Life at Cross-Roads

There's no going forward, and there's no going backward, for it's not a regressive backward, it's not a forward-leap, either, for how do you know which is which, when can you ever claim to figure the coordinates of any point in infinity? There is no path because the path e-merged from the whole. To be sure, all paths lead us there, but all paths had begun from there, so there's no mid-point limbo where you're stuck. And all those paths, they spilled in all directions, criss-crossing each other, overlapping each other, like strains of water sliding down fogged-up window, suddenly giving you glimpses into the other end.

Timelessness

The way we keep hoping to keep track of time (thank God there's time for it) by matching our clocks/watches with another's, or the community's clock towerc- Do you really think the inevitable back-and-forth jumps of a few nano seconds couldn't have shifted us a whole day, or weeks, years, millennia in time? Even that atomic clock with its precision will stop one day in submission to the timelessness of time.

Un-Limiting the Sky

The sky opens up to us, by and by

Even with someone or the other

Staring at it at some point of the day,

(It’ll get to know light years later, it’s alright!)

Some squinting for inspiration, some with disappointment,

Some with hope, some at child-like wonder.

The sky is a shy, breathing being, you know.

Who knows what secrets it keeps on the other sides?

Do you think it is two dimensional?

It never perceived itself that way, you know?

The changing colours are only a peek into her person’s aspects, you know.

It’s constantly unfolding,

Like a neatly-folded piece of origami

Sky’s the limit, you all say?

I wonder whom the sky looks up to

For inspiration.

Light as the Emblem of Darkness

The dog preferred staying still in half-bent posture in the drain, with its ears plopped down, and tail between its legs for hours this evening, for the kids in the lanes were still weren't done with burning those blobs of light and shooting them high into the sky. 'Am I insane, to not be able to sense the 'festivity' in the air, with the choking smell of crackers being my only memory of this day?' he wondered, each time it felt a thud hit and vibrate his body.The bird in the nest bent and dug its head deeper, curling its head with its feathers, thinking to itself, 'These men know that we birds can sense the break of dawn through 'rods' and 'cones'. Alas, they can't sense yet that we can sense fear too.' I observed a kitten curled up in my backyard, waking up with a start to the resounding boom of firecrackers every minute or two. 

      Maybe, the only way of reminding ourselves that we're alive is by choking ourselves to death.

A Leaf from a Tree's Life

Decades

Of pushing myself to the extremes

With one arm squirming

Into crevices of the ground,

The other reaching out to the sky,

Squinting at the sunlight,

Shriveling up with the raindrops.

I've turned out taller than the year before,

Though I wonder how far I've really come,

Because my flailing arms are still

Groping at the sky,

With me still pinned to the ground.

Experiences

As they say

Words fall short to describe experiences.

Photographs are still pixels away

From being a reflection

Of one's memory -

A refracted reflection,

Of the experience itself.

So what about hopes

To capture, treasure memories for this lifetime?

What about people

Who love to imagine,

And spend their lives

Living on memories

Of those imagined sights,

Scenes, smells and people?

How much more real is our world from theirs', I wonder.

Epilogue: Memories are interpretations. Memories are karma. Retrospection is imagination in an inverted frame, or a regressive mode.

If Thoughts Were Audible

If Thoughts Were Audible,

Would you try to catch & make

Every fluttering thought your Bible,

In your craving

To come face to face

With that one thought

Which would have the answer

To what is the question,

That has gnawed at you since birth?

What if you bumped against

Hitherto infrasonic tremors

Of a morbid sigh or curse,

While hoping to tune into

A blessing or yearning?

Would you consider yourself

The sniper of the Panopticon

Or a prisoner of it?

Would the nail-biting curiosity

Of groping the trail

Of fragmented thoughts

From all (how many?) corners

Make you lose your own 'stream of consciousness',

                         as they would call it?

Deaf now to your own mental utterances

Would you (n)ever speak again?

[Since,

Your eavesdropping mind

Would already know

What the other has to say

As would he, about your thoughts

Before either uttered the first syllable.]

Or,

Would you start thinking

About what to think first

And what order to place those thoughts in, next,

So you could fool your mental trespasser,

Sending him off to a parallel trail of thoughts?

But of course he would be able to

Hear through your strategy

As he would also know

Of that moment

When you decided to

Guard your own thoughts.

But the question is,

Do you have any left, now? 

A numb stare is reflected

In your mental neighbour's eyes

As you both confront

The fact that

Deaf people don't have

Songs stuck in their head.

Puzzled Enemy

There’s vengeance gnashing its teeth

The anger, blindfolded,  

Flagellates at my insides

Churning out a fresh helping

Of supine decay,

Feeding its crippled existence.

I shrink at the sight

Of fingers pointing at me

To then direct wobbly steps  

Of melting courage

To be able to peer at

The faces behind

The exclamations

Of accusations aimed at me.

Till I bump against a mirror,

That, I had thought to be a window.

My palms scramble for strength

Clamped on to the mirror

As I slip on to the floor

I hope the aches will

Numb me into sleep,

Till I wake up

To fidgeting arms and feet,

As the glass ceiling above shatters

To reveal in mockery

A mirrored ceiling right above,

Which I had thought to be the sky

Before I had entered the room.

