A long time later

Life eventually becomes those things that Science-fiction promised it was going to be. The robots and the machines and the computers that the good old stories warned us about is the age we live in. Growing up is realising Flash Gordon was about colonialism, alienism is about colonialism, humans are a race of creatures, who are stuck in various phases of evolution simply because they refuse to let the past go. History is a story written by power and as one of the greatest epic writers of our generation puts it, "power lies where men believe it lies". When power was about religion people turned to the agents of the gods now power is about money, so people turn to agents of paper money instead. But power is constant. Power is the accumulation of riches. Whoever, accumulates wealth is powerful. But what of an age where currency is a dilute concept. Where borders are imaginary and nations are imagined. Where the imagination is not about the ego of a person but of the ego of a race. What's happening in Kashmir is about the ego of a nation state. The systematic wipeout of memories and collective forgetting will just not do. It will just not do to forget. So one must read. One must remember. The dark dreams of the lost traveller become darker and darker. A shade of blue darker every night. But then again, these are dark times. Everyone's demons are alive with them. Demons are no longer para-normal, they inhabit the realm of the normal, and are conveniently brushed under the carpet as necessary evils. But necessary evils will not do, they will have to stop. Because army is a necessary evil. Banks are necessary evils. Governments are what some people decided was the lesser evil. But as long as power is about protecting the haves from the have nots, evil will remain in the roots. No amount of awareness, writings, artworks or social theories will change anything. In the end the lone person has only one real weapon for battle, the courage to be different, the courage to imagine a world other than the one we live in. The dark dreams of the lost traveller get darker and darker.

Darker dreams of the lost traveller

When I first started out with this blog I was this naive girl who had just come out of school, trying to make a mark. But 5 years down, I'm tired of trying, 5 years down I am a defeated idealist. I believe in a lot more than I used to yet I find myself always and eternally lost. Lost is not a thing it is a direction, I have come to realise. Lost is being able to hold on to the hope that we can still chase our childhood dreams and colours. Honestly, lost is a way of life. One that we convince ourselves is not valid but we are all lost. Some acknowledge it, some don't. Some run away from the reality and some embrace it with all their heart.
Today no matter how hard I try the Bypass will never look the same, the VIP road will never be as empty and beautifully lit, today my illusions meet reality. Reality is infinitely more exciting and beautiful than the illusions we run after, yet we keep running? Why? When they elude us we go towards the dark of our soul searching for them, why? Because that is all. Our directions our heart's secret GPS keeps us lost in the wilderness. Life is not a reality it is the illusion of reality and to keep living it, we must be lost. In further simulations. In created realities. Because we just have to. That is life. These are the compulsions of reality and its infinity. Infinity doesn't make sense, infinity cannot be quantified. Infinity is the last dark dream of this lost traveller.

Meeting The End

Today I'll pen down a story of a man who could not make his dreams come true. For a long time I have dealt with all sorts of unhappy endings. Today I want to deal with someone who doesn't have an ending. Closure is a boon of sorts. Without it you are just another traveller without a goal and lost in time. Every man fights to meet his closure. While death is the most fearsome of forces it is also the only ultimate closure man can truly have. We are all looking for some form of closure or the other. Be it examination results, or admission into an ivy league college, we are all waiting for our expectations to be fulfilled. What if someone never has a closure. What if someone has to meet his maker without having his closure? What then?

There once lived a happy man who seemed at peace with himself. He was happy because he had the right amount of everything. But these men do not exist do they? The pursuit of happiness is a journey that you follow all your life. There are moments of pure bliss, maybe during these moments we can call a man truly happy. Then again we may never know of the price he may have paid for that one moment in time. So, my story is about a man in such a moment of time and his journey to that moment and afterwards. This moment in his life maybe anything. The moment he gets the news of his admission to an ivy league college, or the moment when he meets a closure. You may imagine this moment as you wish. The journey towards this moment was one filled with anticipation, judgement hopes and insecurities. The journey from this moment will also eventually include all these emotions and more.A funny fact about this bitch called life, is that in your journey you will meet the closures that don't matter to you as much as to the people around you, much too oftenly. But the closures you are really seeking will be playing around with you. They'll dance right under your nose in their underwear and there will be absolutely nothing that you can do to make them look into your eyes and give out the truth. For an example, when a house gets raided by burglars and those pigs are never caught people tend to tell themselves that bad things happen and we must "move on". But the question is do they really move on? Can they ware off the nightmares about those pigs being out in the open? Are you telling me that there is a day when they do not hope for the wrong doers to be caught and punished. No they hope, they hope alright, but they tell themselves that closure will be met tomorrow. How does a girl who has been harassed and traumatised by a man deal with him going unpunished. She blames him for all her wrong decisions even though he may have no remote connection to her decisions. She just justifies to herself that her wrongdoings is a result of her not meeting her closure.

