethers; the place filled up by people, each with a link to me. Somehow, by a miracle of fate they all transpired to be under this roof at the same time, and all made possible by this place. Having one-to-one dinners with a friend; eating out of take-out boxes while holding whimsical conversations about our daily schedules. Those hours spent scribbling omens and motifs on the pad with the phone to my ear; whispering words of consolation to a heartbroken friend or just catching up with an old friend after being struck by an acute sense of déjà vu.

However the moments that really shine through are the ones spent alone, staring at the distorted serenity of the moon, through the skylight in the corner of the bedroom. Watching a procession of clouds stream by, marching on the beats of falling raindrops, and yet sitting by the side stranded in my pensive thoughts. Or, those monologues in front of the mirror, which always made me, look thinner, trying to gain confidence. It’s rueful to think that all this will be just another line in my story of a lifetime.

Every nook and cranny has a memory associated with it. A story tucked in here, a wordless poem spilled there. The cracked cement floor with its myriad array of shapes and hues mirrors the inner self irrespective of the mood. If seen from the door of the bedroom, a collection of dots resembles an amused smile, from another angle in a different light, a ghastly leering skull. The walls I spent many a hour boring with my eyes stare back at me – blank; as if already ready for a fresh start. They have already bid me farewell, but I still cling on.

To what? Every cardboard box is gone. Is it that easy, to just get up and go out the door, never to come back? Just throw away the keys? To walk by indifferently every time I cross this street on my way? To surrender the right of calling it my own? Is it that easy, like all the tenants in the building’s past have done before?

I confess its quaint charm enchanted me for a while, but after, there are no more enchanted days. The fascination which seemed it would last an epoch, is already wearing off. The magic has been discontinued; the quaint charm is off-centre. I tried to hold onto it for too long, in the end it was just another exercise in useless futility.

Now I need to go. It won’t answer my questions anymore. It is too mundane, too old, too known. Once it seemed its beauty was in the knowledge of every little secret, from the creak of the third floorboard from the door to the small space just enough for ants to crawl through beneath the kitchen counter. Now, it dawns on me - I was living in a fool’s world. All of a sudden, the ‘solid ageless’ walls have cavities I never knew of; secret passages for the rats, doors waiting to collapse on the next shove.

The company tells me it is beyond repair, and is surprised how I was able to stay here for so long. I am lucky they say that I got the best use out of it when I could. And now, I should get out before the whole thing just caves in on my head while I am reading a newspaper. It is beyond salvage for my modest means.

So it was ordained, and so it is. I guess I’ll go. I’ll walk out this door I have considered open for a long time, to close it permanently behind my back. Perhaps, one day I may return with nostalgia, to gaze at it and invoke the happier memories I left behind, but not for a long, long time. Meanwhile, I guess I’ll treasure the ones I do take.

The lesson learnt from this painful process of disassociation is to throw away the extra baggage and breakables I have, it is just too much of a hassle to take care of them anyway. I’ve already found a new place, one of those like-a-million-others-pre-fabricated tenements. It happily merges in and does not stick out. Still, I have signed the rent agreement for the shortest duration possible. Till the workplace is close to this place, I’ll survive here. The moment it becomes inconvenient in anyway, I’ll pack up and move in a jiffy. That is why; I have also gotten rid of all those clothes I always promise myself I will fit into again someday; along with all the extra baggage.

Better not have much stuff, because it just builds up my inertia to move. That feeling of belonging and laziness to let things be slowly creeps in, to not change, to hang onto the vestiges of a lost life are the things that make the process so intrusively painful. Don’t sink your roots too deep. Sometime or the other, the roots will wither away into dust whence they came from. I guess it IS easy.

To do what, you ask? To move on.

Be More

Just watched this ad from Titan



I really don't care that the ad is for Titan, because it doesn't really need a brand. The thought underlying the ad overshadows the brand, it can easily be any other product. The dialogues are succinct yet very telling when coupled with the visuals. They go..

“Be born everyday, aaj rockstar, kal pilot; and who knows what the day after.”

“Kabhi kisi anjaan station par utar kar dekho, kabhi kisi gumnaam shehar ka ticket katao.”

“Doosron ki galtiyon se kya seekhna, make your own mistakes, yaar!”

"And never resemble your passport photo for more than three months"

“Har subhah shock your reflection.”

"Explore."

“Bachpan mein toh kya kuchh nahin banna chahte the, why not today?”

“Be born everyday. Titan. Be more.”

These two words embody so much, they symbolize how life is nothing but a collection of experiences. To grow, to feel, to live is what life really is. Learning does not come from books only, it comes from doing; experiencing different stuff. It means living life to the fullest in the present, trying out things you have never even dreamed about.
Doing all those things you always promised you would someday do. To make that someday; today.

An Incomplete End

Are you real
or surreal?
A delightful illusion
or of feelings a diffusion?

The song which I beseech you,
My words do not reach you.
You promised there’d be no tears
Of distance I should not fear.

What do we still try to treasure?
With what scale do I measure.
Promises, we managed to break
Pain is all that I get to take

Remember! Remember?
We deign to remember.
That moment for long, is lost.
Those times, unforgettable are not.

A cherished memory,
a part of my history?
Or of cruel reality
A banal finality?

