The Invasion

When you brought the outsider 
To the quiet of this hill, 
His loud mannerisms 
And his erudite conversations 
Drowned the nightingale song 
And the sky was suffused with the flutter of wings 
In diaspora. 

With heavy steps 
He walks now 
Ascending 
The summit of our secret 
Where a flower grows - 
A wildflower 
Among the wilderness, 
A dull flower 
Wet with dew, 
A pallid white spot 
Among the green, 
A nameless flower 
Ashamed now 
Of being there - 
A native embarrassment 
Under a foreign gaze, 
It quietly broods. 
It is to be uprooted now 
Or will it be trampled upon? 

And as the sun settles 
In the heart of the sky, 
The monkey 
Swings from branch 
To branch 
Escaping the poacher's gun. 
A shot, 
Lightning, 
An unheard thunder 
In this quietness. 
And this fear is unknown 
And this fear is deep 
And settles 
Under the stones 
Of running streams. 
The ape, 
Misses a branch now, 
Comes crashing down. 
Crimson blossoms 
Are gently shed. 

The sky, 
Now drenched in blood, 
Is a memory 
Of what has been 
As a crow laments, 
Somewhere, 
At regular intervals, 
Lost in thought. 
A bee still lingers 
In the scent of a flower, 
Humming a tune 
In drunkenness 
Oblivious that night is near. 
And the flower 
Folds its petals close 
In an embrace 
As a cold breeze gently 
Ruffles its bare limbs. 

Night has seeped in 
Slowly, secretly, 
In the throat of a frog now, 
Now in the murmur of streams. 

And as I sojourn here 
In this last tranquility, 
Floating with fireflies, 
Now bright, now dim, 
Now dimmer, 
I see the blinding approach 
Of a torchlight. 
___

Allusion

I write love poems

because I’m selfish.

I give you flesh

in broken words and phrases

so in the white spaces

I might possess you.

I capture you between words

and sentences laying you down

in lines.

I place a comma

so you might breathe

and come to life

for me.

I place a full-stop

now here, now there,

almost carelessly,

so you might cease

and listen

to me.

I give you thoughts

in words and words from thoughts

so you might agree.

I give you a face

in a verse.

I make you smile

or perhaps flood you

in a trail of letters

swimming down your cheek

to believe

they are yours to give.

(But if I dare be honest,

they are only mine.)

Two symmetrical phrases

slide down to become hands

as I caress them

under the sharpness of my pen;

they come alive

in slow dancing movements

to form an embrace

in a complete sentence.

I wish to give you wings...

But then I’d better not.

I write love poems

because I’m selfish.

so that I might possess you

and grant you the gift of eternity.

But within the folds

of my pages

you will be lost one day,

to be smudged

burnt and buried.

You too!

You intangible one.

Yet I have sat down to conjure

lifeless words,

sentences, verses, scattering

commas and full-stops

across barren sheets

to resurrect you;

so that I can play God

and grant you justice

for your indifference

and hate.

I write love poems

so that you might love

me.

The Piano

Starring: Holly Hunter, Harvey Keitel, Sam Neill, Anna Paquin
Director: Jane Campion
A mute woman, Ada (Holly Hunter) and her spirited daughter, natives of Scotland, find themselves on the shores of 19th Century New Zealand. They wait for Stewart, a colonist and Ada’s husband by arrangement. Among her belongings the piano, Ada’s prized possession and her voice, stands menacingly in front of the sea. Stewart, against her wishes, orders for the encumbering piano to be left behind on the shores as they enter the wilderness.

The natives of the region, the Maori, represent values which strongly oppose the husband’s Victorian sensibilities, especially in matters of sexuality and marriage. Ada and her daughter are suddenly caught between these two world as they seek a place of their own. The piano, which becomes the cause of the estrangement between Stewart and Ada, arouses violent passions within Baines, a rugged, earthy illiterate who has adopted the Maorian ways. He helps Ada retrieve her piano and in exchange takes lessons from her, which become a series of threatening sexual encounters. The strong-willed Baines, overcome with passion, turns gentle and passionate as his love for Ada deepens. The film is an exploration of human character, eroticism and sexuality finding release behind locked doors. It thematically observes the tug-o-war between the individual and an oppressive society, between passion and reason.

The cinematography is brilliant: The blue-grey tones prevalent in most of the scenes provide a depressing, haunting quality contrasted by the use of rich, warm colours during the love scenes. The symbolism in the film is significant: The piano itself is a metaphor – It is Ada’s voice but it also represents a destructive passion that consumes her. The sea with its waves symbolise the turbulent forces of life itself. The sea that brings Ada to the shores of New Zealand ends up engulfing her piano. The music is minimalistic, sensual and a tangible presence in the film, composed by Michael Nyman. Hunter, an able pianist, plays her own pieces.

The Piano is a stimulating experience and a must-watch for those who seek more in cinema

Ode to Clothes

by Pablo Neruda

Every morning you wait,
clothes, over a chair,
to fill yourself with
my vanity, my love,
my hope, my body.
Barely
risen from sleep,
I relinquish the water,
enter your sleeves,
my legs look for
the hollows of your legs,
and so embraced
by your indefatigable faithfulness
I rise, to tread the grass,
enter poetry,
consider through the windows,
the things,
the men, the women,
the deeds and the fights
go on forming me,
go on making me face things
working my hands,
opening my eyes,
using my mouth,
and so,
clothes,
I too go forming you,
extending your elbows,
snapping your threads,
and so your life expands
in the image of my life.
In the wind
you billow and snap
as if you were my soul,
at bad times
you cling
to my bones,
vacant, for the night,
darkness, sleep
populate with their phantoms
your wings and mine.
I wonder
if one day
a bullet
from the enemy
will leave you stained with my blood
and then
you will die with me
or one day
not quite
so dramatic
but simple,
you will fall ill,
clothes,
with me,
grow old
with me, with my body
and joined
we will enter
the earth.
Because of this
each day
I greet you
with reverence and then
you embrace me and I forget you,
because we are one
and we will go on
facing the wind, in the night,
the streets or the fight,
a single body,
one day, one day, some day, still.

Departure

One never truly knows until the very end, that things end. We are so hopelessly bereft of wisdom. We go around and around, turning and turning, spiraling out of control, looking this way and that, never at the face of our existence, defying all that life is to create our own personal experiences for our little tremulous lives. And thus we never know. We never know what it is that we truly do. We can never know. But then as the susurrus of pages turning and turning slowly dies to reveal a dreaded quiet, as the hard liquid ink becomes lighter and lighter, as we draw ourselves closer to exhaustion, we see that things are quite different and that we have been grievously wrong about everything we have known. Who can truly believe, with all earnestness, in the moment of a song, the next hours will be spent in silence?

A friend, lover, companion went away this night. And I sit here, now trying to fill the vacuum that he has left behind. I am suddenly given the responsibility to inhabit this room alone. Suddenly, it is quiet, empty, different. The previous hours in his mirthful company have withered to become memory. And while this memory lingers, it invokes his absence. During the long drive to the airport, I thought I was going somewhere else, somewhere to be together but never to part. The vast city with its unblinking lights felt safe and at a distance. It was even beautiful. But then as we neared the massive structure of the airport, things began to crumble and evade me. I’ve never truly been happy at airports and railway stations. Some woman bundled up in a corner, or a child sitting on one of those red plastic seats is always sad. Furthermore, in that hurry and running around one never realizes how truly sad one is. It is only after that departure, after that one moment when the clasp loosens, when a beloved is swallowed by a wave of strangers the realization occurs. Something is over. Irrevocably changed.

