He sat kneeling in the inner garden.

Motionless he the watched the gibbious moon, light up the blossom tree, the branches jet against the lighter sky, the clustered blooms now barely tinted.

A petal spiraled towards the ground and he thought:

Beauty
Is not less
For falling
In the breeze.




Another petal settled on the materess of flowers beneath the blossom tree.

The wind sighed in the branches and another petal detached itself and began the spiral towards the ground.

Revolving slowly in the now barely existent wind..
His eyes followed the decent and then moved up to the tree again and tried to guess which would be the next petal to detach itself.

All of them appeared perfect to him.. and it took all his will to concentrate on the flowers and not think of her....

He looked up at the nervous sky watching the night fight a losing battle with the advent of another dawn. The wind picked up and plucked another petal and swirled it towards the ground. The swirl reminded him of her.

He looked towards the east. But she was part of the sky.

The petals looked as graceful as her. lissome and pure.

He sought distance now and only then could he feel that he was not within a box - a box filled with other men and women and all their evil.

Without women, he thought helplessly, men are only a cruel joke.

And with this thought he bled in the starch of the newly risen sun...

Your Body is a Wonderland.

I am leaning on the sofa, she is sitting on the floor, the small table between us. It seems to be absolution simply to listen to her. But I know that if she touches me my shame will be exposed, she'll see in my eyes the terrible things that have marked me/.

A last shudder of strangeness, last flash of fear before longing pushes its blade into me, up to the hilt. Skinned alive, my hand reaches for her hesitantly....

Now impossibly she is placing her cheek - soft - sun warmed peach - against my cold palm.

I begin to trace every line, her lengths, and shapes, and realize suddenly that she's perfectly still, her hands clenched and I'm appalled by my stupidity, my longing humilates her. Then I realize that she is totally concentrated, pinioned under my tongue, that she's giving me the most extragavant permisson to roam the surface of her. Only after I explore her this way, so slowly, an animal outlining territory, does she burst into touch.

I'm paralayzed in the cave her hair makes. Then my hands move to feel her slim waist and suddenly I know how she would bend after a shower, twisting her hair into a wet turban, feel the shape of her back would make, leaning over. I like an oar balanced in its arc above the water, dripping silver. I hear her voice but not her words, so soft, the noise of her whole body is in my ears.

I am deafened by the buzzing drone of her body, the power lines of blood, blue threads under her skin. Cables of tendons; the forests of bone in her wreist and feet. Each time she stops speaking, in each long pause, I renew the pressure of my grasp. I feel her slowly going heavy. How beautiful the blood's pull towards trust, the warm weight of the sleeper entering her orbit, pulling towards me, fragrant, heavy and still as apples in a bowl and oh ! so beautiful the serene calmness of her look as she meanders in the gardens of sleep.

It's not the stillness of something broken but of absolute rest......


When I drift off to sleep I dream of her - young, glistening smooth as marble, sugary wet with sunlight. I feel the sun melting over my skin.

I wake as if I've been dug out of the dream and lifted into the world, a floating exhaustion. My muscles ache from stretching into her, as I lie in sunlight across the bed.

Every cell in my body has been replaced, suffused with peace........

The Man in The Long Black Coat: Going, Going Gone.....

Like a Beast in the pen I'm cut off
From my friends, freedom, the sun
But the hunters are gaining ground
I've nowhere else to run.

- Boris Pasternak Nobel Prize.

She was a good woman and nothing was her fault. They were all good women. They were women with a mission to him, to serve him, straighten him out, to get his oh-so-many talents working in one direction, to help him make a fresh start that would get him clear of all the fresh starts he had made before.

He had encouraged her as he encouraged all of them. He had stood beside them at the patient’s bedside as if he were not himself the patient but a member of the healing team.

" So what shall we do about this poor chap that will get him up and functioning again?

The only difference was he had never believed in the remedy.. Never ever...

She lay face down, exhausted and possibly asleep. She had cleaned the flat. As prisoners clean cells and the bereaved tend tombs. She had scoured the surface of a world she couldn't alter.

Other people might tell him he was too hard on himself. Women said it to him often. How he mustn't hold himself responsible for both halves of every relationship that had collapsed on him. But he knew better. He knew the distance between himself and everything else.

In those days he was still the unequalled expert on his own incurability.

His disease: falling in love head over heels every time.

He touched her shoulders but she didn't stir, so he knew she was awake.

