Friday 12 July 2024

La charmante amie française

Oh, hello love my invincible friend,

I forget where we belong,


You, you were in the kitchen,

Skipping and laughing eyes at everyone you knew,

I wasn't listening to anything but you were blinded by the chaos.


Oh, don't take it too seriously you said,

We are there to live alone forever,

Maybe you were right about enjoying freedom,

Now what do I do by being free that you are gone.


Oh, no that's how summer passed,

Oh my cold hearted friend did you even realize it,

I've been worrying that we are losing our time,

You, you said not to remind you about it,

Did you also fear losing something else with time?


Oh, hello love my invincible friend,

I forgot where we we belong,

The great divide is onto us, 

keep your heart strong and mind sane I reminded myself,

You, you were numb,

Did the bottle of wine work so well at hiding your emotions?

Or did you smoke up and leave me in the ashes.


Now that you are gone,

And I forgot where you belong,

I forgot where I belong,

My invincible friend!

Wednesday 27 September 2017

Bygone Love!

One of the first poems, I wrote as a kid! Still enjoy the feel of the "zephyr of innocence" oozing out of these lines.


                               I set out on this journey of life with a beautiful companion,
                                    whose hand in hand keeps me alive in this fetid vibes!
                                        I dread the pain with her love in my love vein,
                           marching upon the rugged terrain; never let her love go in vain.
                           Her smile is like soothing interludes in this expedition of mine,
                                       which makes me feel like a bottle down of Wine . 
               
                                   The gust of winds blows down but her kisses of love,
                                                   stops me from backing down.
                         Her tender voice guides me through the streets of broken dreams,
                                            and turns it into a streak of gleams.
                         There are miles to go with one who promises to stand by me,
                     forever and ever in all sorts of weather : be it winter or summer.
                          I Fall Short of words to  say, so I sign off! in dismay and continue to
                                     WAIT FOR HER TO COME THIS WAY ..........

Mosaic of memories...

Originally posted on katyan.quora.com

She felt the texture of the paper, slightly frayed at the edges. A faint musty smell lingered around her. The fading ink enclosed her treasured memories. Date exactly 10 years back, she smiled wistfully at the page. Reminiscing…

Her lashes were moist but a childish grin played across her lips as she rediscovered and devoured the pages of her diary. The days unfolded and memories danced in front of her. She felt like an alien observer of her own past, an invisible audience watching her younger self.

She raised an eye brow, as she first found her ‘best friend’ bitching behind her back and the bitter tears that followed. ‘I should have known’ she mocked herself at the naivety of her 13 year self and immediately reprimanded herself ‘I was a little girl, meant to stumble and learn’.

She delved deeper into fragments of her life, as bits and pieces joined to form a mosaic of memories. She walked down the color changing corridors, observing her daily life through the new looking glass she found. She found herself entering a long gone adolescence, with long forgotten people and stories, buried deep under the ashes of time. 

It seemed that the Pandora’s Box had opened. She couldn't sleep even when she had turned over the last page. The kaleidoscope of memories beckoned her. She searched for another diary, lying in its neglected derelict condition for nearly a decade now. As she dusted the pages, she again trespassed on long forgotten territory. A wave of teen troubles washed over her like a wave, and the older her silently played the Agony Aunt with her unsolicitous and silent advice.

‘First crush’ she fondly mused as she read the cheesy descriptions filling the yellowed pages. The mustiness welcomed her now, the familiarity discerned her. As the hours ticked on, she fell in love, got heartbroken, lost a close relative and made new friends. As her fingers flipped over the last few pages, she was tempted to look for its other siblings, lurking in the shadows of her shelves.
‘Enough for today’ she chided herself ‘Maybe another tomorrow’. A daily dose might satiate her appetite to explore her choices and mistakes, she thought. After all, what better fiction can you find, other than your own life?

She turned off the lights, curled in her bed and slept with a smile. The most peaceful sleep in a very, very long time…..

Solitude vs Loneliness.