The long drive back is arduous when one is alone; the city at night is a sad thing, especially when the residual warmth of a dear companion has settled in the folds of your shirt; when your hands still bear a faint remembrance of his scent. And this is no compensation for your loss but a cruel reminder of that very loss. It is not memory. It is absence.

We embraced tightly to make up for all the embraces that will not be. We looked into each other’s eyes, briefly, mumbled incoherent words; mumbled a little more. But a hard bulging noise had deafened our ears. I got into the cab and looked straight ahead, firmly, as if I was the one going somewhere. He did the same and walked on, pushing his cart carrying his luggage, and was soon swallowed by a wave of strangers. But he was definitely going somewhere. He was going away.

Descent

As I close the door behind me, and lock it, the world outside is a lost thing, a vaporous memory dissolving, drifting into blue depths, eroding as the wind grows stronger. I hear it moaning but faintly from within this tranquility.

As I walk further into the depths of this quiet, I forget what it was like there, as if I am forgetting a dream as the day proceeds. The air is still, here in the depths of this underworld. The sound of my feet on the amorphous sand disturbs the fragile order of this secret. I leave marks behind me as I walk on, vestiges of a world that must never find a way here. The sand gently evens itself, removing the memory of my path. Nothing is to be remembered here. The curse of time has not befallen this underworld. There is no past here, no future. It is immortal.

Its walls slowly enfold me; the quietness enmeshes me and soon I will be a part of this place. Soon I will become this place.There is a faint smell of things still, of something lingering, of flesh and of blood, like the remains of a lover within the folds of a quilt at dawn – the smell of loss. But it is only me who has carried this smell from above; it is not of this place. The smell pollutes the sanctity of this region’s nothingness. To bring anything here from the outside world is a sin.

The ancients seem to have settled here, sediments of a turbulent history, now a part of the region’s crust; the ghosts have been resurrected but their memories forgotten – they are alive here, present. The wraiths float in serpentine trails, hidden behind gray pillars now, now suddenly a glimmer in the translucent light, whispering in echoes. They rise and fall and disappear.

Here, where the purple flowers grow upside down, where the rocks are wet and green with water; where the lake is still, undisturbed even by those who live in its depths, what does the world outside matter? Let it be destroyed, let it end. I care not. I have long inhabited a dream. Now I am free.

Recollections from a Diary III

15th Feb

Lunch on Founder's Day (of Hindu College). I don't know who the founder was. All he has amounted to, for most, is free food. I had my fill. The weather has been unworthy of description. In other words, dull with occasional but sallow sunlight.

The future is bleak. I have seen it in some people's faces and heard it in their conversations. They predict the end of things, for me. But the world will go on, indifferently, smug to have outlasted some of us. And 'this' occupies so much space, even though I cannot name it, even here - it is the unnameable. I have no courage to confront it nor do I have the ability to escape it. Am I already dead? If not, I'd prefer death than be mortified by this suspension.

J, you might be in love with a corpse.

17th Feb

At Af's place, this night.

This vinous dark, affected by this bloody wine. He says my presence is calming; it does not compel the otherwise garrulous man to talk. Is it so? My quietness, the

consequence of the torment within my mind, calms him! I would believe my company to be rather uncomfortable, disturbing even. He understands it to be the contrary. And this fact, strangely, instills a strange confidence within me. I can use this to my advantage; as a weapon. The piquant taste of wine is dark, metallic, somnolent. Its inebriation is calming, peaceful and terrible.

23rd

As the days pass, I am pulled closer to the bleak future. It is bleak because it is uncertain and to be in uncertainties is a frustrating thing! I am brought closer and closer to it as if I were strapped to a conveyor belt among other random things, to be fed into a cruel machine and be rendered homogeneous. Homogeneity means to be made equal, common, same - measured and contained; to be stripped of one's idiosyncrasies, strengths and weaknesses. It means to have one's face stolen. And one's thoughts subjected to oblivion.

But when I meet that future, it will no longer be uncertain. It will harden into a fact - dense, immutable, irrevocable. And I fear it will be a terrible thing. But uncertainties are frustrating too. A contradiction again! What am I to do?

27th

The end of another chapter. It should end even though my heart is turbulent with confusion. I cannot go back to J again. Not as before. This 'revolution' too must be quelled

like all other revolutions. Revolutions can never truly last long. Order is/must be finally restored with compromise and/or bitter consequences. And it shall be bitterness for us.

I decide this alone for the both of us, but I believe this is the only thing to be done. No more suspense; enough procrastination. We were, after all, never meant to be.

And it is with great pain, I end this chapter. A certain poet (I forget

his name) said, 'Love is eternal for as long as it lasts.' And so was ours. Now I must extricate this love which has become an essential part of my heart; and I will bleed, I know, but I'd rather have all my blood pour out than have fire in my veins.

Recollections from a Diary. II

14th Feb

Valentine's day! In J's room, this morning. But I don't believe in the concept. As if this is the pinnacle of all love. I read somewhere, about a million cards are exchanged on this particular day. (One doesn't count the ones that are rejected? Or the ones that are too scared to be rejected? What about the ones that are sent with love and torn with hatred and disgust?) What a waste of paper, time and effort! And those pseudo-poems written in them - heart-wrenching!

This is a beautiful morning! And I'm happy. At ease with the occasional breeze that rustles the leaves; this blue freshness. The clear sunlight casts a net of shadows at the windowsill and the crow caws, at regular intervals, in longing. The flutter of pigeon wings and a great bird expands its black feathers as it flies across the skies.

And yet I am aware, in this happiness, that all this is transient. (The sound of a helicopter disturbs the sanctity of this morning.) I ask, 'This feeling, is it becoming rarer and rarer or am I just stepping into it?' I cannot be certain. Let me just be for now.

It is almost noon; the sun is almost over-head. I walked out of J's room and into the university gardens. I'm sitting here, alone, and a thousand flowers show their coloured faces to the sun. I do not know their names. I would like to.

Some people walk nearby, conversing loudly. Annoying humans!

The bees are feasting in this sweet abundance, and drunk with nectar, they seem to stagger in their flights. A breeze passes. An azure delight. The flowers are tremulous in the wind.

A worm walks with a hundred feet. It goes around in circles. What is it thinking? At least, it seems troubled, looking there and here, as if it lost something, or it can't find its way to wherever it has to go. It has some appointment to keep. If it had hands, I am certain, it would give its head occasional scratches. But nevertheless, it is insignificant. After all, who writes about a worm? Unless its for some bio project.

This is a nice place. I should come here more often - it seems to have a cleansing quality. I don't know what I mean. Perhaps, its calming. And yet I am slightly uncomfortable with this neat arrangement. Everything seems too controlled; they're afraid to take too much liberty, lest some flower raising its head at an unusual angle or from somewhere it is not supposed to be, should be beheaded.