" I have to go" , he said as he began loading his junk into his long black coat, ritualistically as if setting off on a safari. his bent wallet, full of unpaid bills and cancelled credit cards; his passport mildewed with sweat and too much travel; the notebook and pencil he kept handy for penning gems of wisdom to himself for contemplation when he was sober and not under the influence.

He fished out a suitcase and began filling it with shirt's that she'd ironed for him.
" You said this time you weren't going back, that you'd served your time?"

"I have to go, there's nothing I can do, stay here, use the flat."

"If you just hadn't said all that stuff we'd have been fine. I’d have been happy just having an affair. You should see your letters and hear yourself in them."

He didn't look at her. He stooped over and picked up the suitcase.

"Just don't do it to anyone else", she said.

That was as far as her calm could stretch. She began sobbing and was sobbing when he left and she was still sobbing the next morning when she called her friend over and babbled out the whole story, yet defended him and his actions to the death.

She defends him still, a surfeit of loyalty to this day, even though her illusions are destroyed......
All that was left is ....

The eloquent silence, All that you hear at a hundred miles per hour is the ticking of the brain.

Where is the Love??

There's no avoiding it any longer. This feeling has been growing in my mind for the last decade and it is time I elucidated on it, otherwise I will constrain myself too much.



I don't like any of my friends. I've just flicked through my address book, a thin volume it has to be said, and was filled with irritation, distaste and an overwhelming sense of boredom.

{There I said it.... it just had to be said, }


None of my classmates from School feature in it. The friends in college I keep in touch with have dwindled. Most are from out of town, maybe distance is what does it for me, I’m a very private person as it is and I don't like it when people think they know me too much.



One of the great boons of living in a citylike Delhi is that you don't really need friends to exist and keep yourself entertrained. There are 97 million people within walking distance, a thousand new people every day for the rest of my life and no need to repeat anyone.

No, I like Acquaintances: a wide circle of faintly familiar people who smile and wave but whose names escape me.

An acquaintance has all the expectation, desire to please and vivacity of a first date.

They flash wit and compliments and don't expect you to call or go to their children's weddings.

Friends are only necessary in the rural country or when you go where your being an island is of no use, Where you have to have them, otherwise you stand in serious jeopardy of ending up in one of those institutions which instead of calling themselves Mental Asylums, prefer to be known as Institutions of Meditations & Mind Relaxation (just fancy names for Re - hab centres).

This is not to say that I have foresaken everybody.

There are a select few whom I count as true friends and all of them know this about me by now, that they still remain friends with me is something which is strange. They too are like me in many ways. They share the same passions and appreciate some similar things in life. Maybe we have got used to each others eccentricities long before to give a damn.



I have given up on my other so called wannabe friends, the more you know of another person the more distaste, gorge rises in your throat, common decency prevents me from telling them what i really feel about them. But I have recently done this and I feel lighter in my heart of having cut off those 2 from my former so called “friends”.

Trusting another person after having been betrayed is a very difficult thing for me to do. I can forgive easily but forgetting is the main problem for me.

Why do I cling onto the past so much. Is it because I think I have no future?

No there are things I look forward to but those things are not everybody’s cup of tea.





I try and reconcile to the fact that at least I was morally correct. But that doesn’t help either. Morality doesn't give you squat in todays rat race. yes morality is not a commodity whose stocks are soaring at the moment, while those of deceit & deception are soaring high, every one wants a piece of the action.





In order not to encourage other people to really get to know me, I form a wall around me, this is my private domain, if anyone comes close to intrusion, I behave and act in such a hostile manner that usually I succeed in keeping the walls around me solid, no one and nothing is allowed in here. This makes me think that I am a callous human being, maybe yes, maybe I just can’t fake it no more. .. Just cannot be bothered.


No one you meet for the first time sees the real you, what they perceive is really your representative, who puts the best foot forward and keeps up appearances. But I am not like that anymore. I have developed this aura by which I repel any curiosity which is aroused in another person about me.



I have seen some people shudder when I act like that. It doesn’t make me feel good or pleases me to be so obnoxious but lately I don’t even have to concentrate to bring this ugly face of myself to display to the world.

Over time I have realized that I like mostly unfamiliar faces around me, where no one knows about my past, my present and very few will know about my future.

While everyone thinks they know all about me, I let them delude themselves of this folly, if they think they know me, they will not pry into my affairs that much.

From sport to sport they hurry me to stifle my regrets.
And when they win a smile from me they think that I forget..
(But I never do forget..)


It is not a comfortable thought that I shun life away.

