There are Times

There are Times

When I am

Groping at the vapours                         

Of nothingness 

Hoping to churn out

Life and hope from it,

(With a desperation 

That makes me feel

As though I were 

strangling emptiness itself.)

There are Times

When I wish with all my might

(Believing for just that dead moment 

that my thoughts are powerful indeed.)

That the concrete reality 

Would crumble and melt

into nothingness.

There are Times

When I remember 

That it's darkness

Staring at me in the eyes

[Threatening me or encouraging me, 

                                          I know not.]

And I shut my eyes

To crawl within 

The cold comfort of familiarity

That I first meant to escape.

There are Times

When I seek to

Merge into a shadow

As the gust of Light, 

Having shot out 

From unseen corners and walls of impasse 

Now straining its eyes at me

Sears and sieves through

The dust of opaque fear

Settled since long before I was born.

There are Times

When I realise, a truth

Shall not be uttered by me

Not the right time,

How do you set a time for truth?

There are Times

When I must not let

The truth run amok

Lest it wreaks havoc.

P.S. / Epilogue 

Don't tell me that you

Have already forgotten

That there were times, 

You did not know 

Or even want to know

What you wanted to do, or 

What you ought to have done.

 There are times when we seek hope, in the form of an opportunity, a person who could guide us, without realising that the only person at that juncture to help us, would be our own self. But there's a constant wait for (Godot?) something to change things, as if trying to make the universe say that we were in an unfair place that could not be helped, and only a definite pattern or turn of situations would give meaning to one's life. The manifestation cannot be, prior to the determination. 

There are times when the opportunity doesn't merely knock at your door but stays put like a silent comrade waiting for you to pack your bags, so it can bring you to a new dimension of you yourself. Many a time, our fear stifles us, overriding the striving that seemed hope enough till now, only to bring things back to status quo.

There are times when one feels that one needs to take a stand, make his/her voice heard, to try and bring a halt to something that shouldn't happen, and is happening, yet. But circumstances spell out a different path altogether, and then we are faced with situations where we'd rather not let something be known to everyone, because it would do more harm than good. What is the truth, then? 

On Education

Indeed, over the years, all the definitions, I scooped up for exams, have been washed out from the accessible corners of my memory, thanks to them getting used to not being summoned for recollection. This is of course, barring a few things which happened to be of interest to me. For I still remember the day when mom-dad woke me up to have me get ready and wear a new set of clothes, socks and polished shoes, when I realised that was to be my first day at school. Since then, I have only gotten used to knowing, and not understanding education in the context of fourteen years spent at school, besides college, and in terms of qualifications that keep getting dropped like fused bombs around me. Taking up literature for my graduate course, is probably the best decision I have taken so far in terms of pursuing something that caught my interest. Learning and remembering things taught at school perfectly, and trying to pin them in all four corners of my memory, through semantic codewords, if I may term them so, sounded a little restricting, then and now. For despite 'words' being frightfully cradled by 'definitions', things go haywire. Miscommunication, failures, and so on.

Experiences or observations, translated into retrospective memories, having left most vivid of impressions on my memory/mind, are one of the few things I instinctively refer to, when stuck in situations I need to get the better of. Also, I would any day prefer to have something catch my curiosity and have me chase that thought till I reach a hypothesis, a conclusion, never mind if it's a dead-end. I don't want to wait for concepts to squint my very vision of myself, the world, and all that exists, and all that waits to be discovered. I would rather die thinking too much of things that make me wonder, with me progressing towards it, one step at a time, some forward, some backward, for the aim remains to go one level up in another dimension. That is when I day-dreamingly wonder when, or rather IF, I'll get to use a few or every thing I 'absorbed' like a sponge in moments of 'devoted student-hood'. And that's also when in a half-correcting, half-disappointed mode I remember what I've heard often - 'Every moment of your life, has something to teach, just that you realise the worth of it at such-and-such time.', and that's when I feel, that it doesn't seem to fit in with this situation. Maybe education in this symbolic order is just, self-regressive in nature. One that you may be aware of, but not necessarily be able to help.

The Anti-Rape Strategy

The moment the word ‘rape’ is dropped into a conversation, an immediate association is made with the portrait of a female. In that case, one really needs to reconsider the very definition, [it’s sad the word exits in our mental vocabulary] of rape – for it is [not just] the act of forcing someone for the act of sexual intercourse, but also that it is typically committed by man, according to Oxford dictionary. How about defining who a man is, next.

For, till 1992, male rape was not recognized as a criminal offence under British law, and was only termed as ‘non-consensual buggery’. Quoting an incident that occurred in 1992, where a man was gang-raped by a group of men,

Mr Leak, chairman of an organization for male rape victims, then said ‘that reluctance to report attacks stemmed from feelings of shame and humiliation. 'There is the fear that he will not be believed or that people will think that he asked for it, that he must be gay, or weak, unable to defend himself.'

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/man-abducted-from-train-and-raped-1557478.html

On one hand, people speak of unnatural sex, and on the other hand, people seem to be confused about knowing what the term ‘rape’ could imply. So a man cannot be ‘raped’ because sex between people of the same sex is unnatural and hence cannot be clubbed under ‘rape’.

Then, a girl must be inside her house by 8 or 9 in the evening, because apparently, no one ever got raped till 8: 59 PM in the world’s history. A woman is better off returning home alone in the dead of the night than with a guy because every guy she interacts with outside her family milieu is a threat to her modesty. Then again, talking about incest and domestic sexual abuse, one cannot really know whom to trust. In that case, maybe it is better to not have more than one child, so as to banish that remote possibility. But what about the fact that minors, infants get raped as well - even better to not have children in the first place. What about the minors who end up committing the crime instead – not really a great idea to bring up a child in today’s times. And then, it’s not like old people are spared, nor that they don't commit the act, so might as well kill oneself and everyone else in the family, so that no one ever gets raped again. Oh but forced sex between a married couple is sacredly sanctioned, so let that be. So, building a family, encouraging your children to interact with people outside of their home, is the worst thing you could do in times like these. Let's head out to a massacre today, maybe that will purge us. 