Am I like those bees haunting innocent flowers, storing nectar in the depths of their mouths for future consumption? Am I like them as I walk here and sit there, collecting sentences, purloining words from flowers, trees, the flutter of wings, from shadow and smoke, from this clear morning?

What for?

Recollections from a Diary. I

22nd Jan. This year.

A bitter morning.

It is as if winter has no intention of leaving any time soon. They heavy fog, as Dr. Saint half-jokingly puts it, has settled in the mind. And under the weight of this heaviness, the classes have resumed.

The cold clings to my depths and there something dreadful lies embedded. I must return something to a certain AW but I fear, at this moment, I am in no capacity to do so. I wonder if this alone is the cause of my present anxieties. Not really. Although, it adds to the burden. Lies have only begotten more lies and I seem to be going around in circles. It needs to stop; I need to step out of this nauseous circle. But where do I muster the courage? The strength?

J and I had an argument of sorts - not too damaging - half jovial, half bitter. Does man have an essence? He said 'yes'. I disagreed. Fervently, we both disagreed with each other. But I wonder now, if the disagreement lay in our opinions or exclusively for each other.

Evening - I must go for a run.

My clothes are wet, unfolded and untidy, spread all over the room like the remains of a bad argument.

Later.

Why am I keeping this journal? Is it only for my private writings and secret perusal?

Already I feel a little weary and dismayed reading what I have written here. (On the first day itself?) Something seems amiss, lacking. The more important thoughts are ever elusive and I fail to communicate them, even to myself. But is this journal reserved only for such thoughts. Is the 'petty' and 'trivial' too petty, too trivial? I guess I'm shackled to this compulsive search for statements of 'profound' significances.

23rd

At a stranger's b'day party. He's t be 21 this midnight. 21 - the threshold of adulthood, according to the law. A comfortable setting in the balcony, this night.

The stranger is J's friend. A charming man - slow-paced, unhurried. But again that must just be the inebriation.

Then there's this other guy with his long, artistic fingers and his hissing s's. He say he's doing law but he's not particularly interested in it. Anyway, what does it matter to me? Lovely hands! But perhaps that's about it.

26th

1 am. Happy Republic Day! I am not particularly distraught at the moment but I am a bit annoyed. It is as if 'they' impose the norm of happiness upon us citizens. Anyone deviating from this norm must be mad. But enough of this!

As you see, I'm not in my patriotic best. Never have been really! It is apathy I feel for this country/concept. Am I to feel guilt? Why?

Just got down with composing a song with AW. Quite a product really! And in just two hours! Don't know what is should be called though.

I had a chat with an old man last night. According to him, he had been a principal at a certain school, in Australia. He called himself Jon. A pleasant conversation. He had the maturity in his tone that is characteristic of such old men - he was comforting , kind and at the same tome rational, knowledgeable. One particular thing he said still reverberates. "You are lucky to belong to your generation." He was referring to its tolerance and acceptance of newer, progressive beliefs. But perhaps that tolerance, acceptance is really indifference. The time is such. One must witness so many things, be exposed to so many ideas - of a past of thousands of years and then the present with myriads of images, an eternal sleeplessness affected by television shows that run 24/7 and of course 'night life'. Et cetera, et cetera. How's the individual, belonging to this generation, truly to measure the immeasurable and qualify and quantify things? It does not understand what it is to be shocked - It has done it all, seen it all. 'Nothing to be done.' Its emotions are minimal, short-lived. No grandeur! And everyone's interested in themselves. So the individual of this generation is completely disinterested and indifferent. It feels superficially. At times, it may shout slogans of this and that on the streets. But its voice is muted the moment it is comfortably indoors. Ours is a jaded generation.

29th Jan

The days are getting warmer reminding one of the approach of oppressive summer. And with this heat, I am made aware of the brevity of my stay here, in Hindu College. I am not at all prepared for my departure. Too many things to be done; too little time. Time flies like a fleeting bird oblivious of my pining in its indifference.

Last evening, J confronted me with the knowledge he had attained of my furtive affairs in that gay networking site, PR. Some member from that site (with whom I had been chatting earlier in December) told J about my visits. What exactly did that man tell him, I can never be certain of, nor can I fully inquire!

The episode left me deeply struck with guilt. I wanted J's forgiveness so that I might release from that shame. But then again, why was I ashamed? Why should I be ashamed? I don't understand. I do know that my guilt arose due to moral convention and societal norms; but 'reason' (if I am in any capacity to employ it) redeems me. In fact, it negates any form of guilt that I may know, obliterating it as one breaks free from superstitions with the advent of scientific knowledge.

But then again, that very 'reason' contradicts so many things, so much so that it contradicts itself. And amidst its contradictions, I am tearing at all places.

Lazy afternoon - that's the name of the song. The one we were working on. And that's how this afternoon has been. The laziness is numbing; it keeps you in suspension. But behind that apparent numbness, all anxieties surface flooding me with their pessimism. It denies action and I sink into the realm of chaotic and poisonous thoughts. A lazy afternoon brings no rest. It is a burden.

The song, however, is good.

Hola!

On the terrace. A hot summer night and the Spaniard's wife fanned herself constantly. This habitual practice of cooling herself down gave one the impression that the fan was an extension of her anatomy. And so it might have been. It was a dinner party, 'for friends'. But I did not even know them. Nor would I think of strangers as friends just because, by some accident, we happen to be in the same party. I would like to believe that I was indifferent then but this compulsive need to be honest compels me to say that I was not. Of course I did not dislike them. But there was some kind of resilience on my part - partly angry, partly afraid.

I was angry because I was left out even though I was there, drinking beer, eating tortillas, sitting at the plastic table among white folk. (Sunita must have enjoyed their company!) I was simply left out as if I was some furniture. Or not even that. Because they ran short of chairs . They were saddened by the dearth of chairs!. But no one even truly cared for my presence. And why was I afraid? Because I did not want them to include me. I did not want to be taken by the collar to whichever dimension they were from. As if my world was lesser; I am not sure if I am ready to pass into another world, not when I'm unprepared - to be consumed by it!

So, angry and afraid, I kept myself at a distance from them. And it wasn't very difficult to do so. After all, we didn't even speak in the same tongue. Things were going fine, for them and for me, when suddenly one of the women, probably feeling sorry seeing how 'left out' I was, turned towards me, talked and after some unimportant words, irrelevant in this writing (although most of this is irrelevant; but then again, 'What is relevant?) she asked, "Why don't you learn Spanish?" And suddenly everything fell apart. I was at the centre of the table, stripped nude and under the gaze of blue, green and hazel eyes. I don't want to learn Spanish just because I've started meeting them. I have never even thought of learning the language, have never been interested in the culture. Till March of this year, Spain did not even figure in my geography! Not that I'm prejudiced; it's just that there have been too many other things occupying me in the last 22 years.

I said, "Yes, I would." C came to my rescue then; but he has become too weary of speaking to deaf ears. Before he would be thoroughly defensive and do all he could to curb this Spanish imperialism. But now, like me, he too sees that it's healthy to ignore certain things. And for that, I'm grateful.

