And one more day passes by; unheard of the pain, untouched by the foul air, and unwanted by the dreams within. There is a long night that one spends with 588 mL Vodka, 3 and 1/2 lemon, 21 85 mm Classic Milds, few oranges, few apples, and one FMCG 'namkeen'. Morning is a late affair and there, one spots the patches on face with edema and shouts at the image in mirror, but unheard just like the pain last day, it too meets same consequence. One doesn't (WANT TO) accept the image in there, but people/world see ONLY that. Have a happy living in the late morning. Dying by 7pm. Morbid at 11 pm. Dead by 3 am. Reincarnate at 9am.
Audacious by nature, restrained by 'living' in the world, timid by 'thinking' future, 'mortified' by choice. Ever wanted to break the shell? Ever wanted to live a reward, a passion, a thought? Ever lived any moment? Started feeling? One thinks of starting it all, as it is already "LATE IN THE MORNING".
Future
Future Perfect
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Sunday, October 11, 2009
The times, they ain't changing!
A very happy b'day to AB. Today, I went to one of the most destitute people I have ever seen. Sometimes life has so rude of turns on the most needy, that you are left with an awe of anger, frustration, helplessness, resolution to live for those people only. I just found one, or I shoud say I got a recharge for my well of hopes. There was no means of livelihood, which could make my incessant efforts to bring those people onto a common platform, fruitful. The hamlet was not the regular spot for any kind of scheme/project by any govt. organisation or non-govt. organisation. I wonder this is true since JL Nehru hoisted the tricolor at Red-Fort, for the first time.
Life has a remarkable absence of solace. Truce between the anxiety of an unsuccessful cropping season and a dying prospect of another in the offings is hard to notice.
Raising a voice for the most basic needs (ironically govt. calls these RIGHTS) is not the order of life here. Living under a frenzied air of uncertainty of life anymore, these people are striving under the sun, and just the sun. No water, no electricity, no roads - to nowhere, no skills, no brighter prospects, no...life.
I saw some of the most fearful faces, empty stomachs creating ear-exploding noise. Yes, this all and much more ado. All in the mighty Rajasthan. I pity on the rulers of this land who did make some of the strongest forts, fought some of the bravest battles, but forgot to move an inch on these ground. I pity more on the federal govt., which fails no notice myriad of our villages/hamlets in a situation like the village I met some of the poorest/helpless people of India.
My battle is now twofold. One, to get something done for the folks here; two, not to let any other village face the ruthlessness of the govt. functionary. I will raise my voice against every single misappropriation of rural India. I will try to make my actions more effective for the people of my India.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
At Haldwani (Uttarakhand) Railway Station en route to nowhere!
A final stop, a place contradictorily so desirous, a pack of small barren footed smiling faces near a small mud pool due to last nights heavy downpour, nearby a goat that knows no destiny and eating all the thorny bushes around only to be packed in a 100 Rs./kg mutton packet.
A vehicle in the reverse gear. A crow defying norms, bathing in clear looking mud.
Dust on the bowl shaped bun-basket of a banzaran, people jumping their share of pole vault to home across the railway track that smells not of metal not of rust on the track but of the shit all over it. The airs here smell foul. Everything seems so filthy.
The uprooted houses nearby and the uprooted smiles that are hard to find anymore on these dust-colored faces.
One cannot uproot the desire of these people to live their share of life in the homes they built, they too wanted to raise their kids to rock the world one day, but I don’t hear the call. The demolition can not take their dreams to the ground and this has to be realized, but I just dream. As hapless and helpless as these people are.
The foul smells find their origin both human and in-human.
A bookstall and an array of man-less mountains all watch over these people. The books, not sure of giving them knowledge and the mountains, too small to shelter these people.
I loathe uneducated education and I love the mountains, I live on.
A wind, mad and blowing leeward, I don’t know searching whose face to fill it up with the cruel emotions it has seen for so many days and weeks that turned to don’t-know-how-many years, of course smelling shitty.