I rationalize with myself that I reach out to people in other oblique ways, help some without showing my face. Do deeds which soothe me and try to piece together my shattered heart. Like a big bad Jig Saw puzzle, I am patiently trying to get it right, but fragments of my heart have been lost and don’t want to be found again.


I will not pretend anymore. I am sick of pretending, this farce has run its course, and it must end before I go to the valley below.

I have known people from a distance whom I like without having ever met them, and I feel that somehow that distance is best to keep a long friendship going and not meeting everyday, frankly no one can keep up with the kind of shit my mind conjures up, and they either act bemused or look incredulously at me saying "You all right Mate!!"



I mean WTF!! I prefer seclusion to companionship,

I have changed and so has the world around me, that I don’t feel like a part of the world anymore, it is just my shortcoming and I try to live with myself for not learning the ways of the world. (maybe I missed the classes).



I used to be very different, I used to make an effort to befriend everyone in college, reach out and embrace strangers but now I shun even the people I know really care and worry about me.

I feel nothing, I am numb. I am very cold blooded. I am stone cold.

Where did my humanity go. down the shitter is my guess. How I became like this is a mystery to me, maybe what I need is a self forensic exam to trace my humanities disappearance.





It has dawned on me slowly, there were clues galore but maybe I just wasn’t looking in the right place or maybe I chose to ignore it.



Self-deception is very easy to achieve. Don’t you think so?

I deceived myself while I went on deceiving my audience.

Maybe I will meet humanity again or maybe I will just wither away in the time honoured tradition of solitude and be a recluse for the rest of my time before my dying.



Maybe like the late great Jerry Garcia of The Greatful Dead once said :

“I'm shopping around for something to do that no one will like...

SYSTEM OF A DOWN

In mind he was tierd, worn out by years of hope deferred, of lonliness, of unrewarded toil.

In body he was almost prostrate by the pain.

Bodily pain stung him like a personal affront " Someone will have to be made miserable for this ", he once said during the thores of an excrutiating toothache with a malicious gleam in his eyes...

He was no stranger to mental fatigue, but when to that was added corporeal anguish, and self induced imsommnia --he came very near total collapse.

He capacity for work was constricted; the mere sight of his writing material filled him with dread, But because he had a horror of being discovered in a state of inaction, after breakfast he sat down and as usual tried to write -- to fill the empty screen which seemed to him to be mocking him.

Dazed in a torrent of ideas, he painfully waited for the words to start flowing, but remained stumbling in a maze of disjointed ramblings., he frequently lost the thread of his argument, now and then, in sheer exhaustion of thinking up something to write he looked at the half filled screen, trying very hard indeed to string two coherent thoughts together... but the effort drained him..and he slumped in his chair and thought about the futility of it all and once again cursed the block which had stolen his writing from him...

The words refused to flow as they had once done and this in turn resulted in a depressing sadness creep slowly all over him. It wasn't the meloncholic ecstacy which he was emanoured to but a much darker, sadder mood which seemed to overpower him and disturb his solitude as he tried to feed off his nostalgia about the good ole days when he had been wedded to words... This recent divorce was not to his liking and he hated it...yes absolutely hated it.....

It was a nightmare and he wished he would wake up and smell the coffee....

She moves in Mysterious Ways...

He had been walking for a couple of hours. In his search for seclusion , he had avoided the usual paths to the beach and preferred to go make his way cross country. Soon he could hear the roar of the ocean and he followed the sound ,

As he crested a dune, he suddenly saw the ocean . His heart leapt with joy at the sight of this vast, deserted beach. There was no one in sight as far as his eyes could see. Alone finally he said to himself.

He reclined on the sandy shore. Before him stretched the ocean, foaming, blue, limitless.. On both sides, as far as the eye could see, was a line of froth, flung onshore by the breaking waves, like a garland of bunched white blossoms deposited on the golden sand, a hair - ointment to adorn the earth's green tresses.


Foaming waves broke the blue surface of the water in a thousand places. Only a storm voilent enough to displace thousand of stars, swirling them against the azure backdrop of the sky, could match the sight of the water churning in the ocean..




He had no idea how long he remained on the seashore, gazing at the beauty of the ocean.At this moment, one segment of the blue water shone like molten gold n the gentle rays of the westerning sun. Then, the darkness descended upon the black waters, the whole horizion lit up with the last gloaming.

He rose to his feet with a sigh!! Time to head back he said to himself.

Why he sighed, I cannot say, for there is no telling what happy memories came to the shore as floatsam and jetsam in the ocean of his memory and evoked a sigh...