Perhaps they sensed my silent rebellion against their conquests. And so, they withdrew. And even better, they started speaking in English. To accomodate me! I should be thankful, but you know, sometimes when you feel out of place, the corners become your shelter and you even love the darkness and the anonymity they provide. So, I hated this new spotlight I was given. And spotlights mean performance! So I performed, for their sake and for mine.

Oh yes, here I've deliberately avoided 'the sun and the moon' to embrace my 'idly' self. But you know, the distance between the sun and the idly on my plate is too great for my liking. I wish there was some thread tied to an enormous needle which would stitch the two together. But then again, if I was lost in some deep, dark forest and suddenly the path divided into three, I would never choose the middle one!

Fashion: Fun and Fisasco in the University.

From bohemians to bourgeois aspirants, native hippies to geeky ‘sciencies’ Delhi University is home to all – free thinkers, conformists, (pseudo) intellectuals, behenjis, each struggling in his or her own way to make it big. But it doesn’t mean that the hardworking, studious kids at DU are alien to fashion. Why not make it big looking good, eh? Answering in the affirmative, the DUites go out into the streets of Kamla Nagar, hunting for the latest tops in Benetton, purchasing pajamas in Paharganj, crowding the already over-crowded Sarojini or to indulge themselves in City Walk.

A civilization that so freely experiments with fashion, to satisfy that primordial instinct to look good, will undeniably go wrong occasionally. And so do the the DUites who often falter in their daily fashion endeavours. Girls sitting under the Virgin Tree, in Hindu, or sipping chai in D-school (Delhi School of Economics) are always quick to point out a fashion disaster if they happen to see one passing by. To tell you a secret, the men sitting inside the Stephen’s cafe do so too, but furtively, taking a break from thier intellectual verbal excesses. The ones who go wrong are usually the Delhi damsels, who have lost the ability to converse in Hindi, walking into class wearing a really tiny pair of shorts – not that the shorts are necessarily bad – It’s just that it’s a little inappropriate to discuss Shakespeare showing too much flesh. The behenjis are another lot under heavy surveillance. Rich colours suffuse these native species, from head to toe, with occasional bursts of gold or silver embroidery. The behenjis are known for their stubborn immunity against the changing tides of fashion. They wear Anarkali salwar kameez, the kinds worn by Madhuri Dixit in the 80’s, that haven’t changed in a thousand years and even in the sweaty heat of Delhi summer they walk about in their chaste set of suits! The boys too aren’t far behind. Wearing a baggy pair of jeans, with hundreds of pockets, everywhere, a DUite boards the metro at Kashmere Gate. Playing loud music in the train gives him the opportunity to prove that he too has a cool phone. The usual but never fashionable ‘My Dad is an ATM’ T-shirt completes the look! On the other hand, the average DU male ‘model’ with huge gym-manufactured arms, a slight protrusion in the abdominal region, wears a tight T-shirt, usually in the shades of metrosexual pink and a pair of tapered trousers that don’t necessarily flatter the behind.

To say that DU follows a trend would be very wrong indeed, especially when everyone, belonging to both the sexes, seems to be in a fierce competition to stand out. Looking good may not be the only aim that the ‘hep’ generation has set out for itself. In fact, looking good may NOT be the aim! So what does the word, ‘fashion’, mean to a student of Delhi University? A rather confident Aparna from KMC says, Fahion is just about me! Not about what’s ‘in’. But what does a statement like that mean especially from someone who wears a pair of shorts and a pink ganji that is in? Devika, from LSR, wearing kajal around a pair of lustrous eyes, clad in orange kurta and black patiala pants, enlightens us – Fashion is about feeling comfortable; what I wear depends on my mood. Today, I felt like wearing Indian and so I did. If tomorrow I feel like wearing denim, I probably will. The DU spirit seems to be seeking constant change, independence and to stand out. And for this reason, it might be safe to assume that the trend in DU is to not follow any trend. At least, not yet!


The thing about DU is that there is no average DUite. It’s a hotchpotch of young dudes and dames from all over India with occasional sprinkles of foreign students. D-school, probably one of the fashion arenas of Delhi University, is crowded with students from neighbouring colleges, apparently belonging to the New Age cult (or is this just another fashion maneuver?), bunking classes, gathering under trees for chai and smoke, to play the guitar, sing or to perform the traditional act of ‘checking out’ people. Here, Delhi University is at its most vibrant, colorful and often eccentric self. Young men with long curly hair wearing Paharganj pajamas and silver earrings are the usual visitors. School bags have given way to jholis putting a final touch to the Bohemian avatar. Occasional appearances in blazing pinks or sensual reds reveal the fact that the men are now confidently experimenting with the hitherto feminine. Girlfriends may be more modern wearing tight-fitting jeans or shorts, with Amy Winehouse hairdo and make-up. Some ‘chicks’ however, dare to go bold with short hair, strutting around comfortably in Fabindias. The North Easterners seem to be letting go of the earlier Hiphop influences and giving way to the ‘Emo’ look. Japanese Anime and Korean flicks seem to govern their (fashion) sensibilities.

2010 has seen DU at its craziest best, at least in fashionable matters. College reopens in the latter half of July. Till then the students will wait for the results while contemplating new looks they can pull off. Fresh faces will mean fresh targets for many; competition for others. But to all, it would mean change. And so, Delhi University waits, with baited breath, to witness another year in the lives of the thousands of DUites. Some of us, on the other hand, are simply interested in what they wear.

(for Gloria, July 2010)

First City: First Day at Work; First Assignment/Homework!

My first day with FIRST CITY was a pleasant experience although I was greatly alarmed to find myself arriving late in the office. Yet a pleasant smile welcomed me as I waited anxiously in the waiting room. All anxieties quelled, I was immediately taken in to the editorial office/room where I was introduced to an all-female group who would now be my colleagues.

Most of the afternoon was spent in reading the past issues of First City and collecting and constructing impressions of this very dense (and I use the word with much deliberation) magazine. Of course, what I read made me more and more apprehensive than at ease; I was suddenly perplexed as I beheld intense and intricate work that had gone in to constitute each issue. In the evening, the boss laid out a loose structure that usually holds the magazine together and a list of dos and don’ts that further gave me reason to worry.

So here I conjure up all strength and courage to perform this rite of passage: I give you here my impression of the magazine, FIRST CITY – A daunting task but one that needs to be done immediately. First City, in short, is a monthly magazine that informs Delhi about itself. Of course this is only one of its functions. The FC2 section coherently yet concisely lets the reader have a peek into the various cultural functions, be it dance, music, theatre, art et cetera. ‘Listings’ functions like a handy ‘yellow pages’; and to find one related to meditation and yoga was rather unexpected but nevertheless informative. The highlighted boxes usher the more impatient readers to focus on the more interesting events subtly but effectively.

I seem to be constantly echoing myself when I say this: First City is about Delhi and Delhi is a lot of things and by this logic, First City is a magazine about a lot of things. Devdutt Pattanaik, with his erudite articles on myths, religion and legends, Anoushka Shankar’s wistful expressions and her witty chin-puppets (Feb 2008), Amruta Patil’s clever sketches and plots, Nimret Handa’s ‘Beautiful Delhi’, among others, are to be found together within the magazine’s pages. I personally like the section where the magazine interviews the common man, where he/she is presented as an individual and not solely as a representative of his/her class. Similarly, the ‘Minute-Old Migrant’ is unique to First City. These two sections could perhaps be more elaborate although I do understand that doing so may not attract sufficient readership.