Three GRP persons in conversation with two IB officials, looking lustily at the only banzaran wearing, but a fake smile. Remarkable hormonal tuning.
They think banzaras don’t have homes, so they don’t have anything, no nothing. Getting a home is an impossible task, so banzaras deserve nothing, for that matter. They think because they are in IB.
And they do away with the banzaras because banzaras don’t have any home, so no place is theirs. They act because they are in GRP.
They will shape the heart and soul of my country or are they shaping it?
A lad shooing smaller kids away from the air-conditioned hall, under-construction. This is his place to hangout. His pvr. His pizza-hut. His café-coffee-day.
Under-construction.
May be some day, he will get to know these things, for now his knowledge is confined to the fact this construction has nothing to do with his demolished home, but soon he will realize getting a home would have shaped his dreams good, big.
I don’t think one needs big house to shape a big dream. I have seen no such thing till the time I shaped one for me.
Here doom some of the strongest dreams, here some formulate the greatest of the designs, only here, homes get wrecked and here, they build railway stations.
Here, some sell incense sticks, sandalwood and rose smelling, here, gets the shitty smells over all other things, here, the book sellers sell their life and here, no one bothers to get one.
Here, I think about you and here, I should think about the banzaran instead, the IB officials and the GRP men, the kids, the lad, the destroyed homes, the wretchedness of dreams, the awry smell, the books and my country. This is really a place that must be worth everything to me. But this is a place that is nothing to me, instead.
The echoes of this place are fascinating and these go unheard, in the times when people don’t hesitate to kill someone for the sake of their unsolicited rights, their demands for special reservations.
In the times when spaceships delay their landings not because the Earth has become dirtier a place to come back on but due to the technical faults.
In the times when temperature rising makes G-8 worry more than the perennial African hunger-illiteracy-AIDS-many more, more than these all.
In the times when people go to the US for academic goals and eventual pursuits and they promise to change. Change what? To whom? They don’t know.
In times when inheritance of loss is the greatest found and the pursuit of happyness is traveled. In the times when Rafa clays his name immortal. In the times when Presidential elections are a mess and when a chief minister rides on state run buses and admits truth fearful-dreadful truth.
In the times when Beatles are history and Dylan still serenades first-hand.
In the times when apparent is not seen and unfathomable is what one thinks.
The echoes go unheard! May be someone has just put the mute button on.
Mountains big, giant and like a destitute lovers’ un-reached love/s always in the sight but never reachable, mock the tin-roof of this forlorn place.
A final stop. A place so contradictorily desirous.
A vehicle in the reverse gear. A crow defying norms, bathing in clear looking mud.
Dust on the bowl shaped bun-basket of a banzaran, people jumping their share of pole vault to home across the railway track that smells not of metal not of rust on the track but of the shit all over it. The airs here smell foul. Everything seems so filthy.
The uprooted houses nearby and the uprooted smiles that are hard to find anymore on these dust-colored faces.
One cannot uproot the desire of these people to live their share of life in the homes they built, they too wanted to raise their kids to rock the world one day, but I don’t hear the call. The demolition can not take their dreams to the ground and this has to be realized, but I just dream. As hapless and helpless as these people are.
The foul smells find their origin both human and in-human.
A bookstall and an array of man-less mountains all watch over these people. The books, not sure of giving them knowledge and the mountains, too small to shelter these people.
I loathe uneducated education and I love the mountains, I live on.
A wind, mad and blowing leeward, I don’t know searching whose face to fill it up with the cruel emotions it has seen for so many days and weeks that turned to don’t-know-how-many years, of course smelling shitty.
Three GRP persons in conversation with two IB officials, looking lustily at the only banzaran wearing, but a fake smile. Remarkable hormonal tuning.
They think banzaras don’t have homes, so they don’t have anything, no nothing. Getting a home is an impossible task, so banzaras deserve nothing, for that matter. They think because they are in IB.