Originally posted on nktjrj.wordpress.com

I identify my existence with one word: Introvert. Like all introverts, I hate crowds. I hate it when people try to shove gratuitous, and redundant relations down my throat. I tend to stay far from such people and if, by any chance, I am under a compulsion to make an acquaintance, I do it rather sheepishly and blandly. The absolute banalities of human lives don’t appeal to me and hence, I prefer solitude over company.
When I am alone, I feel like I am the only person on this planet. There are no rules, no preconceptions to bind me. There is only me in the world, and the world is nothing but my projection. You might call me delusional, maybe even a solipsist, but the truth is, I don’t understand the need of connections. I don’t understand the necessity of developing relations with other people. Can’t we survive on our own? In the end, aren’t we striving for us, and just us?
And yet, I feel like a hypocrite because I too have formed relations. I too have nourished myself with the warmth of others, and I too have provided my being to other beings. Quite honestly, I have liked the people with whom I have had relations. I have seen their souls, I have seen their true faces. I have liked the warmth and compassion on their faces and that is why, probably, that I have invested much into these faces.
I have loved solitude and I have embraced a few relations. Sounds about right. However, nothing lasts forever. I have lost these faces in the sandstorm of fleeting time and they now haunt me. They come to me in my dreams and whisper the sweet nothings that we used to say to each other and it makes me mad. At that moment, I miss them and I feel naked, naked in that terrible sandstorm, all alone, bereft of hope.
Yes, I love being alone. It is indeed true. What also is true that I hate being alone. Sounds like a dichotomy, the musings of a troubled madman. But they both are veritable facts, extracted from the deep conscience of my heart.
I can’t change myself. I will continue to love solitude and the hopelessness it brings. I can survive it. But loneliness? It is beyond my power to stop it. For all my love of introversion and solitude, desolation is a demon that mocks me and makes me vulnerable. I can’t stand it.

It is true that I will remain in solitude. It is also true that tonight, this loneliness stings. Alas, there are no faces tonight to save me from the storm. Alas, I am after all, alone.

