The Poets Lied, I am Denied

The title has nothing to do with the post. The title has everything to do with everything else. Cryptic, no? Ha! I'm like that only.

The real point of the post is this: Afternoon naps are the closest I'll ever come to seeing God. Afternoon naps are when my fears come alive, when my dreams die. Afternoon naps are oddly satisfying, and they leave with me with voids in places I never thought existed. Afternoon naps tell me, "You're a douche, everything is not going to be okay."

The breeze is carried in through the mesh on my window. Snatches of conversations outside the mess. The words float in the air, mocking me, watching me make a fool of myself. As the thin cream curtain billows to the purring of the blades of the brown fan on my ceiling, the words dissolve, and become something else. I imagine the rusty shutters behind my thin curtain. I think about getting up, pushing my curtain aside, and running my index finger up and down the shutters, and watch the red-brown flakes fall off. I think of it as a new start, but the afternoon manages to convince me that I'm a sucker for beauty. It seems to whisper from somewhere near my desk, "You're only romanticizing the breakdown. Again." I forget about heaving my upper body to set in motion the process of getting up and touching the flakes. I am drowsy. My sleep is dreamless, mostly, yet, when I wake up, it feels as if I've dreamt.

In the afternoons, I am convinced that there are indeed such things as ghosts, ghouls and wailing banshees. Not only of the past, but of the present and of the future. I'm oddly satisfied that I don't scream, don't pull my hair out and shout out loud. There is indeed beauty in the breakdown.

P.S: This one's for you, Fudge. For introducing me to the phrase 'beauty in the breakdown.'

Layla, Don't Call Me A Traitor Tonight

Don't Call Me a Traitor Tonight

(inspired by Agha Shahid Ali's "Tonight")

Written in Political Science Class on 18/09/10

I am the brooding silhouette by the window,

I am the sliver in the darkness,

A refugee in the prison of belief,

There is one of me, there are more of me,

I am bending, sweeping the streets of my own memory,

Now, picking up the fragments of my own history.

My reality convicted me, it was my imagination that pardoned,

At the gallows of my own conscience, I die a happy man.

Layla, don't call me a traitor tonight

Layla, don't call me a traitor tonight.

About a Comeback

It is not easy to make a comeback. I wish it was.

Damn, I really need a change in theme.

I used to make fun of posts that sound like my recent ones. *sigh*

Tch, tch, self pity. *shakes head*

I'm Still Fighting

Life, my fickle friend

Almost exactly a year ago, on this blog, I’d advised a friend to look you in the eye, and say to you “Game on, bitch.” You didn’t quite like that, did you? Considering you’ve not been very kind to me since then. I know, I know. I took you for granted and all that jazz. We were best buds for a long, long time. In fact, I don’t ever remember falling out with you. And then, you punched me in the face. Smooth move. Well played. I knew I deserved it, so I didn’t say much. I thought we’d shake hands like gentlemen and it’d be like old times again. Clearly, I was wrong. You kept punching me, especially when I least expected it. And then you started pushing it. We had a situation. They would call it ‘disproportionate reaction’ in law school. I know there are more people in your corner. This prolonged battle has drained me out, physically and mentally. You’re winning it right now. No doubt about that. But I think there’s still something left in me. You know what; I’m not going down without a fight. I’m going to lose this honourably. I’m in this for mamma and papa, and I’m going to keep fighting as long as I can. Notwithstanding frustrating ankle injuries just a couple days before inter-batch football starts. Notwithstanding disillusionment that is bordering on indifference. Notwithstanding the cold and cough that continues to plague me 15 days of a month. So yeah, the game’s still on, bitch. I’m still fighting.

Moares

And Krishna told Yudhisthira

"Release depends on doing one's dharma, not indulging in one's grief."

Bombay.Bombay.

"D’Mello, too, was gone. Perhaps he was not dead. Perhaps he had simply gone home, at last, to his storied city of Mumbai, on the country’s other coast, that city which was neither of the north nor of the south but a frontierville, the greatest, most wondrous, and most dreadful of all such places, the megalopolis of the borderlands, the place of in-between."

- Salman Rushdie (In The South)

This One's For You, Termi

Statutory warning: This could get sentimental

Termi,

A few hours ago, doubts were raised, and words were spoken. And the look on our face stayed with me. You know the one when you turned your face and looked me in the eye. I tried to avoid that gaze, but there are some things in the world that you just can’t avoid. That look on your face which told me just how badly you want this to work out. I knew it all along; you’ve spoken about it often, how badly you want to get into NALSAR, and how these two years come to naught if you don’t make it.


But Termi, this is not the end. Look at the larger picture, and you’ll see it’s just the beginning. We’re 18 years old, we have all our limbs intact, we have a home to go after goofing at Acro’s place, and well, we have goofing at Acro’s place. And Termi, the most important thing is that we have each other (Go away, Sentimentality. Today let me speak.) We might not have a law school after all this ends, but I think what we have here is more valuable than the best law school in the world and a placement in a New York law office put together. (And we can still have a law school. Like I said, it’s not yet over. It never is.)


Okay, so we might not get to hang out when, and if, we go separate ways. We might make new friends, and probably things would never be the same again. But nothing in the world, not Catherine Zeta-Jones, not Fundoo’s hot law school senior, not Paarth’s new bandmates, not Penelope Cruz, not Abhi’s lake, not Acro’s Daniel Craig, and not your Sherwood, nothing can take away all the goofing we’ve done for the past few months. Only amnesia maybe can take it all away, or Alzheimer’s, but it’s allowed (Fundoo-style “It’s allowed”) not to take that into account.


You told me that I don’t know what you feel like, because I’ve always been consistent and I’ve always done well. Maybe you’re right; I don’t know what it’s like. It’s like Bombay Masala; you don’t know what you’re missing until you’ve had it. But Termi, this is just one aspect of my life. There are things that I’ve wanted as badly as you want this, and I’ve not got them. Most of the times, I didn’t have the guts, Termi. I didn’t have the bloody guts to put in all in a heap and risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss. But you HAVE the guts. You might not have done too well on the first mock, but you picked yourself up, dusted yourself down, and kept walking. You worked harder, you stayed up nights, you OD’ed on coffee, and just basically, you hung in there, Termi and by doing so, you showed that you’re going to stick it out till the very end. How can you be a failure after that? And I use the word failure, because that’s what you said you thought of yourself. You read so much more, you quizzed us, you watched movies, and basically, took part in all the stuff we did, without a shade of reluctance or insecurity.


You said two years will be wasted if you don’t make it. But nothing is ever wasted. Not time, not random facts from the Chronicle. Subconsciously, it’s all shaping us, and changing perspectives. And of course, the time we spent on Killer is never wasted. Now you know that you don’t do the cop move when you get the Jack of Spades. Who knows, man, one day, in a casino in Barcelona, you don’t do the cop move, and you win a yacht or something.


Maybe what I said came across as harsh but you know what I meant. You know exactly what I meant. But in case you think I offended you in any way, I apologize. Full and unconditional apology.


Okay so you might not have Russel Crowe's abs or intensity or skirt, but you need to think of yourself as Maximus. They throw you in the Colosseum, but you fight, because you have to. You fight with strength and honour. You don’t fall on your knees and surrender. You look life straight in the eye, and say, “Game on, bitch. Game on.”


Go nail it, Termi.