The more recent issues strangely have not provided film reviews. I think that section could be revived as I did find some reviews of various films in the older issues of the magazine. The book and music reviews are generally crisp yet enticing and the books and music picked up for reviews are from various genres. I believe, in the most recent issue, there is a section where the summaries of the more popular books are given. This pairing up of the summaries with the reviews works. Also, the various museums and monuments of Delhi could be visited and revisited. The ‘BANDAID’ section could definitely be revived as there are many new upcoming bands with newer sounds and experimental backgrounds.

The main article is the most unexpected in the magazine. From Jaggi Vasudev to Ashish Soni, First City has covered a wide range of topics and people. And this is the magazine’s virtue and luxury as it has no rigid agenda. The articles are usually interesting, well written and at the same time informational. The June 2009 ‘Writers’ Special’ was a rare collection, of writers writing about writers, and an exclusive read.

Another section that I like is ‘Walk’. However, in the last issue, ‘Walk’ did not do justice to Hauz Khas Village. The place is so much more mysterious with its archaic windows and its labyrinth alleys. The monument behind the village seemed to be obfuscated, in the article, by the many shops and boutiques. The photographs, too, were rather amateurish, concealing more and showing uninteresting details. Having said all that, ‘Walk’ as a concept is very potent as it has the capacity to lure the readers from their comforts right into the very gardens, parks et cetera that are written about. At the same time, it makes people aware of the various places that are rarely visited, but should be.

First City is a magazine about Delhi and like the city, the magazine has its many facets, eccentricities seemingly disconnected and yet at some level all the articles, photographs and even the advertisements seem to settle down in some kind of agreement, harmoniously in tune. And perhaps because it is about, around and within the city – a city that is the melting pot of cultures, where people of different races and religions live together in the same buildings, parks and share metro-rides – the magazine naturally allows itself to mirror its muse, Delhi.

The End of A Road

It was one of those early winter evenings, when there are songs in the air for those who still listen in that dark hour and have the courage to bear the cold rush. We decided to go for a cycle ride, a few of us, to explore the labyrinth streets of Old Delhi. We hired some cycles from the metro station and off we went, directionless, to escape the tediousness of North Campus. A gentle drizzle wet the dusty streets clearing our paths towards oblivion.

Like uncertain birds, fresh from their nests, we went around in circles for a while, adjusting to the vehicles that slowly became a part of us. We went around Delhi University, speeding here, slowing there and stopping to have tea at certain dhabas. We led and followed each other, although all of us were purely driven by instincts; but we moved on passing cars and as cars passed us. We moved on even as night slowly began settling down in the streets. Then finally, one of us decided to break out of the circle that we’d been making for a while and off we plunged into the night.

After pedaling for a while, struggling uphill and speeding down slopes, we reached the ISBT station – one of the thresholds of Delhi, where tourists and locals were busy scurrying here and there, with heavy suitcases and rucksacks. Some who looked uncertain and yet alert were clearly fresh arrivals; those who looked hurried and tired were perhaps leaving the city. Yet from their faces, it was impossible to discern what they felt in their moments of arrival and departure. A rather noisy place, with endless buses driven by angry drivers, we quickly rode on from there.

After a heavy dinner by the Jama Masjid, comprising meaty dishes and kheer fit for sultans, we struggled our way out of that busy lane and into quieter parts of Old Delhi. We cycled on and on, with such speed and hurry that anyone who saw us probably thought we were either men of great purpose or, more correctly, a chain of lunatics. But the chances of being self-conscious on a moonlit night spread out on those narrow, archaic alleys were rather dim. So we glided on, as if possessed; now taking a sharp bend at the end of a street, now slowing down on a bumpy road.

A night in Old Delhi is enchanted. The same place that is overcrowded during the day is suffused with a deep somnolence by midnight. We rode on, half-expecting to be confronted by djinns. At the end of an endless alley, squeezed by dilapidating old buildings on either side, we reached a certain chowk and aligned along its pavements were flower-sellers with their baskets overflowing with thousands of marigolds. Trucks laden with the flowers were unloading them.

In the heart of Old Delhi, at that transient hour, the warm, wafting scent of the golden flowers was flooding the dark streets we had ridden on.

A (philosophical?) Rancour

Rug reproached me for asking irrelevant, irreverent and impertinent questions to Bug. How their love for each other had deepened, in not more than ten days! Such passionate dispositions! Anyway, so as I was saying, Rug reproached me, admonished and accused me of being ‘passive-aggressive.’ And perhaps I was (it would be a grievous lie to deny what I had been in my past). Now, his calling me ‘passive-aggressive’ was not irksome in itself; however, what did revolt me was the intention behind his observation/accusation: He wanted to calm me down, forget, forgive so that a harmonious conclusion could be derived. He wanted me to surrender to the changes, surrender to the happening; he wanted me to surrender to his will. He wanted to restore ‘order’, pacify me and deliver us truce and a sacred harmony so that the future would be good, peaceful and in accordance to his order (pun intended).

Perhaps his intention was good, perhaps it was benevolent; perhaps it was even humane but it was terribly misled, naive and insufficient. It was terribly erroneous. He wished to bring about a calm when he himself, perhaps innocently, was in conflict with me. He wished to establish order by going to war! It seems even History has been unable to teach the man the fundamentals: Conflict brings no calm; war brings no peace and/because Order can never be.

It has been a fault with all men, especially those who are either short-sighted or are turning blind (there is no hope for the fully sightless), to suppose and impose the idea that the nature of Nature is order and stability. Man sees order and pattern in things only because he wishes to see them; he constantly projects his own desire for order onto these otherwise indifferent things. It would be more truthful to say that man seeks order and not that he sees it. For without this sense of order (and it is merely a sense as opposed to revelation), there would be no stability for him. His grand structure, laboriously erected, intricately sculpted and ostentatiously embellished would collapse. Man would be quite lost. Man invests faith in Order because he wants to feel safe, sheltered and meaningful. But what man has called ‘Order’ has only been the arbitrariness of his invention, his genius. In essence, if essence can ever be located, Order is an illusion. But then again, one cannot deny man his genius.

And so, one is led to ask the obvious question: What is Nature? And the obvious answer is Conflict. Hence, it is natural for man to be in conflict, or rather he is born into conflict, for Nature allows it, endorses it. Societal rules and regulations, political agreements and pacts, moral and religious commandments are thus quite unnatural. But then again, they too, I realise, adhere to the same principle; they too are in conflict with Nature and thus they too are natural.

Thus, here I would like to tell my dear friend, Rug, that his reproach and accusation were more natural than his intentions. His intentions were pious, commendable but far removed from the truth. They had their origins in his beliefs, the beliefs that make his life worthy in his own eyes. But they are beliefs nonetheless and to a pursuer of truth, beliefs are merely obstacles.

Hair

A Serious Problem

This is a serious problem: I no longer know what I am doing!

What chain of events led me to do the thing I did? Why? I seem to hold the answers in my mouth and all I have been doing is chewing them into tiny particles to distort them into concealing things even to myself. The thing churning in the hollow of my mouth seems to have some kind of dehydrating agency and I am slowly losing consciousness.

