done!

I don't exist here anymore. Have moved to greener (and cleaner) pastures.

Find me again at:

http://spaceswithin.blogspot.com/

After a weekend without the usual musings and the usual arguments I am feeling rejuvenated. There was an overload of music, and I would want it to be this way always. Some strings broke. Some tightened and some went loose.

Memorable event being star gazing on the steps of OAT with My Immortal playing in the background. At four in the morning. Did open some memory gates.

After a point, and I didnt even realize it happening, things to me are unweaving into poker straight facts in front of me.

And it was wonderful that the sky had opened up. And unknowingly I had begun to count the stars.

 "There is no dark side of the moon really. Matter of fact it's all dark."

All that you touch
And all that you see
All that you taste
All you feel
And all that you love
And all that you hate
All you distrust
All you save
And all that you give
And all that you deal
And all that you buy
Beg, borrow or steal
And all you create
And all you destroy
And all that you do
And all that you say
And all that you eat
And everyone you meet
And all that you slight
And everyone you fight
And all that is now
And all that is gone
And all that's to come
And everything under the sun is in tune
But the sun is eclipsed by the moon 

A million emotions singing in tune with the one piece of music that transcends all human barriers. Another similar event could be a million fans jumping off their feet at the winning goal. Mass making meaning. The same euphoric feeling seeps through distances, borders, and cultures. The music plays in my mind long after the mikes and lights have been switched off.

The only interesting thing about sanddunes is that they shift. Huge and mighty as they are, the fickle wind wins over them. Always. After all, they are built of inconsequential tiny grains of sand.

Loose mouth idiots. Why can't some people just leave others' lives alone! People I have nothing to do with, but surely they derive momentous pleasure out of knowing and spreading whatever they know.

WTF.

People. Lots of them and in various incarnations.

One listened patiently, the entire story. Justified even the greatest mistakes of my life. Pointed to some good in everything. Yes, I see the signs, even when it is dark all around:)

One shouted, cried and laughed all along. Have been roughing this weather for nearly three years and still no complaints. Sometimes went far away, but always came back.

New people. Some came and went. Some stayed on. Enlivening some moments with smiles. Cracking the sickest of jokes. Travelled, trekked, lent a hand and a shoulder when the need arose. Contemplating with me the world, on rooftops, in walks along a very mosguito-infested lake-side, boat-houses; or simply watching the sun set down with me. Movies, beaches, bowling, drives, and party to the most boring of occasions. Talks and silence, moodswings, and pulling me out of my sleep for the most trivial of reasons. With me, watching the rising and setting sun, like it were the biggest event of our lives.

Some have taught me to be careful, some have thrown caution to the winds. Finally, here I am, experimenting. There's no goal. I am onboard for a very exciting journey. Meandering roads on which I am never lonely. Sometimes alone though. Can't see much of what is ahead, but I am pleasantly kept guessing of the surprises.

This one is the mother of all treats. The details will come out in small talks, in a few blogs, in a few planned but unwritten pages of my journal. Or maybe, they will remain with me, treasured somewhere, stored in the year that passed, secure in time. A year of the good and the bad, but the importance was not in the judgmental, but in that whatever happened, happened to me, and made me appreciate all of it. And certainly beatiful, all of it.

After all the travel, time to sleep. But couldn't, since my mind was too full. When I close my eyes, I feel like I am floating in a vast sea, the waves brushing past me, and I have no control over myself. I feel I am travelling away from the shore, taking turns, drifting away; the voices get drowned in the roar of the waves. I feel numb. When I open my eyes, I am in the same place. Things have happened, the sun has moved beyond the horizon, I remain in the same place. I am glad. Then the wonderful realization that I have let events move past me, and get dumped somewhere in the past. Will close my eyes again and let the music take me where my heart wants to go.

Some words do find a space. Maybe they wont get lost, after all. Some words are best left unsaid. Some goodbyes are best left unanswered. We will meet again, this is not a goodbye.

Sometimes, in tricky situations, we end up making fundu commments. One liners and the like. These are some I can remember.. notably, some nice ones..

.1. You are an embarassment to mankind. - Amrita

this comes up more often than it used to, because of Akshay's constant toilet/profane/pondy jokes, all at the wrong places and among wrong ppl!