At the very end the choices that we have are either to let go or to fight to meet closure before we meet our maker. Either ways it s not an ending. If you let go, you do not meet closure because you lost the passion for truth. If you hold on , and do not meet closure its because you were out of time. So its an unhappy ending as the lifetime's pursuit becomes a forgotten part of history and it is a happy ending because either you went fight down or you went with some peace. " "Letting go" is a tough choice in life. If taken at the wrong time you maybe called a loser, then again if taken at the right time it may be a wise decision.

A Suicide Note

Thank You, darkness, deceit and mistakes. You carved the path of my life. Darkness, you helped me be blind so that I could follow deceit and succumb to mistakes. Thank You.

I'm sorry Love, Hope and honesty. I believed in love, I hoped for a happy ending but honesty broke my dreams when I succumbed to mistake. I'm sorry.

I love you, Family friends and My sweetheart. Mom you tried to hold on but Dad you gave up its okay I still love you. I'm sorry for the times i failed to bring the report card you hoped for or the salary you thought would keep us running. I'm sorry for making the wrong choices. Friends you told me what to do and what not but I never gave a damn to you, I'd do my thing any ways. I'm sorry I could not be a more loyal friend. Sweetheart, you loved me with all your life, but I'm sorry I betrayed you. I'm sorry I gave up on us. I love you.

Take care,betrayal, my most loyal companion. You were there when I stole the tiffin money of the girl that sat next to me, you were there when I lied to my best friend and broke her first date, you were there when I slept with the charming friend I never loved while my vows were made to My love. Take care betrayal, take care enough to show others some mercy.

Farewell, Life, the laughter of childhood games, the tears of the first love, the victories of the first success the realisation of the last mistake. Farewell.

A Toy for life

One upon a time there was a little boy who was always grumbling for something or the other. None of the riches in the world satisfied him. One fine day he wanted to play, so his father a man whose name was greatly revered across the world, bought him a beautiful girl off the slave market to play with. He called her Tears as her face was always tear streaked and she could never say what her name was. His father named him Cain. Cain found his newest toy a very obedient friend to play with who would lose everytime so that Cain could feel happy that he was winning.

He grew up knowing that he was the best because Tears had never won a game against him, she had never known all the beautiful letters that he did, she could not count as fast as he could and he was always better than the most beautiful girl in the land. One day he was waiting for her to come down in her flowing dress and join him at his game where he would first scold her for being absent at breakfast, when his teacher came and told him, "She will not come today sir, she will join you in your games in a few days till then you must stay with me." This was when she was 12 and he was 14.

He never saw her again untill he was old enough to have the company of women.

These growing up years he spent behind closed doors in boundaries of four walls in famous universities where he learnt everything that a fine young Gentleman ought to learn. He learnt to be honest, to be generous, to be responsible, to be chivalrous. He learnt manners, he learnt to behave in ways that would set him apart from the rest. All this he learnt the way children learn their alphabets. He graduated to be a fine learned gentleman who could appreciate poetry, count well, write in different hands, paint pictures desolate and beautiful and above all think well.

His father was a proud man, the day Cain returned. He threw a grand party in his honour and announced that his son would now apprentice with him and soon join his father's craft. Thus he was a happy man. Cain was congratulated by many faces that day most greeting with rich gifts of colognes, books, and gems. But one smile kept haunting him. She was the daughter of his father's aquaintance who was extremely beautiful and sought after by most men. Her smile, eyes, complexion, curves were exactly the way they were supposed to be, exactly the way every man wanted it to be. She was engaged to be married and she was gaily showing off her ring while her peals of laughter rang in his ears long after she was gone.