Mr. Never Will Exist

It's safe to write this because the one I intend to write this for will never exist. Pfft. 

Yeah, I'm the kind of person who will [at 22, yes] assert that the definition of being single ain't restricted to someone who's not yet exulted with an overwhelmed, verbal 'Yes' shrieked (by both people) confirming the change in their relationship status. Simply stated, being single may not have much to do with not being 'committed'. That's not even the point though - Having not dated in a year, I have always told myself and others [only on being asked, haha] that a great guy for me wouldn't be a certain someone fulfilling a criteria of characteristics, physical or otherwise, but that random someone I met, who’d eventually became the best guy I could open up to as a person, to know more about myself, by knowing him a little more every day. But since that doesn't seem to be happening either, here I am writing whatever few things come to my mind when I think of how I would want a [mine] boyfriend to be. To be sure, I am writing this as a planned retrospective reminder in written, of what my notion of the-great-guy-who-could-give-a-shot-at-dating-Shruti, would be. :P Indeed, I love writing random stuff, instead of just pocketing those thoughts away from others' sights and my own memories. Can't shift+delete anything we think anyway. So here goes, my version of him-who-will-never-exist.

                              

            With my new-found [not so new-found, almost a year's worth] liking for striking a conversation in a group of new faces, I would definitely want the guy to be someone who does enjoy a hearty interaction in groups, be it to keep the conversation going, be it to figure out his stance on the topic being discussed as he goes on. Yet it's obvious that no one [sensible] would go all polemical with his opinion, thrusting it on the other so much so, that the others start off a conversation amongst themselves about how that chap should shut up and let others speak. Yeah, I think being a good, patient, genuine listener makes a person tad bit more charming. So no, I don't want a blabber-mouth, I just want that thinking mind of his to convey what's on his mind [if he wishes to], at times when I'm just in need of some grass-grazing for new thoughts. Like I would expect of anyone else I would occasionally have a conversation with. Nothing new there, is it?

I'm no scientist, no ace at Physics, Chemistry or Maths, but boy if I had my way, I would be an astronaut today. [Let's keep it for my next birth or even better, a parallel universe.] Science gives me goosebumps, and I'm a sucker for getting to understand the wonder of the universe and the earth, in all its macroscopic and microscopic magnificence a little more, every day. So I take notes from books after I'm back from work, and so on. If I could have that someone explain to me the mysteries of space, time, string theory, sacred geometry and all the rest of it in layman terms with a dash of patience, I would go ga-ga over him, more than I have ever worshiped my favorite heart-throbs. If he's as at layman a level as I, yet if curiosity wakes him up from deep slumber at 3 in the night, to make him wake me up and ask me a question or suggest a sudden hypothesis that struck him, I would be elated, to say the least. Indeed, I wouldn't mind falling for a mad scientist one day.

Have I rambled enough already? He must explain, if not justify why or how[us]  being in a relationship would help someone apart from us. If he utters a simple 'We must strive to help each other grow.', I would be half-happy. Because to love another for no reason at all, is a wonderful thing maybe, but if all your love gets directed to only one individual, are you not living in a bubble that would burst in tears on the day of your 'break-up'? So I'm saying here, instead of living in a relationship where mutual liking/love conveyed over a period of time, everyday, becomes your definition of love itself. If another’s love makes you a more confident person, it doesn't have to stop at that. You use that confidence to better the life of another, and so on. And this holds true in all relationships I believe.

Grammar, well. :P Grammar and a [witty] tongue that fluently rolls out words in English [that being the language I am most fluent in of the rest], would be like a succulent bite into his persona waiting to be shredded apart [with eagerness from his side] to know a little more of him, and get just a little more used to the tone and tenor of his voice. If he would read, I would love him to read with me, read to me. If he wrote, I'd happily read up his scribblings and prod him to write more, and maybe pen a verse or two with me, someday soon.

If he sang, I would join him in a majorly inaudible frequency to soon partner him in the lyrics, breathing life into the tenor of the song.

Last but not the least, if dance excited his passion even a little, I would happily give him my arm, howsoever weak in the knees I would get, or even if I were to tumble and literally fall head over heels [in love? haha!] with him.

Oh no, I do not seek a mental twin here. Someone who evokes life in the very emptiness of a room as he charges it with his presence as he walks in, with his warmth, good humour, sensitive nature, someone who could have all or none of the above traits and make me wonder, with a syllable he may have uttered by mistake. So much so, the day I prove to be as good as what I expect of another, the aforementioned. 

Life as I See It: Busting Myths

Illusory as this corporeal existence 
        may be termed,

I am too glad sifting through

[This imagined existence of]

The interspaces of Time and Space.
Don’t need to be interceded for

To a space-less place-

The echoes of infinity
Tingle me, weaving infrasonic waves

Of life around me.

I can catch up with salvation
Some other day;
I'm here. Soaking in 
The sun's tickle tingling me awake
The wind's whistle cooing on a dull day, 
The patter of rains as it sings 
A new rhythm into play.
A dog's wagging tail at my caress,
Smiles from faces familiar-unfamiliar,
Or a dance move I'd been tugging at to perfect.
Lapping up a home-cooked meal
After a long day, curling up in my bed.
Celebrating joys with an exultant jump
A high-five or a fist-pump,

Celebrating life more
Than fearing death.