.2. Is what you have worth what you gave up to get it? - Pritam

this steals the show most of the time. I am sure he has more to say, but I havent compiled them.

.3. Love, if it does happen, happens only once.

made this up just now. but i said something of this sort while proving a point to PJ, and she heartily agreed with me. What i meant was - so many things have to work in congruence for love to happen, even if it is one-sided, that to simply throw it all away, would be sad. Again, most of the times, one-sided love is nothing but infatuation in disguise, in that case, the best you can do is simply throw it all away at once! So intelligence would be to identify the true love, and give it the respect it deserves. heavy, huh? :)

See, it is difficult to come up with one-liners!

And philosophy is something we love to indulge in, even with ourselves on the wrong side. After all the discussion, what pleases me most is the acknowledgement that even we have been there, done that, and everything is forgiven in the end. Humane? We are:)

Here and there. There and not there. In closed rooms and open.. er.. closed cars. Over coffee and over phone conversations. Over pillow fights, over pillow talks. Ok. Whatever. Over senti talks.

Love.

And back to square one. Not there. Maybe.

Again.

Here and there. There.

The conclusion?

Everyone loves riddles. Especially to be in one, and then to be too close to the problem to get out of it.

6 hours of blissful existence. When last did I savour roadside paani-puris, gorge in wayside restaurants (restaurants? New Yorkers? Little Italy? What? Not even Gulmoher!), or talk on a spate of uneventful topics over coffee (Mocha? Barista? Nay!).

Yeah. The paani-puri from right across the Main Gate, cheapest around here, I guess. It was not even 42. Just the two, of us, me and paani puri, and two beings who couldn't help being with me :).

The restaurant, right across YP gate! Shady place, you would have missed it every time you made your way out of YP. 30 per head! The veg counterpart of PLH. :)

Staff C coffee. You get to sit directly below a fan and crack jokes on everything that exists. Or invent words. Or talk of school days. Or talk about now. Or talk about the future.

Then there is walking. Coast past Sameer, the wind directly from the hilltop, have coffee bites and talk about coffee. Or dangle on some slippery creepers, with arbit glances from arbit people. Or almost get into the lakeside boat. Or swat mosquitoes, simultaneously talking of crocodiles. Or sit on the 4th floor, and look down below, wondering on what I missed, or whether what I missed was worth trying to go back to.

This is what happens when you are near broke, but who said happiness was monetary, anyway.

Caged thoughts, myriad reflections
on shattered glass,
mock at me. Perplexed, I
stand in agony.

Should I let the thoughts flow, like an infinite line,
without a fullstop.
I think I forgot to stop, in time,
Over the commas that separated,
(or connected?)
euphoria from blue
and me from you.

What do I feel? Am I just a stream of thoughts, holding itself, and gushing out in relief, memorably? I am on a path of discovery, so I discover that Kareem's offers the best non-veg I have ever tasted here, till now! And I have no recollection of anything similar, anywhere, before!

Mocha has the best coffee, but it will make sense to go there in a group, with a similar frame of mind, so that you can innocently do the activities you are good at - best critic of songs, connoisseur of coffee and beans, and bitching! And so I love the evenings I go out with this favourite couple of mine! :)

This reminds me of slippers. Brilliant yellow slippers, flipping away to glory, from H10 to Mech Deptt. Awkardly groaning in delight, sometimes, to make its presence known; and proudly beaming when this distracts to itself conversations, formerly talking of relationships and culture and media.

Thats not the end. There are white ones with a plethora of colourful laces. And there are brown cork ones, who have miserably failed to qualify for sobriety, by immorally engaging in pink.

Sometimes, things are so good and so wrong, that I am too happy to wish them anything otherwise!

Strangers passing in the street
By chance two separate glances meet
And I am you and what I see is me

Do you hear what I say?
Am I allowed what I may?
Are these open eyes for real?
Or a resplendent surreal?
Am I choking for words?
Am I flying away,
like the birds?
Are you coming along?
Are you singing with me,
the song?
Our song.
Are you here;
or are you gone?

And through the window in the wall
Come streaming in on sunlight wings
A million bright ambassadors of morning

I sleep in withdrawn resilience
I wake in unuttered incongruence
My songs don't strike a chord
My voice fails of its own accord

We walk the lonely walk
Two faces, unable to talk
And as they marvel the starry sky
Forget to look closer, in pride.