But the human mouth is a remarkable organ; it secretes saliva before I shrivel up!

All I have been repeatedly saying is that my actions are ‘meta-acts’. They are acts (or mistakes?) Man is entitled to commit. It is Man’s nature to do so. From the epoch of time, he has been doing so, unnoticed by neither his wife nor his furtive lover(s) although the prodding Philosopher was aware of it (because he did it too). So it is of no harmful consequence if I indulge in the same acts.

Such vague ontological assumptions are valid as long as one is writing a great philosophical doctrine potent enough to change the very course of man, when the author of that doctrine takes up the responsibility for the whole of mankind. But what changes will my acts cause in the grand design of Man; how do they affect his evolution? And when I cannot take the responsibility for my own ‘commitments’, how can I afford to bear the weight of an entire civilization? To hold him responsible for whatever I do (or do not do) – is it not a kind of escapism? To blame Man for my shortcomings is to not blame myself for my own weaknesses. It is as if my actions are no longer mine (of course when the results of an act are favorable, I take full credit for the enterprise); and if action is what defines Man’s identity, then what is my identity?

I have been disintegrating inside the hollow of my mouth, being chewed politely into millions of particles that cling on to each other. An amoebic existence. And as everyone with decent table manners dining at a social gathering would know, it is quite impolite to open your mouth wide, stick your tongue out and reveal its contents. ‘‘Quite rude!’’, the one across the table would think. (He too must have bitten himself into pieces).

So you see my case is utterly hopeless. I do not remember my natural shape nor am I aware of what size I was. I am slowly churning inside my mouth, protected in its black shelter, gently moisturized by its unctuous saliva. But before long, the organ begins to tire of holding my weight and soon I must swallow myself to be digested inside my depths. What after digestion?

This is a more serious problem: Am I to be flushed down the toilet?

Of Aphelion

I am travelling alone, in the darkest corner of the universe. I am a floating piece of mass; it does not matter who I am, what I am. My thoughts are not mine but someone else’s and that someone – he is a stranger. I am not mine. I never was; perhaps a desert-gypsy’s imagination, swirling in the sandstorm. Perhaps nothing.

I am travelling on a meteor, merely the size of a raft; and on my raft I am floating aimlessly, driven by the current the universe is. Enveloped by this dark infinite sea, I am merely a tiny dust particle in a great storm. Where am I to settle in the immense blank? I hear great fires born, unite, part and die. But they are all so far away; their warmth never reaches me. Cold fires, consumed in themselves. The silence between them and me is a vast abyss, unbridgeable. My senses have been my curse. If only I did not hear those distant worlds I would not know solitude. But I just cannot abandon this empty burden. Silence and I have been companions since that someone conceived me, and to forsake that silence is unimaginable. How could I go on if I was devoid of even emptiness? What would I mean if I was stripped of that emptiness too? And so, to exist I need the silence.

The stars are everywhere, above, right, left, below. But there is no need for directions here, for there are none. The only ones that exist are my own conceptions; but what do they mean to the universe? Anyway, I create them, drawing them on this vast blank. I am free to create anything here. And there is no need to follow the rules. Rules mean nothing in emptiness. But I do make some at times. They are games I play; games that never last long. I do not let them or else each game would become life.

When did you make me, my Maker?
Am I made of earth and clay too?
What are they made of?

At times, other meteors pass by; other souls inhabit them. They too are quite lost and without direction. Purposeless. But these occasions are so rare and fleeting, that I am utterly confused when they take place. I look at them and they look at me, with expressions as blank as the dark around us. We know that we are to do something then, immediately, but it is a moment of complete paralysis. We fail to act even though we are burning with inexplicable passions within. If only one of us could decipher what the passions meant. Who are they? Why did we meet? Or are they merely reflections of me; rather am I the reflection? Who then am I?

After such moments, when the meteors move far away to be consumed once again by the dark, remorse lingers, like smoke after a devastating fire. But with time, even that remorse evaporates. Once again, the emptiness.

And so on and on, my journey is endless. I cannot remember if it was yesterday I started or has it been a thousand years already? Or perhaps I always was here; or perhaps never. I cannot remember anything. I do not even remember who I am; I have no name to begin with. I am not even ‘I’. I am completely nameless for I am alone, imprisoned within this black womb of a mother who denies me birth. What lies outside her impenetrable walls? But it is not that I am curious. How can I, who has never known anything, desire knowledge?

I am travelling alone in this anaesthetic dark, in this eternal sleep. I am merely a dream lost amongst a thousand dreams. Or maybe not even that. Perhaps I am only the void in between. But I see I am trying to explain things when I myself am hopelessly ignorant and I have been doing so since the beginning.

Of Dusk

The pallid sun turns icy grey as it slowly burns itself in the western sky. Everything comes to a standstill, waiting. The sky is a starless blank, stretched like the dead skin of an animal, over a hollow. It resounds. Down there in the streets, the growing dark perpetrates a silence lulling everyone to surrender, to confront that certain future. Only the blue wind moans as it roams the landscape in its futile search for something, it knows not what itself. The grey pine trees dance in slow movements in the heavens, whistling an old song. It is familiar.

A raven watches over from the branches of a pine tree. Its occasional shrieks shatter every surviving vestige of desire, easing the burden of ambition, the burden of life. A decrepit man stands at the brink of a vast abyss unable to turn away as he gazes into its depths. Behind him, the echoes of life are still lingering, still calling onto him. It is futile. Slowly, they too surrender to the quiet. Even the raven song is slowly silence.

Now as the sky, suffused with a quiet darkness glides over the head of this man, he sees the truth. It had always been there, obscured yet impaling him. But the love of lies had kept it out of sight; had made its presence feeble. That murky love was poison, flooding his heart with desires and purposes that grew violent with time but then with time it slowly quietened into a whisper and then it faded into the firmament. That murky love was deception. And yes it had given him pleasure and it had given him purpose for in those days he had been sheltered and he had had companions who shared such pleasures, such purposes. Life had been grand, both in misery and in happiness. He was the centre of everything; the universe churned around him, the stars and the sun revolved around him and in them all were embedded divine powers that were for him, that were him. They spun around him with such great speed and such grandeur; he lost himself in them and then in himself, never once realising that there could be something else at the end of his universe. But then all grandeur is ephemeral; his universe grew out of control; soon it had no place for its own centre. He was banished from that which was his.

In that abyss, he sees with blank eyes, perplexed, the truth behind those youthful imaginings. That truth is one and the same for all and yet no one knows it truly till the time comes. What that truth holds is unfathomable to all regions of the mind, for it is beyond the mind’s grasp; the heart is but a hindrance as long as it beats. The truth never did reside in its chambers. The mind is a vast terrain, enclosed by the highest mountains that no individual dares to climb in his lifetime. Thus as long as breath visits his breast, he will not know what lies beyond these walls. It is only in the end when he sheds everything but himself, can he rise unburdened above the tyranny of his own mind, amplified in the emptiness of the heart. Only then will he see what he must see.