Rising he turned away from the ocean. on the sandy shore. At once he beheld an extraordinary appartion (or so it seemed to him later).

At the edge of the wave - resonant ocean, on the sandy shore, in the blurred glow of twilight, stood an exquisite female figure...
Her unbraided locks , cascaded down her back, and were swept across her face by the gentle breeze, her body glowed like a jewel, a picture framed by its backdrop.

Though partly obscured by the hair, her countenance glowed like moonlight glimpsed through a gap in the clouds.

She was a beauty..rather tall, but her limbs and bosom were full and well rounded, Like trees and vines in the rainy season, her body rippled with its own voluptousness. the fullness lending grace even to her tall figure. She seem to him to be In the full flush of youth, like a river surging against its bank.

She was dusky, her skin had the deep hue to molten gold, her locks cluttered about her dark, glowing forehead, like bees about the petals of a newly blossomed flower, her eyebrows arching up to her hair line beneath her cresent shaped brow,

Her eyes were limpid pools of contrasting emotions.. . their gaze was calm yet penetrating. Her glance would instantly make one feel that she had the power to look into one's most secret of hearts. The expression of those penetating eyes would change from moment to moment, now melting with tender affection, now full of sweet langour, as if the god of Love himself lay there dreaming. At times, her eyes would be dialated with desire and intoxivated with romance, and at other times, a hearless sidelong glance would dart from the corners of her eyes, like a flash of lightining.

Two ineffable elements irridated her countenance: the stamp of intelligence, and her self -esteem.

From her posture, the arch of her swan neck, it was clear to him that she was a queen among women..

Youthful vitality made her body restless, as a river in autumn ripples even without a breeze. from moment to moment, this restless energy revealed some new facet of her lovliness and he gazed, transfixed, at this ever evolving display of charm..

Suddenly encountering this divine figure in the midst of such a desolate part of the seashore, , his eyes bore a startled expression, while the young woman's gaze was serenity itself, and was that a touch of amusement he saw reflected in them.

There the two of them remained, on the wave resonant ocean's desolate shore, in the twilight glow,for a long time.

After the pregnant silence the young woman's voice was finally heard.

"O Traveller, have you lost your way? ,

Her voice struck chords in his heart.

The string of our heart's extraordinary instrument sometimes grow too slack to be tuned to harmony , try as one might. But at a single sound, at the musical note in the woman's voice, the dissonance is instantly rectified. All the strings fall into tune.

At such a moment , the journey of life seems to resemble a blissful stream of music. Her voice had just such an effect on him.

" O Traveller, have you lost your way"?

The sound of her the words entered his ears. What they meant , what reply he should offer, he did not know. The sound seemed to spread everywhere, bringing a shiver of joy; it seemed to fill the breeze and murmur through the leaves, falling away to blend with the ocean's booming sound.

The earth, girdled with the sea, was beautiful; beautiful too was the woman, and also the sound of her voice,
the hearts instrument began to resonate with the rhythm of harmony.

"Come with me". invited the maiden, when she received no reply to her question.

With these words, she walked away, she seemed to glide over the terrain like a white cloud wafted on the slow spring breeze, like a clockwork toy he followed this vision of beauty not looking or caring where he was going.

At a certain place where they had to skirt a small wood, the beautiful woman disappeared from his sight behind a clump of trees. Having trudged around the forested area, he found himself alone , there was no sign of the beautiful woman, anywhere. he looked down to see which way her footsteps went and suddenly he felt a cold shiver run down his spine, He moved back over the way which they had come to re check , but there was no doubt about it.

There were just one set of footprints leading from the shore to the clump of trees, and they were his... With invisible footsteps she had come into his life to illuminate it and then as suddenly and mysteriously disappeared..

"Was she a godess, a human being, or merely an illusion conjured up by his mind??

Frozen, immobile, he turned this question over and over in his mind ....uncomprehending....and alone again..

Let the Music be your Master

The music I listened to last night in my house was intoxicating like red wine, pretty when held up to the light, sharp and then smooth against the tongue.

I found my thoughts dervishing, great billows of whirling energy, connected between earth and sky like a spinning dancer's hands, one hand open to the ground, the other open towards the sky, forming a conduit like a high priest of ancient gods I evoke the spirit to rise from the ashes again as the song faded out and I was left alone once again to begin once more as the guitar struck a new chord ….