Sunday 16 October 2016

THE ...... MAN


It was just an ordinary another day. The tired evening sun was wrapping back its blanket and tiny specks of lighted dots were preparing to take over the sky. The birds had returned to their nests on the battered old trees and the atmosphere was brimming with the hum of insects. It was a pleasant dusky sky with clouds coming together to form meaningless, yet amusing masterpieces. Countless people lay down there in the city park, enjoying the glories of nature and the beauty it withheld.  Just a perfect day for anyone.
The setting sun grew redder, the first flock of bats shrieked in the sky and the dark silhouette of a man appeared on the road. There was something strange about him; the way he stooped low and walked rigidly, the way his eyes remained hollow and sunk in despair, the way the happiness of the world didn’t touch him.
Anyone who might have seen him would surely have frowned for he emitted something unpleasant and unworldly. His pale texture and unkempt hair evoked pity, but as a matter of fact, it is undefined if any onlooker would have shown him the pity he needed.
A few people turned around when he passed them, their expression mixed with confusion and urgency .He  looked at the onlookers who were trying to figure out what he was or where did he come from? If they wanted to know, they could just come and ask him. He would tell them that his name was long forgotten, his identity already vanished. He would tell them that barely three days ago; he was as cheerful as a kid when he went for his daily job. He would tell them that something really strange happened that day. He didn’t know why but his company fired him. He heard people whisper about something “recession” and “cutting jobs on the go” but didn’t quite get it. Wasn’t it true that he was perhaps one of the ‘honest’ employees the company had been left with? Wasn’t he always on time and quite content with the pace of his career? But life, he had learned and learned the hard way, is very cruel. His pleadings had not landed any hearings and he had walked home just as he was doing today, broken and rejected.
He looked up at the sun and saw his own face staring back at him. For a moment he wondered if he was the sun, after all, he had been the brightest employee the company had, and yet today he was nothing different from the setting sun, but his mind darted back to the fact that at least the sun will rise again, whereas he will lie down forever in the rock bottom crest of hopelessness. He had walked barely halfway through the park when suddenly a kid wheezed past him. The kid didn’t seem to notice him but that doesn’t bother him now; people of late had started ignoring him. No one in these three days had even attempted to know if he was doing well, how was he coping with this sudden calamity? His mind went bitter and he started to walk past the kid but suddenly the kid shouted at a woman-“Look, Mom, a weird star!!”
Instinctively he looked up and saw what he thought was a shooting star. The sweet memories of his childhood filled his head and he became sad. It was not hard to guess that he missed his home, he had even thought about returning when he was fired, but a strange sense of shame had stopped him from doing so. He saw the kid and found that he had his eyes closed; probably he was making a wish. He moved forward to wake the boy from his innocence, to tell him that a falling star doesn’t grant you wishes and in the end, you will have to suffer in this world like everybody else. But he controlled himself and let the boy finish. He remembered his mother; she always used to tell him that shooting stars were God’s messengers who brought happiness into our lives. However, over the course of time, he had realised that it was all a lie just as everything in the world.
He moved on, thinking about the kid. He had always prided himself as a “know it all” but at that moment he was in a fix. He couldn’t bring himself to think what had made the child believe in the star? Innocence? Greed? Or maybe hope? Or maybe something that he had no knowledge of? He grabbed his head and stopped. Arguments danced inside his head in a jiffy and he thought hard.
“Yes, when I was a kid I prayed to the star because I wanted something from it. But where did that belief came from? Surely not innocence, I was too mature even at that age. Then maybe greed? No, no, greed, surely not. I have never been greedy, never in my life. But then it must be hope. Yes, yes, hope it is. Hope, that quintessential human feeling, the biggest lie on this planet. I wonder how I fell prey to something so insignificant, something so unreal. “
“No, you are wrong and you know it too”, his unconscious mind piped in.” Do you remember that page which you always kept with you; do you remember what did it say?”
“Walk on with hope and you will never walk alone”, “yes I remember it, and remember it well, that page, a friend had gifted me a card and he had written this line on it and I just copied it and kept it with me. I probably liked the tone of this line, but does it matter now? What difference does it make?”
“It may produce a difference only if you are eager enough to let it go on. This is not the end of the world, you have plenty of life before you, and do you want to just walk here and there aimlessly. Don’t you want to move on?”
“Yes, maybe, but after all that had happened…”
“Just remember, it doesn’t matter how many times you fall, what matters is how many times you get up.”
On these lines, his eyes widened as if he had discovered the secret of life. He stared at the ground beneath him and thought,” But of course, this is not the end, I can still work out my dreams. I can rise again..” and looking at the sun which was just now barely visible on the horizon,” and maybe I am the sun after all.”
He darted towards his apartment complex, his steps looked like a dance, and his face shone of hope. He reached his building and took the stairs to his home on the 13th floor. He passed several frowning and confused souls on the way. He smiled and continued on his way home. After few minutes, he stood panting before his main door. His was a new apartment and he, along with one elderly couple was the only occupant on that floor. He turned on the doorknob and found it locked from inside. A sense of puzzle appeared on his forehead. How could the door be locked from inside when he, the sole occupant of this particular house, is not at home? He rummaged through his pockets and found his spare key, turned on the knob, and entered.
His apartment somehow looked untouched, as if nobody had been living there for a while. There was also this pungent smell like food gone bad. He resolved to wipe out his home clean and went to the kitchen to get himself something to eat. On his way to the kitchen, he remembered that his dishes will be lying in the bedroom. Cursing his laziness, he entered the room and stopped dead. With much difficulty, he managed to choke out,” What..er..are you exactly ..doing?”
There in his room, another man lay on his bed very peacefully, as if sleeping. He took a step forward and asked the man,”  Get up.” The man remained impassive.
Frustrated, he tried to lift the man forcefully but suddenly his eyes moved to the mirror placed next to the bed. Strangely, the mirror showed only the one reflection of ‘the other man’. Alarmed, he turned his attention towards the man whose face was an exact copy of his except that it was all blank, he sat on the bed and started talking,” you know I saw a kid today. Though he couldn’t see me, but then, how could he.? And I have decided what I want to do next in my life..”
He went on talking and the other man went on listening…….