And they do away with the banzaras because banzaras don’t have any home, so no place is theirs. They act because they are in GRP.
They will shape the heart and soul of my country or are they shaping it?
A lad shooing smaller kids away from the air-conditioned hall, under-construction. This is his place to hangout. His pvr. His pizza-hut. His café-coffee-day.
Under-construction.
May be some day, he will get to know these things, for now his knowledge is confined to the fact this construction has nothing to do with his demolished home, but soon he will realize getting a home would have shaped his dreams good, big.
I don’t think one needs big house to shape a big dream. I have seen no such thing till the time I shaped one for me.
Here doom some of the strongest dreams, here some formulate the greatest of the designs, only here, homes get wrecked and here, they build railway stations.
Here, some sell incense sticks, sandalwood and rose smelling, here, gets the shitty smells over all other things, here, the book sellers sell their life and here, no one bothers to get one.
Here, I think about you and here, I should think about the banzaran instead, the IB officials and the GRP men, the kids, the lad, the destroyed homes, the wretchedness of dreams, the awry smell, the books and my country. This is really a place that must be worth everything to me. But this is a place that is nothing to me, instead.
The echoes of this place are fascinating and these go unheard, in the times when people don’t hesitate to kill someone for the sake of their unsolicited rights, their demands for special reservations.
In the times when spaceships delay their landings not because the Earth has become dirtier a place to come back on but due to the technical faults.
In the times when temperature rising makes G-8 worry more than the perennial African hunger-illiteracy-AIDS-many more, more than these all.
In the times when people go to the US for academic goals and eventual pursuits and they promise to change. Change what? To whom? They don’t know.
In times when inheritance of loss is the greatest found and the pursuit of happyness is traveled. In the times when Rafa clays his name immortal. In the times when Presidential elections are a mess and when a chief minister rides on state run buses and admits truth fearful-dreadful truth.
In the times when Beatles are history and Dylan still serenades first-hand.
In the times when apparent is not seen and unfathomable is what one thinks.
The echoes go unheard! May be someone has just put the mute button on.
Mountains big, giant and like a destitute lovers’ un-reached love/s always in the sight but never reachable, mock the tin-roof of this forlorn place.
A final stop. A place so contradictorily desirous.
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Infidel images.
On an awry day of September, coming back from what you can call an “exercise to go back in time”, I was inducted into the program after working for more than 5 months in it.
Not necessarily, things are always waste of time and efforts.
Sometimes, it is important to look back at you from today and knowing what kind of a person you were on a given date/time/situation in the past. I had to become familiarize the heckler to the work I was doing. It was an odd battle between the nastiest of hecklers around the world and me.
He asked me ‘are you lying’? To my consternation, I had no choice but to lie, I said “No”.
What are the things you want in life? It can’t be any vaguer than this, and I replied as vaguely as possible. Satisfaction from what I am doing is all that I want.
Even before he could ask me, “how”, I got the ball in court and asked- what are the ways through which I can derive satisfaction from what I am doing.
Malevolence couldn’t come any harsher than this- he said, you are the biggest wastage of time in the whole world. You don’t even know what you are doing, what kind of a person you are, what are the things that you want from life. Well, a pause, and he was all over me and I was helpless to death.
Okay, I got my answers. I want death from life. And by killing it, I will derive satisfaction from life. And that is what I am trying to do.
That was one of the scariest of answers I have ever made, on the other hand, the most beautiful answer of my life, so far.
I want death of an air of social discrimination. Not by a person of another, but to me social discrimination starts from a person and ends at her/him.
I don’t know what my needs are, thanks to a monetary society that taught me ways to count my cash flow, ways to earn money, spend it, and analyze the cost of living! To compensate for something I was extravagant on, I have credit cards in my pocket and to pay the bills of my internet connection, I pay a small part of my salary. Irony stays put, I don’t know if I have to spend time or money on something I like in the world. I spend money on it and it frustrates me. I spend time on it, and veer off to do something else. I discriminate among my needs. I murder some of my needs and settle for the next best. It jolts me enough to cover my cornea with a fine sheet of social discrimination that I will spread like a disease to my kiths, my family, my friends, my colleagues, my work, my world.