Choosing Life

Seclusion

For periods in my life, I have hidden from the world because that was what I needed to do. But it’s obvious that now I must grow, I must strive to reach my full potential – in spite of my desire to escape the responsibility that follows. Maybe now I am ready to bear the responsibility of living a significant life with a wider horizon...

To grow up is to learn that one’s mature life consists of personal choices and decisions, and to realize that options give freedom. To dare to take upon oneself the responsibility and the pain in this kind of freedom is the condition of living.

My life and the time span that makes up my life are my concern. It is up to me alone to decide how I will spend my life – and the consequences of each choice are my responsibility.

We as humans set goals for ourselves throughout our lives. We achieve some and set new ones… so it’s all about enjoying the journey of life while it lasts.

And what is a goal anyway?
Select only the most sublime; force of habit will take care of the rest.

OBSESSION:
I have chosen obsession. Or have I? What determines why we act in one way or the other in life, or abstain from choosing the other option? Is it fate or free will?

I realize that at any point, I can make a new choice. Any day, any time. I can decide whether I’m willing to pay the price for the way I have chosen.

I also realize that my choices – even choosing to bail out at a point in the future, will have consequences.

In the past, I didn’t think or act as I do now: I was more flexible, more compromising; I wanted to tread on an even path and I guess not step on too many toes.

What do these challenges spark in me? Am I a gambler, who ticks only when this much is at stake? Or is it simply the right circumstances coming together at the right time?

Normally I try to find answers to such questions. Analyze. Perhaps I have finally achieved the state of just living – living without pondering too much about it.

The well-balanced person strives for not only a goal but lives fully in the flow of life, because every expression in the process is equally important.

What vanity in the art of ZEN ARCHERY,
wanting to hit the target!

There will always be one stronger than you.

The only importance is the correctness of the
movement.

– Kungfutse.

The universe of humans often seems menacing, full of conflict stemming from people’s own inner dramas, little wars that have nothing to do with me, but which are likely to effect my well – being. That’s when I withdraw into the simplicity of the mountains…. To peace.

I want to find out if I am capable of what, deep inside, I believe I can accomplish.
But visions have to be transformed into reality, otherwise they are nothing but illusions.

I seek solitude, to connect with inner peace. TAI CHI amongst the giants of the universe. Belonging “to” & “in” the moment…... Absolute serenity…… Peace……

That moment of oblivion, ex stasis, two bodies joined in bliss, transformed.

The pleasure seems incomparable to anything.
Little deaths, they've been called.

I've gone spinning out of control, unaware of anything else but that explosion-- by far the most vulnerable point in existence.

Sometimes it feels like the soul flies away, circles above the trees like a bird, returns by gradations;

Breathe, breathe.

I wonder if it is a glimpse of the afterlife, the eternity we may all find if we seek truth and love. The energy generated and released during that peak of pleasure must be astounding. Open the floodgates.

The yin and yang, pearls from the sea, the earth, the curves of your body.

Dark......

Suddenly I find myself awake, wet and hot... It's confusing and conspiring...

Sensory perception shifts in the dark and I study the lines and shapes of furniture, drapes and sense rather than see the layout of my room.

I can hear the slumber of the world, and of my world, the house creaking and settling, The silence creeps onto me, there is an eerie silence in my soul, I try and remember where I am...

The old Goan House.....,
The high wooden roof......,
Stained glass windows casting colorful shadows on the pale yellow walls...
the ancient fan revolving ever so slowly.......,
the creak of the blades as it completes another circle,


The air is laced with a sweet smell of Jasmine... Raat Ki Rani (Queen of the Night)...

It reminds me of her... She came into my dreams again tonight...
Her haunting smile luring me to the edge of reason , taxing my sanity.
I miss her next to me, the softness of her skin, the mammoreal sheen of her body as it gleamed on moonlight nights... Where did those nights go....??

Outside the air hangs still, the trees are all hushed, the cicadia's have stopped their screaming, it makes me feel so alone on this mosquito net covered four poster bed, drenched in sweat on this steamy sultry night..

There is an unearthly silence which envelopes me and folds the night over me , blanketing my sorrow, but hope is yet to dawn and I am alone and forlorn....

But I am not the only one awake at this hour; I hear a stray dog bark once...then twice....the siren for the shift changs goes off for the nearby docks, and that means it's 3:45 a,m. The morning catch coming in...

Another night of fitful sleep...


I’ve been dwelling in dark books, good books but not good for lending, books that if I loaned out I’d have to make an apologetic disclaimer about the images trapped in the black and white text by the authors.