Monday 21 December 2015

Blotted memories :- (Nostalgic)


                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Blotted memories :- (Nostalgic)

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             A night before the exams ....It was half past ten when i finished the studies  , stacked the books neatly on my table and went for a stroll down the curvilinear narrow lane which runs down in front of my home . As i zigged to the right , glowing with a undignified feeling , as though after a good meal , then and there a realization of loneliness struck me suddenly . There was no one to share a feeling , which caused me to vacillate in the air of anxiety. I had no one. For the first time , i wished her presence and i could do nothing but to remain stranded on a lonely island of despair and misery. It has been almost two years . Compulsion to travel along the trajectory of higher education drifted me apart from her and created chasm in our bond of love.


                      I had no where to go that night, save to the little boarding house on East  Kolkata Street , where i would have to climb three flights of stairs to my clean,airless little room . I had met people in kolkata, many people,many girls of all sorts and traits.But i wished to see none of them . And then i thought of Gurveen and the image of her angelic face shimmered in the moonlight .
              I had sent her a greeting card on the night of my graduation from school and forgotten her ever since.  Now i wanted to see her; the desire was intense and immediate with the first sound of her name in memory. During my school days ,I used to leap into the bus for the long ride to her home which flung to other part of the city. Excitement of meeting her brimmed over my mind as the bus lurched forward ; i cursed the traffic lights whenever they turned to red .It had always been like this where Gurveen was concerned.
            The door on the top floor of a ostentatious two storyed brown coloured  house would open on my arrival. "Hello, Siddhant," she said, as if she had seen me yesterday .She stood before me, too small, too thin for her clothes. The short black skirt flared out from the slim band of her waist; the boyish shirt collar hung loosely, pulled to one side, revealing the knob of a thin collarbone; the sleeves were too long over the fragile hands. She looked at me, her head bent to one side; her chestnut hair was gathered carelessly at the back of her neck, but it looked as though it were bobbed, standing, light and fuzzy, as a shapeless halo about her face. Her eyes were gray, wide and nearsighted; her mouth smiled slowly,delicately, enchantingly, her lips glistening.
               Her normal expression and sense of worry on seeing me at first were " You have turned so thin, why don't you take care of your health !. I don't want my love to look haggard and lean as if you are deprived of good food" . And the next obvious question to be thrown was "Tell me what will you prefer pasta or sandwich?" She would eagerly wait for my response and thereafter plunge herself in making pasta. And within minutes rustled up with two platters of pasta enriched with piquant love and tartare sauce. She felt contented to see me, while i hogged and slurped it down my throat . We talked long hours of our favorite ice-cream parlor at welkin street , where we spent so many summer evenings together--and i was thinking dimly that it made no sense at all; i always had more pertinent things to tell and to ask her; people did not talk like that when they hadn't seen each other for weeks.
As i rose from the chair to take a leak , the clock had struck half past three in the morning , realizing that tomorrow i had my exams i stopped painting, my colourful memories and continued to rejoice the pangs of relishing, scoops of  Choclate ice-cream with Gurveen at Welkin Street in my dreams .

                                    ODD STORY OF LOVE !

                                                                                                                                                                                           Odd it was ...Yes!! real odd it was ...and it was love... for one odd wench from an odd squirt, he  shared an unamed ,unknown love for one someone whom he didn't knew . It began with a child's infatuation , which slowly turned into smitten love for her...

                       Although she wasn't fair..but was  beautiful and exquisite ,like no one he had ever met before and that he was very much afraid that he was going to fall in love with her.....EVERYTIME THE BOY WOULD COME ACROSS HER THESE WORDS WOULD REVERBERATE IN HIS HEART  .........
               "I'll say it eventually, but let's
postpone it. Apart from that, I think we'll get along very nicely."
                            ...........................................................