Is this the end?
My eternal friend

“This is the end, my only friend- the end” – The end by the Doors

morbid thoughts

A Broken Stream

My tribute to Edgar Allan Poe

Failure: - whether Apparent or not, Evident or not, True or not. Hurts. To work with a single minded devotion to achieve his goal, a thing for which he craves from the bottom of his heart. The thing which in his eyes defines him. He gives his level best, but still falling short of the target is not a thing easy to handle.

Just to see someone else climb the pedestal of triumph, with knowledge of the fact that he himself failed, feels as if an arrow pierces his heart, blinding one’s eyes with the sheer pain. Fortunately, sanity prevails, the realization dawns that whatever he is feeling is not right. A split second later, he claps along with the rest, for the moment his own aspirations recede from his thoughts, into the many corners of his convoluted mind.

If this was a fairy tale, and emotions predictable, I would stop here, but for the first time I am sorry that the story hasn’t ended.

Finally, when he is alone, constant fear gnaws at his heart, grief fills his mind, torturing the very soul. It brings to mind the fatal phrase, the root of all mischief “WHY ME??”

In the silence of darkness, panic grips him. His life has no meaning, his thoughts no direction, his own words seem hollow and worthless. He wants to run away, to take a drill machine and tear away these malignant tumors from his mind. Through the pain he does not wish to regain consciousness, he just wishes for it to end; no matter what the cost. At this point of time, nothing else matters, only relief from this excruciating pain. Family, friends, life, everything…nothing. There is only a growing sense of urgency. An urge to kill, to die.

As this burden of failure slowly brings him to his knees, he sinks into the bottomless pit of self-destruction. The pitch blackness overwhelms the glow of every positive thought, everything fades into the background. He feels as if naked, stripped of all dignity, wriggling worthlessly like some primordial creature. He opens his mouth to scream. To scream as the souls who are burnt in Tartarus for all eternity would, but his throat chokes. No words, only short gasps, like someone’s last breaths escape him. Slowly, very slowly, he sinks deeper into this black pit of failure. His eyes go black as if someone has pulled shutters over them. There is a continuous ringing in his ears like an annoying bee he would like to swat away. His own senses overpower him, dragging him deeper into the void.

Desperately, he searches for the escape hatch, he knows it’s there. He knows it, just isn’t able to find it. Desperately, he searches for an outlet, but he only clutches thin air. As his desperation builds so does his speed as he falls down the dreaded pit.

He doesn’t know what to do. What CAN he do??

His fall is suddenly broken by something cold. Fluid and yet unrelenting, before a sense of relief can come to his tortured soul, the fluid begins to rise. It just doesn’t rise about him, it flows into him through every nerve on his body. It’s pure unadulterated, exquisite pain. His mind goes into shock, reeling as if from an overdose. Slowly, similar to the curtains being raised for a horrific play, he registers the pain his nerves are yelling at him to feel. He still feels apart, like a spectator watching in horrified fascination. He could even clap if he wanted to. Suddenly, the pain rises to his throat, choking him. He tries to bring his arms to his neck as a reflex. However, with the fuse of his senses blown, he grows disoriented. The world about him begins to blur in its black and black forms.

His own limbs betray him, they refuse to follow the commands of his brain. It’s as if a puppeteer, much greater than himself, has taken over his strings. HE is there controlling him. He is simultaneously glad to be along and chilled to the bone to be without company. He holds his breath, trying to live through just this one moment. Slowly his agony magnifies, but he lets go. He lets go, and finds that he doesn’t float. Nothing goes away, everything just intensifies. Somehow, he manages to get up from the chair, managing to escape from his bonds. He stumbles over to the bed. He goes under, and then there is silence.

He closes his eyes. Tears do not come to him, only terrifying dreams of a starker reality. He begins to tremble, goose bumps rising on his skin. This is the time, the agnostic remembers God. He feels a hand clutch his heart, squeezing it tighter and tighter, almost as if to expel the pain. He can’t breathe or even think. Just the pain of it is enough to kill him. His struggles begin to cease. The pain does not stop, only submission begins. His eyelids drop, agonizingly slow. His breathing slows to a halt. Even when he is in harsh bright light, a calmer light darkness takes him. He breaches the boundary of the world of blissful freedom, the dreamless chasm of senselessness. Only now, his senses subside, the fear and pain finally releasing him and receding from his body. His mind soars through the valley. He never looks back to the stormy horizon disappearing behind him on the horizon.

He is once again free. He thinks once more.

He is.

Oh! So many..

- Pushkar Aggarwal

I really don't know who I had in mind when I wrote this. It started of as a goodbye message to a friend and then somehow ended up like this. Evidently, a little inspired by my recent forays into dramatics.

so many thoughts never aired,

so many words never said.

Waiting for the right time,

so many lines never completed.

Is this the tragedy of my life?

so many things never shared,

so many memories lost in the hay.

In your eyes,

so many moments I could have stared.

Is this the romance of my life?

so many smiles never cracked,

so many jokes never inflicted.

With a word or two,

so many tears I could have restricted.

Is this the comedy of my life?

So many things I would have found to say.

So many questions left in my head.

However, now I go away.

Happily or not, I will not say.

Is this the DRAMA of my life?

p.s. the font is inspired by my first play Bang, Bang You're Dead

Back with a bang

I am back to writing after what seemed as if the writers block had blocked my ink before coming even settling on paper, it returned.

From now on, I promise myself...two posts a month try to do justice to it

Also, this post marks the rechristening of this to rakhsup.blogspot.com
from conversations-with-nothingness.blogspot.com

Had gotten tired of writing such a long name :P