Am I there yet?
Have we met?

So I throw the windows wide
And call to you across the sky....

on the feathers of destruction
spotted between two horns
of the famous dilemmas
caught in time, my foolish woes
restless, uncertain of the past
i stand.
hours drip,
holding on, still, glued
to the ticking hands of time
i run around in circles,
again and again
time bids adieu,
i am back to where it all began.

if this piece does not make any sense, i will consider it successful!

my sleeping abilities of these last 2 days are simply unmatched by my sleeping abilities of the past normal days, when i get my regular 5-6 hours quota. this is 12! well, i am on sedatives. iit hospi has the inane ability to prescribe a family dosage of drugs. the idea is quantity. so here i am munchin on all sorts of anti-pyretics n sedatives, and sleeping to glory!

when u sleep, (am I reminded of Fight Club??!), yes, when you sleep, u cant tell the real from the fantasy. So in my sleep, I discover that my cell phone has a camera (in hiding, i.e., coz I am very very surprised!), and has the most complicated of procedures for clicking!.. there's no button to click but I have to press some stuff, which is not to be pressed but is like a radio tuner! heights of technology!

then of course, I am happily taking pictures in places where photography is prohibited.

n then, I realize that my cell doesnt have a camera (rationaization in my sleep process), so the next easiest way to get it is to mentally chalk out a POA. it includes conning my brother to buy me one, and disposing the existing one to him for its highly exorbitant features!

this is not all. I see myself in Spain, with unknown faces and unknown people with me.. my dreams here turn wild, really wild..

when they try n figure out the meanings of dreams in books, its the night ones they are talking about, right?

ZZZzz...

My world as it is...

Comfortably Numb is monotonous. I have people around me, who will help me when I ask for it. I live a very obvious life. I have crushes, I am crushed. I make resolutions and break them. I falter on promises. I dream the dream of a six year old. I dream the dream of a mature adult. I go back, time and again to the falling leaves of autumn, I go back to the dead leaves under my feet. I marvel at the first rose, at the first bloom of spring.

I get excited every time I recieve an sms, or get a buzz. I get disappointed every time it is MTNL apologising for service deficiency or my mail box gorging on another spam.

I get excited every time I pass by coffee-shack. I scan for familiar faces even in the dead of a Saturday afternoon. Ya, I sometimes get enough enthusiasm to get a study-room book issued on a Saturday afternoon. It excites me that I get to keep the book a good 6 hours more than on a regular week-day!

I glance at the clock every 10 minutes in my lecture, waiting for an eternity to pass. I close my notebook with the relief of a 90-year old, who hasn't been diagnosed with dementia. I take out my notebook with the eagerness of a kinder-garten kid, and end up playing snakes or engaging in gossip. The first words.. ya the first words remain etched in fresh pages, hoping to get connected by some cosmic power to the first words of the next lecture.

I wake up, everyday, wishing I were on hill-top, after a winter night-out and able to catch the first rays of sunlight. I wake up, to morning quizzes and incomplete assignments. I get up in the dead of the night, fearing, I may not wake up in time to cog manpro assignment no.1. I go back to sleep, driving away thoughts of a night-out and maddu.

Sometimes, I hope to get entangled in a plethora of guitar notes. Sometimes, I go for a jog. But it's not often. It's as rare as my attempts to produce a masterpiece of a blog!

I relish the idea of a clean room, and get apalled at the thought of cleaning it myself.

I wish I were at hilltop now. This is one thing worthier than a good night's sleep. Or the only thing that can beat my sleepy eyes at this point of time.

And how can I forget the sea? I run short of words, everytime. The sound is monotonous, just like this song. But it seeps into me and stays here for eternity. Who said you always have to be on a roller coaster of a life? It's just plain blank paper, and when I dig out my green gel pen from a cacophony of useless stationery, I happily know I can script yet another "to do" list!

:)

and quite flows the coffee
seeps into my existence
sunken, lost memory
refresh!

rhyme gives way to prose
a cobweb of thoughts
unfurls words morose
into a linear score

things i did
at sudden foolishness
again and again:
in reprise