Her face was like law of nature--a thing one could not question, alter or implore.
  which glowed like a stone on a beach, glows with sunrays...
Her hair was neither blond nor red, but the exact color of ripe berry rind ..which ran down her shoulders like a serene waterfall from a cliff..The wind waved her braided hair  against the sky, and to which her shyness lay ahead to the welkin's cheek...
Her eyes ,often painted with pigeon blue seeking something to which she had no clue...
People turned to look at crossroad as she passed. Some remained staring after her with sudden delight and the girls with acute resentment  . They could give no reason for it: it was an instinct her presence awakened in most people. She saw no one. For her, the streets were empty. She strolled jocosely unconcerned ,along the green sideways which turned towards her humble abode .

                   This was a small stanza of the poem , recited as a clockwork by the boy in her adoration....

             The boy was one of namby-pamby kids of those times ...he had absurd thoughts and an ugly face, over gaunt, hollow cheeks; black eyes, cold and steady; a contemptuous mouth, usually shut tight..His mouth, a small upturned crescent faultlessly traced, was gentle and generous, and warm with the faint promise of a smile His head had a certain classical imperfection in the shape of
the skull, in the natural wave of black ringlets about finely hollowed temples. He held his head in the manner of one who takes his beauty for granted among band of his freinds....

                 The guy was no match to the girl in beauty and grandeur ; in etiquettes and manners; in suavity and sobriety; in tenderness and mildness; in intelligence and dilligence ; in fashion and style ; in creativeness and ardourness: the only thing the poor chap possessed was a Heart of Gold ;untouched and void of any malice..

        ........................  DAILY ENCOUNTERS......................

One day she was out on the porch. She was feeding a couple of canaries in a cage suspended over the railing. Her pudgy little hand stopped in mid-air while feeding those little chirping birds. The birds enjoyed her company and they would sit on the railings in queue waiting for her to feed them...
                      He(the boy) would silently witness her activities from the side of the road and watched her with curiosity. He tried to pull his mouth into a proper expression of senstivity and  sympathy ; but  succeeded only in betraying that the process was an effort in vain and brevity of his thoughts pulled him back to say anything...It was a treat for him to stand there for long hours , savouring and rejoicing her act of solicitousness towards the birds of passage.
                In the morning time ...He would gaze from the tinted window glass panes of his room and sat there waiting to get a glimpse of Her angelic face whilst she passed by, for her School along with her mother.....Many times he tried to greet her but hestitated to do so in front of her mother .....so he would only satisfy himself  just by adoring her in black and white as she appeared to be on the other side of coloured window ..

                    Once in a day she knocked the doors of his mind which would open the closet of his heart ...from which different expressions of love unravelled ,  giving an impetous to his feelings for her ..Consequently she became inseparable slice of his heart ......

        He rehearsed a thousand times in front of the mirror as how he would present and introduce himself to her, when he will meet her for the first time but sadly his practise didn't got a platform to perform at the final show .....All his courage and vigour which he had gained over years ...shattered to pieces whenever he would come across her ...AND he would start his practise again from the square one.....
                               Though she was not physically present there but he cherished her congenial hypothetical company . Moreover he spent hours chatting , conversing to her image ..imagining how their relationship will turn out to be in some years down the line ,He smiled and sometimes laughed so loudly that ,his family members thought of  taking him to a psychiatrist ...Unknowingly his love was driving him in the gorge of insanity.......
                    Years rolled by in this manner and the time took an unfavourable turn for the poor boy ....when one fine day the girl went miles away to pursue her higher studies which formed a hiatus in melodious sound of merriment ..leaving his heart whining as if it would break and fall apart in fragments...    ....    .......   ......
             
                            Till this day that boy is impoverished and no love has  bound his heart together in one piece , so he writes this story in remembrance of his undiluted and immense love which was as pure as the driven snow; in expectation that some fine day she would read this unspoken story  and will come running .... "TO RING THE BELLS IN MY TEMPLE OF PURE AND DIVINE LOVE!!!!!"

La charmante amie française

Oh, hello love my invincible friend, I forget where we belong, You, you were in the kitchen, Skipping and laughing eyes at everyone you knew...