 P.S. The mind is its own worst enemy. 

The Blame Game

Sometimes I think the situation's wrong

To then severe the blame from myself

Almost as though it were a part of me,

Thinking absolving oneself is a crime in itself,

All the while.

I discover a retrospected, yet un-inspected wrong-doing

And tug the blanket of blame over me,

And that's when another blame game 

Conspires to defeat me as it calculates

The next mortal embrace

I shall make at the count of fear.

There are times when we grant forgiveness to ourselves, and on some occasions, one ends up giving blame to oneself, as if the so called 'acceptance' will purge all. Blaming oneself every now and then can be compared to self-flagellation with no growth resulting out of it. We assume we know we're in the wrong in a particular situation, not remembering that the only guide of the situation here is your opinion/interpretation of the incident, the incident which is infinite in itself. And then one starts to fear and get used to having guilt hover around. Eventually, everything around gets shaded into the vicious cycle of anticipated or retrospected wrong-doing. 

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.

On Procrastination

I have procrastinated for months

To eventually write this poem today

Ironically, this time

The poem to be penned

Was meant to bring to an end

To my pet peeve of procrastination.

I thought my writing of it

Would be bring me face to face

[Oh, no. I am behind time and Procrastination is ahead of me.]

With procrastination.

The Dance of Shadows Part II

Stuck in the rut of 

The (so called) dye-mentioned reality,

You walk past your oft-mentioned

Thoughts, fears, cravings, yearnings, 

Learnings, ramblings and musings 

Squeezing them into 

[You say they were two-dimension-ed?]

Shadows that remain there,

Brain-dead, 

They play havoc now

As their amoebic infinity

Spreads like an endemic,

Ending your sanity, morality, duality.

They were meant to save you either ways.

Don't you complain them thoughts of sadism yet!

The Dance of Shadows

There are days
When I walk out of the studio,
Disappointed with my performance,
Because today fear, not dance,
Made me finish the steps on time.
I can't mug up steps at the flick of a finger, you see.
I admit I have been lazy about self-practice.
I bet no one dances as beautifully
As I do in my visualizations
And some days I do amaze myself
As I perform the routine.
But when fear cripples me,
Paralyses my arms and limbs,
I wince at the instructor's polite rebuke
I knew it was coming.

The song is replayed,
Batchmates cheer
I wake up
My passion frees me
As I leap into the routine with a
5! 6!, and 5, 6, 7 AND. . . !!



P.S  And you thought your fears don't fear you?

Years and Months

            My very existence, my thoughts had become dusty with neglect induced by self-consciousness, note the irony, will you! Questions interspersed with chortles of laughter about my hobbies would send me into a mental asphyxiation lasting till I stammered and gave into the nausea churned out of the apparent emptiness tugging at me. That's a few years back.

                          Always singing songs on ultrasonics and infrasonics in my mind, or a song that would have me tapping my feet with fervour as I visualized moves and steps that would amaze  me, only to freeze at the thought of performing it even in front of myself. This was till a few years back.

                           I seemed to think I didn’t know what poetry was till I recently glanced with calm acceptance followed by appreciation of my scribblings, without wincing for once, (and always henceforth) at what I thought was meant to be dumped eventually, if I happened to have as much as one retrospective glance at resonances of my assertive existence in words willing to sacrifice themselves for want of better words, or definitions to my life. This is the last few months, this is now.

                            That inaudible hum has now bloomed into heartfelt, happy singing to songs as I walk on and across streets, into my office or anywhere. Never knew any of this would be possible one day. And yet, each day, nay, each second unfurls as more beautiful than the other.

                             This one’s funny, in retrospection at least. Having waded through umpteen rejections at ‘selections’ for dance performances and competitions in school, to discovering the rhythm of my own two left now set right via all that life has taught me in the past one year, probably the most profound of learning experiences in my life till now. From graciously accepting compliments with belief at my dancing skills in college, I further sauntered into dance classes nine months back, and when someone at the studio tells you, that you’ve grown a lot from where you started wrt dance, it’s like quenching my thirst for perfection only for that one instant, that eventually spurs me on to discover perfection in a wholly different posture and garb, with time.

I never knew I could be this passionate about something in my life again. I say, all these years have been worth it. Each day, as I try to bring perfection to my steps, or balance myself during the workouts, the rhythm, the infinite song of vitality uncoils from its self-conscious slumber, and stretches its hand out to me, as my dancing partner, showing me the way to the next dance step, and discovering a certain idiosyncrasy of me. And how do I celebrate the discovery of it? By doing a little jig. Never have I admired myself more than I inadvertently do now, when I catch myself staring at my reflection, as I move to the front row, performing the routine with all my life and imagination. 

As Mary Murphy rightly said in a recent episode of So You Think You Can Dance, dancing serves as oxygen to the soul. I hope I can gracefully dance out my gratitude for dance someday. The irony of it!

Infinity

For science and art 

Are but two interpretations

Of the one infinity

Called the Universe.

Of Memories.

I - Choose to forget,
Choose to remember
Things from my life's history 
So as to think "That's [my] Life.", someday.
And what If, Life chose to forget me one day?