I, having wasted some of my most precious time constructing passionate dreams for something that I didn’t like- going for a PhD, that I hated the most, can tell you what it means to do something that you don’t like and what are the paltry benefits that you settle for.
Life’s ugliest moments come unfolding in front of me and attached are the ways I killed them. Though the ways weren’t the smartest, I did that by my own. To exist in the world, to make a false smile sometimes, to drop a dishonest tear, I lied many a times. Then, I wasted time on covering the untruth.
I don’t how long I will go like this or find any other way to veer off to. How much I will be able to gain from life. Do we have to necessarily gain something, know something? Can’t we just live and let live? Can we not play a stupid game of wants and needs and ways to make them fulfilled? Can’t we forget intelligent ways to make WMDs, can’t we just forget complexity and learn only basic math? Can’t we un-bribe our souls, not asking them to settle for something they don’t want? Can we not ask about anything as vague as life, death, satisfaction, happiness, grief, passion, failure, success, love, empathy, and novelty? Can’t we stop questioning? Can I not ask the honesty of an effort, but see what it does?
I want death of all the questions; I am killing them one at a time, and deriving satisfaction from it. I am going successful, but surely I am not living, because at the long battle between me and what apparently was my sub-conscious mind (the nastiest heckler), I wanted to do something else.
Though the heckler was now silent and not asking anything more about life, I know it for sure, some odd day in October, he will bounce back with a fleet of questions.
May be the next time he will kill me.
B
Not necessarily, things are always waste of time and efforts.
Sometimes, it is important to look back at you from today and knowing what kind of a person you were on a given date/time/situation in the past. I had to become familiarize the heckler to the work I was doing. It was an odd battle between the nastiest of hecklers around the world and me.
He asked me ‘are you lying’? To my consternation, I had no choice but to lie, I said “No”.
What are the things you want in life? It can’t be any vaguer than this, and I replied as vaguely as possible. Satisfaction from what I am doing is all that I want.
Even before he could ask me, “how”, I got the ball in court and asked- what are the ways through which I can derive satisfaction from what I am doing.
Malevolence couldn’t come any harsher than this- he said, you are the biggest wastage of time in the whole world. You don’t even know what you are doing, what kind of a person you are, what are the things that you want from life. Well, a pause, and he was all over me and I was helpless to death.
Okay, I got my answers. I want death from life. And by killing it, I will derive satisfaction from life. And that is what I am trying to do.
That was one of the scariest of answers I have ever made, on the other hand, the most beautiful answer of my life, so far.
I want death of an air of social discrimination. Not by a person of another, but to me social discrimination starts from a person and ends at her/him.
I don’t know what my needs are, thanks to a monetary society that taught me ways to count my cash flow, ways to earn money, spend it, and analyze the cost of living! To compensate for something I was extravagant on, I have credit cards in my pocket and to pay the bills of my internet connection, I pay a small part of my salary. Irony stays put, I don’t know if I have to spend time or money on something I like in the world. I spend money on it and it frustrates me. I spend time on it, and veer off to do something else. I discriminate among my needs. I murder some of my needs and settle for the next best. It jolts me enough to cover my cornea with a fine sheet of social discrimination that I will spread like a disease to my kiths, my family, my friends, my colleagues, my work, my world.
I, having wasted some of my most precious time constructing passionate dreams for something that I didn’t like- going for a PhD, that I hated the most, can tell you what it means to do something that you don’t like and what are the paltry benefits that you settle for.
Life’s ugliest moments come unfolding in front of me and attached are the ways I killed them. Though the ways weren’t the smartest, I did that by my own. To exist in the world, to make a false smile sometimes, to drop a dishonest tear, I lied many a times. Then, I wasted time on covering the untruth.