This is the aphelion of the world. This is where all that we know begins to end; where hope and despair erode into mere words. Here, the powerful and the weak are the same - mortals in the mouth of a reigning oblivion. The light is most faint and it grows weaker. The old man stares into the bottomless dark; unthinking, he merely is. He is living, yet no hollow heart beats in him; no breath trespasses what is his. He is living, and yet without desire, without what we all call life. He is content merely staring into a vast nothingness, where there is neither ecstasy nor agony, there is no triumph and there is no defeat; no hope, no fear. Nothingness is beyond space and time; soon it envelops him and he becomes what he sees. This nothingness is a stillness that is certain after the turbulence of life. It is a rest and no one gets tired of true rest.

Espresso

A rendezvous
At the local cafe.
So ordinary, petite,
I can cup your porcelain frame
In my hands
To feel your amnesic warmth
This winter evening.

And in some earnest need
Your brimming lips meet mine
In public display
And the auburn taste of your seed
Lingers as we part
Melting the hardened cold
This winter evening.

In quiet dialogues
We kiss and part to kiss again.
Strange poison, you poison me
My hardened frame, now liquid
Is tributary
Gushing forth into your sea
This winter evening.

The Residence

Underneath a common roof
Held by corroding white pillars
The fragile existence
Of us who dwell here,
A delicate secret
Buried underneath
This part of the world
Characterised by books, pens,
Posters, convoluted ideas,
Left, right and things in between
Noisy conversations,
Whispers.
Underwear flailing in the gaze
Of a wanton sun.

A brotherhood
Sharpened to a poignant intensity
By hardened desire
Finding release
In some of the chambers
Of this great organ.
A world of mist
As smoke rises from the tip
Of cigarettes
Like some wraith
Haunting an abandoned tomb;
An almost insignificant dream
Before being sucked into a vortex
Of a terrible reality.

In this rite of passage
Between dark and light
Or perhaps light and eternal darkness
When we are neither egg nor bird,
Not flower, not fruit,
We are boiling in fraternal love
Within white-washed walls
As we share that last cigarette.
____

For a cup of tea

It starts within one of us – that thirst. It proceeds onto a proposal and then a tacit agreement. It is as if we plan it all along. Then we clothe ourselves in our woolens, to protect ourselves from the cold of the night; to keep from exposing our nakedness from night’s wanton gaze. We push the gate; how the metals clash as they fight each other; and off we shoot ourselves, spurting onto the night’s cool skin. Our shadows dissolve into the dark.

It is a long, winding road to PC; where remnants of life still chatter, fuss, trade in the night. The road is empty, desolate. We walk – usually the three of us; sometimes a forth joins us, and sometimes it is a human chain, hissing, as it pulls itself forward. We walk on into the night with that great sense of purpose, with a need to satiate our thirst that gnaws our insides. That thirst is a void that absorbs everything that comes in its way; so we and our voids march forward absorbing every fibre of dark that we brush against. Sometimes, a conversation about something startles us and it accompanies us till our destination; sometimes, nothing.

The lamps that illuminate the road to PC hum in that low note, singing to the insects that collect around them. How those insects swirl around each glow creating a universe oblivious to another. Each insect battles another for a touch of that divine fire; that dispassionate flame that evokes all desires; and after a fierce fight where each one is for oneself, an insect finally touches it - it burns, shrivels and falls from the heavens to the earth, from whence it had once sprung – a closure to its exquisite dance of death – a declaration of its limitations.

We walk on, unaffected as we pass these lamps; unaffected even as we see the carcasses lying around the lamp-posts. We search for our own spotlights – to touch the source of that illumination and to be scorched by the mere brilliance of it. But mostly, it is through the dark that we travel; it is in that dark where we imagine ourselves significant; it is there in that unknown, where we suddenly and fully know our purpose; it is there, where night is most blind, fragments of forgotten dreams converge into a point of concentration; it is in that dark we reign, we survive; for there, we are secret.

Life fades in as we near PC. There are men of different kinds, caricatures mostly; in a pathetic display of light and shadow. Whispers of women ooze out of cracks, in the barred windows, only to be stifled by the loud grunts and abuses outside. Sometimes, a car flashes past, tearing everything apart, followed by a gust of wind; but PC has a peculiar habit of stitching itself together again. It has stood witness to fights, rapes, perhaps a murder; it has been bruised, wounded, scarred and yet, it is there still, firm, throbbing, a vein – a passage for life.

We collect around the tea-stall, for a cup of tea. The burning flame moans as the priest prepares the golden liquid that must quench the thirst that keeps ghosts from their sleeps. Hundreds gather around to see the sacred event, to be united with each other, in their desires. When the tea is finally ready the man who has practiced the great power of keeping everyone in suspension, pours it in small plastic cups. Each man sells his life, concealed in a few coins, for a cup. After he gulps down the burning liquid, the ceremony is over. He must return.

We, are among those, who witness that eternal fire that warms the cold night in the deepest of winter; we are among those few, who travel great lengths for a sip of that elixir that flows endlessly in the rivers of that nocturnal civilization. We are among those restless pilgrims, who journey the unknown, in search of that god to be redeemed from the sins of the ignorant world. With that realization, we must all go back from whence we came; we must all submit to night’s calming powers. The road back is the same and its shadows too. More insects are stricken dead by the towering lamps and we must all return to our beds as sleep finally beckons us. Returning is a happy burden and numbed, we walk back, forgetting all that we had desired, all that we had been.

Then, in that last minute of wakefulness, as we finally settle ourselves in our confines, we suddenly come to realize: Night purloins our dreams and dissolves it in a cup of tea.

On Your Home Coming

We sit on the veranda this late evening,
Your face half-lit by the region’s Gulmohar,
Halved by shadows.

The east blurs as the west burns.
We are caught between
This fire and shadow.

You’ve turned towards the dimming landscape
Whilst I sit behind you.
I am not in your sight.

I only see your silhouette really,
But I can perceive more
In this blinding darkness.

There is no wind in the sky.
The tree wilts in its own heaviness.
We are locked in this stillness.

Far away, we made shameless love,
Our bodies intertwined; your words were mine
As my lips ended on yours.

We are far away from everything
We know together. Here you know everything
Alone. I am a stranger.

Sundered from you
By your love for your people,
This love is a chasm between ours.

This is your home-coming
And I cannot join you in your joy.
I suddenly am a voyeur.

You notice old faces changed, older now;
The smell of mangoes is sour.
What else has changed?

Perhaps your eyes have changed too.
But I am not of this land,
Your memories are not mine.

I see that your eyes stare at a nothing
Yet they search for all you have lost.
Once you had everything.

I am nothing here,
Only a faint memory of a foreign love
At the back of your mind.

And yet I feel I am the cause
For this heavy stillness this evening.
Our love must be a burden.
__

Autumn. An Ode.

Autumn visits me.
My door is open.
She enters.
Dust on the shelf rises insolently
To glimpse her.
The room heaves, ashamed at its own nudity.
She bathes it in gold.

The summer sun shadowed my walls;
He would not look my way.
Spring perched on boughs of fair gardens
To love flowers, scent and song.
Mine lay strangled with briars, weeds and thorn.

But she comes - Amorphous Autumn.
Each year she visits when all is frail.
She sits near - a companion strange and pale.
Clad in gold and pallid gray,
Her hair swirling - an avenging fire.
She has Midas' touch and desire;
All turns to gold, then withers in despair.