The next day he asked his servant about her residence and got away early from his father's workshop under the excuse of meeting friends. He went to her house hesitated at her door, but soon decided he would not be a gentleman. He noticed the figure of the beautiful girl lurking near the western window. He wrote a letter, tied it to a stone and threw it high up to reach her window. After a few misses it finally hit. Soon enough there was a figure of a beautiful girl at the window, she smiled, looked aweay and moved away from the window. Cain kept waiting. Soon his stone hit him back.

The next few days flew past like a dream, they met in secret, his happiness knew no bounds. He spent his sleepless nights smiling at every memory of her in his arms. Then his perfect love story got spoiled forever.

His father approached him one day with a proposal of a marriage.

The next day he went to meet The girl, and that day she didnt come down to the garden but she left a letter for him under the tree they always met. She got married, and she said she loved her husband, she loved the man yet Cain would remain her best friend.

Heartbroken Cain visted the local pub where he met a girl. She led him away to a room. Then on every night he visited her. He envied her. She changed men every hour or so yet she was a freer bird than he was. She would get away with doing things as all she would have to hear is Harlot. She could live anyway she wished and not many people would mind. She would not be able to face her creator yet she was in no need of a judgement day. Her life was one long judgement day. How he longed to be a vagabond as her.

He agreed to a proposal of marriage and got married to a virtous virgin who cared about her cutlery, her furniture and his house. She made a gossipy young housewife with no real desires. She would respond to her husband's lovemaking advances most coyly yet there was no intensity of their love.

The harlot became his best friend, the person whon he confided in, the girl he made love to and the pillar of his strength. One day when he went to meet her after a hard day's work she lay in her bed crying. That night he stayed on with her and promised to stand by her forever. He promised to be her best friend.

Next night she was no more. They said that she died of a broken heart. Someone said she loved a man who promised her everything but his life and that broke her heart. He asked the passing pall bearers who she was, they said she was called Tears. Bought in a slave market sold in another she spent her life making her way through auctions yet he knew she was his toy, always till the very end.

A tear betrayed Cain's smiling face.

Dreams they mean so much to me!

Its been a few days since i have been dogged by some particularly horrendous dreams. These dreams follow me everywhere. Be it seeing myself as a bride who set herself on fire or a wife who is being tortured and raped for dowry, the dreams always feature me. During these times i wake up shaken and let out a sigh of relief to be back into a world thats less harsh. I realise how dark my subconscious is. I realise that all those horrible memories have embedded themselves deep in my memory, somewhere they were never entirely erased. They remained, and are coming back to haunt me in my dreams. Not the most convinient situation to be in!

After asking a couple of friends what my disturbing dreams could mean one of them gave me a rather interesting explanation. He said, that finally after many years the rather easily-excitable-uttu was settling down. The physical, change of becoming a calm mature utsarjana has been noted by most of my friends, but what they have missed out is that as long Uttu was a butterfly who fluttered around, she had a calm heart and which took refuge in a rather jumpy body, and now that she is settling down something within has been stirred awake and the beast screams to be let out. The beast of insecurity has been stirred awake as the shell of Utsarjana is finally setting down. The soft heart within refuses to let in a stranger while the shell has opened its doors to a new person. The deeper the person goes the more repelled the heart is. Now the question is whether the stranger will settle down in my heart or walk away even after having upset the beast and waking it up from its dreams.

Stranger i loved you not knowing who you'd be!

This time you've got to make me believe!

This time I trusted someone all over again!

I can only hope time will prove this as the right lane!

Moreover two people who have known me for considerable lengths of time have said that now the Uttu we knew is growing up! Woo hoo! Growing up sure feels great!

The vision it keeps coming back

You light a candle, block out the light

live by the halo, carry on the fight.

The darkness you create, you live by it,

you dream desperation you feel split.

You think that all's right then think again

On second thoughts you've missed the train.

You stopped to look but the train flew past

Now you're left stranded at the day's last.

You want to light the candle again,

But the light is now gone and taken.

So you pack yourself away

crying the night, searching for the day.

Daylight comes you smile again,

You think you hear the chugging in vain.

Then the steam in the distance you spot

you think life's come back for your second shot.

On leaving the harbour of dark dreams

You hope not to return in those weird fits.

You chug away leaving behind your lost self

You come back to life with a better "Myself".