I don’t how long I will go like this or find any other way to veer off to. How much I will be able to gain from life. Do we have to necessarily gain something, know something? Can’t we just live and let live? Can we not play a stupid game of wants and needs and ways to make them fulfilled? Can’t we forget intelligent ways to make WMDs, can’t we just forget complexity and learn only basic math? Can’t we un-bribe our souls, not asking them to settle for something they don’t want? Can we not ask about anything as vague as life, death, satisfaction, happiness, grief, passion, failure, success, love, empathy, and novelty? Can’t we stop questioning? Can I not ask the honesty of an effort, but see what it does?
I want death of all the questions; I am killing them one at a time, and deriving satisfaction from it. I am going successful, but surely I am not living, because at the long battle between me and what apparently was my sub-conscious mind (the nastiest heckler), I wanted to do something else.
Though the heckler was now silent and not asking anything more about life, I know it for sure, some odd day in October, he will bounce back with a fleet of questions.
May be the next time he will kill me.
B
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Himalaya to Aravali- people in peril
As I was rolling my bike over the speed-breaker near a village called Papdi in SE Rajasthan, a face turns back from the sidelines. Tears had just dried on face, full of dust and the voice as so thin that I couldn't hear what he wanted to utter. No time to think and no was to understand, I got him on the bike and at cruising speed of 80kmph, I realized I was going too fast, when the person started to cry. I was confused to the core. Who is this guy, what is his problem and what not?
I dropped him at the municipal hospital in Lakheri.
Next day, I saw the person moving barefooted on a 48 degree day in a semiconcious state. I took him into some shade, nearby and then the sky melted on me and Earth suddenly seemed to be slipping away from my feet. His 7 years old daughter died that day. I had the slightest of inklings of waht happened and how that happened. People around were too busy to heed to this person's greif, what to talk about sharing it. Mangi Lal is one of the poorest people in this one of the poorest patch of India. Not that all the people who didn't have time to think of Mangi Lal's situation are so by their nature, but they are so because of their circumstances and an heavy ignorance, sequentially by the Rajputana, the Mughals, the Britishers, the Indian democratic red tape, the God. On that very day, some one from a village just 5km of Papdi died of a freak accident, someone got her hand under a thresher, someone lost his two fingers trying to get on a Jeep to Kapren....the count goes on and the penury aides it.
I saw a star falling from sky yesterday, Maa told me one day to wish something , if I see such a thing. Imagine what I wished? Wishing is not the way, I guess, so I silently went to sleep and woke up next morning to the whinings of my neighbor, who just lost all of her belongings last night, it was a theft. I was wishing a robber to rob my thoughts as well. I wish!
I dropped him at the municipal hospital in Lakheri.
Next day, I saw the person moving barefooted on a 48 degree day in a semiconcious state. I took him into some shade, nearby and then the sky melted on me and Earth suddenly seemed to be slipping away from my feet. His 7 years old daughter died that day. I had the slightest of inklings of waht happened and how that happened. People around were too busy to heed to this person's greif, what to talk about sharing it. Mangi Lal is one of the poorest people in this one of the poorest patch of India. Not that all the people who didn't have time to think of Mangi Lal's situation are so by their nature, but they are so because of their circumstances and an heavy ignorance, sequentially by the Rajputana, the Mughals, the Britishers, the Indian democratic red tape, the God. On that very day, some one from a village just 5km of Papdi died of a freak accident, someone got her hand under a thresher, someone lost his two fingers trying to get on a Jeep to Kapren....the count goes on and the penury aides it.
I saw a star falling from sky yesterday, Maa told me one day to wish something , if I see such a thing. Imagine what I wished? Wishing is not the way, I guess, so I silently went to sleep and woke up next morning to the whinings of my neighbor, who just lost all of her belongings last night, it was a theft. I was wishing a robber to rob my thoughts as well. I wish!
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About Me
- Bharat
- I am you and happy that way. I live in the words I utter and I die for the words I utter.