She breathes the winter wind,
And lights the western sky,
And burns it with her resplendence.
She bereaves the earth of all life.

But she never forgets me.
She remembers me by name.
When she breathes I hear her call.
She howls at night as she cleans my wounds.
No tears but frost in those colourless eyes.

She rises - a queen at war -
With wind in hair and vengence in sword.
She brings me hope, she brings me fear;
She brings me life and death
Temptingly near.

A white stillness gathers 'round a white funeral
While she escapes into her white wonderland.

Of Narcissus

Anything that is unconventional and alien to one is wrong and hence frightening. Hence to overcome those fears one tends to tame things outside oneself, like the circus-man who must tame the carnivorous lion. Of course that man is never truly rid of that fear which makes him ‘tame’ it in the first place. He must always carry a whip and lash it whenever need arises. An absolute reconciliation is impossible for he is a man and it is a lion, and in their differences only a pact between them is possible, between two powers, one scared of the whip and the other scared of the whipped. Well, I am not as much interested in the lion as I am in that circus-man, probably dressed like a clown, a painted mask to hide his fear and misery. Why he must tame the lion in the first place might seem ludicrous, but to tame is essentially his nature and his purpose. Without taming the lion, or rather without the lion, his existence becomes meaningless.



Only by ‘teaching’ the other can one overcome one’s fears. Man finds himself alone amidst variety, change; amidst things he cannot make sense of. Hence, his immediate reaction to such an unknown environment is to spread himself, his ideas, force them down the other’s throat if need be, to overcome that variety, to understand that change, so that everything becomes familiar again, so that he is not ‘outdated’. He is reaffirmed. This is why knowledge is ‘light’, missionaries must bring charities and the words of their gods must be spread.



Man needs to see himself reflected. He is a narcissist and hence man will essentially 'die' in his own self absorption. He collapses into himself. He is not seeking relationship in others, but mirrors so that he is reflected. So that he knows who he is, his desires, his fears, his strengths, his achievements. So that he can value and validate himself. For this reason man devised religion, customs, traditions, love in order to find himself in the other; so that he sees himself reflected. But what he fails to learn is that even the other seeks the same. Hence an interesting and a pathetic situation occurs: two mirrors reflect each other in futile for infinity.



The lion and the circus man are at continuous strife with each other. The circus man wishes for a puppet; the lion wishes to devour the ‘puppeteer’. What is common to both is that desire for victory. Both are engaged in that unending game because there will be no victory. It is a game between equals. It is to be a continuous struggle essentially because one needs the other for meaningfulness. The circus man, our subject, must engage himself as long as he desires to live. The moment he gives up his end is determined. The lion, the other, of course never rests.



Love, is a process of self-realisation and then the affirmation of that realisation. The lover seeks to see himself reflected in the ‘beloved’. Perfect love is love where one finds complete reflection in the other. One loves, to seek a validation of oneself; a validation of one’s imagined, constructed self. However, since an individual is always different from the other, love is a process with no end; there is no complete fulfillment, no complete reflection; hence there is no perfect love. The narcissistic lover is in a continuous process of ‘finding’ himself in the other. The other is reduced to a pond in which he sees himself, to appraise himself, to love himself. The murkiness of the water allows him the liberty to obscure and imagine various aspects of himself. But occasionally, the water clears to reveal the truth. Because of their (the lover’s and the beloved’s) inherent and acquired differences, a complete reflection (desired image) is unattainable. Thus love is an incessant and an unending process of ‘teaching’ the other. To ‘learn’ (from the other) is however unacceptable to Narcissus; for that would mean that he is lesser and more importantly, invalid. Hence, to reaffirm himself, he feels the need to tame, mould, ‘teach’ the beloved/the other into his idea of himself; the manifestation of his delusions. The other’s differences are understood as a threat to his identity. So the other is either held in contempt or is made to unlearn what she (in this case) is and in a way, mutilate herself into the lover’s notion of himself, so that he can overcome the fear of solitude. The lover needs to feel a ‘validity’ of and for himself in the social fabric.



Thus, love boils down to the desire to assert oneself upon the other; to control the other. It is only a more cordial and agreeable method of exercising unwarranted power.

Fall

A stream
Laden with the memory
Of two seasons,
Of an emerald love,
Adorned with blossoms
Tremulously
Runs in its veins.
The memories have turned
A translucent yellow.

It is time for farewell,
To bid the world adieu,
Now that it is weary
Of all the suns
Charioting sapphire skies,
Of the night
With its pearl heart
Stringed together
With nocturnal jewels.

The bough will be lighter
This sacred evening.
The wind already
Teases its sail.
It is to be a happy journey.
It heaves a sigh;
The veins burst
And suffuse the quiet
With the quietness of memory.

It makes no haste
And yet must hurry
Before the first flake
Of approaching winter.
Quietly,
It breaks its clasp
To drown
Into a distant sea
In a dazzling slowness.
___

...

What happens after it (beauty) perishes...one clings on to memory that can never fully re-awaken what was and thereby also becomes incapable of fully realising what is, now. Death is inevitable and therein lies the truth; the memory of life can never fully resurrect what was. The past becomes merely an illusion, and in understanding that, there is wisdom. What good is the smoke after the fire is out? One needs to open one's windows so that one doesnt choke in its fumes.
And when finally all fire, all smoke is out, what remains?
What do you remember after death?

Of Patience

The following might be the most erroneous writing of all, but then again writing is always such an arduous task always susceptible to mistakes, hypothesis, errors, lack of knowledge and miscommunication. It is in constant need of revision and change. Whoever said one must write in order to organize and calm the restless emotions that trouble the heart, when in fact writing often leads to dissatisfaction when one realizes that what one writes is always to be incomplete or perhaps even incorrect. However I write this in the spur of a moment, painfully ignorant of all the hardships that are entailed in the process of writing. But in my very doing so, I believe that I have already contradicted myself in what I have to say:

If there is anything so immutable and solid to fill that hollow, which we all otherwise so carelessly call 'virtue', then the only quality or concept to fit into it would be patience. All other 'virtues' are secondary or are branches of this main stem. It is patience that gives birth to compassion, honesty, love, philanthropy. They are all fruits of this eternal tree. And although this tree is ever breathing, unchanging, living, its fruits grow from its blossoms and ripen from sour to sweetness and then fall from their mother and decay. But the tree stands firm against summer, spring, winter, fall, storms, gales and pleasant weather. The other lesser virtues quiver, grow, ripen, fall and then decay; their places are filled by others. But the unchanging patience stands rooted, unaffected, strewing man's unending garland of the ways of things, selecting this from that and that from this, according to the needs of time.

Patience does not merely exist and observe; it understands. It reasons and questions and then sieves the crude gravel of chaos to attain that fine, flowing answer.
________________________________________________

white lily

what if the white lily grew between the blades
and the damsel sings and breaks its gentle neck
to crown her brow with its meek beauty -
a white star in that immense blackness?
will the flower with her slit throat
feel loved in that black heaven?
or will she wilt in its shadows
her juices gushing out
to flow into her earthy half
rooted amongst the grass?