Images of death, of dead animals, of sickness, of plague, of drowning, of murder and rape and suicide, images I wish I hadn’t seen in my mind’s eye.

Images I wish I could put back inside the book and close the cover. It was not my intent, just as so much of my life was unintentional...it wasn't my intent that things would turn out the way they have..;

A good book is more than its fragmentary images, but some thoughts linger like retina burns.

Jesus, Don't want me for a sun beam

A high, Late - Looking Sun beam, worriedly raced across the eastern sky and sneakily entered my room through the gap in the curtains....

Then like an uninvited guest, it fell across my face disturbing my vivid dreams and restless sleep,

I shammed sleep, hoping to get away with it just for thoise all to essential few minutes more.............

As you would expect, O !! idle reader, it was'nt a good welcome to the now mortally offended and brooding, high - late looking sun beam who had travelled light years to greet me this morning....

Dejected it sat down and continued to glare at me..I turned over....

but then ........

Dawn, dressed in Gold Sandals, came at last, in all its glory and whispered into my ear:
Wake Up.... sleepyhead, there's tons to do and nice lassies to meet...

I finally gave up courting that Jealous mistress Sleep & re joined the world of the living...............

Sins II -- The Remdemption Song....

When your head gets twisted and your mind goes numb,
You are too tired to think and then start acting dumb,
When you just want sleep and it never comes.

You begin to think there isn’t a soul, who cares,
You take gentle steps but then from sheer effort just go slump.

The uselessness of your existence strikes you cold;
it suddenly occurs to you that all you do is
Alienate people who were willing to listen but you go yours
by turning away and got busy just having fun.
Getting your kicks while leaving others with wounds to lick.

A searing ache throbs deep in your heart of the memories
of people who once you thought were yours,
since then have long ago been apart.
Things have changed and now you find yourself alone and estranged
Paranoid in an all conspiring world.

Tormented by your demons you grit your teeth, willing to go your way for keeps,
Looking and seeking a way out, from the memories of days of your inglorious past.

Slowly but surely you start to hate yourself, for what you have done to others and yourself,
Just not caring for anybody else, serves you right to be in this self contained cell.
This is your private hell…. And here you will be till eternity rests…

The memories of cruel deeds is scant comfort for your conscience to live with,
and you often consider to atone for your sins,
but penance is a long road and atonement comes from deep within
after treading on various emotional & physical treadmills.

To figure out this world is the hope that makes you delve
into deep crevasses of your serrated soul,
Making you think of your existence in our sordid world.
You become your own guide and on and on you go paying no heed
to others who yell out warning cries,


The peak is your goal and you head out on this seemingly endless road.
To the crossroads you go and when you finally find them,
you turn the wrong way, caught in the web again you fool!!

Just when you are about to give up,
hope comes in the shape of someone who shares your pains
but you cannot unite to form a single way
and alone you are condemned to go in your quest,
high up in the mountains where solace rests.

Over the fields and under many a tree you ponder on the,
Doubts, which creep into your thoughts,
but you are bound to your oath of never giving in to your detractors words.
To the very top you will go or perish in your quest as the errant knights of yore


Then the end is in sight but God doesn’t oblige, as you’re hurting his pride,
by giving up all that he has provided for you.
So he too turns the face away from you … as your intentions are not that pure,
Many more turmoils will you have to endure.

Realization dawns one fine day on you
that you figure no where in the fate
of what will eventually become of your beloved earth.
The world’s place in this universe is but a figment in the great plan
and people like you are just passengers like sardines in a can.

Not bothering to care of what comes out of this amazing craving
to know whether yours was a life pre destined or you are what you make yourself into.


You are here now, you have arrived and somewhere down the hallway
a newborn baby cries!!

Here’s another one you say,
who will also have to bear this burden everyday,
this lessens you pain as you come to reconcile your erroneous ways.

You are not alone,
there are others just like you out there in this simple world
but they too like you are seeking something which has always eluded your steps
in this incredible journey to dry clean your soul.



Sins Part 1

The sky purple and deep above the fast black surface. In the half light before dawn all the violet and the rare shadows reveal colors we cannot name, something beyond cobalt and viridian and umber. The dew wet pavement streaks the streetlamp light in silvery cold with dapples of thick heavy dewdrops and my body relishes the splash of the cool damp air. The heat of the previous day forgotten…

The big road running to my left looks like India ink, the asphalt which shimmers with the heat wave during the day is now a mirror of reflections of car windows and headlights and the pale glow of street lights of sodium gas lamps soak into my eyes….

I can hear the cars traveling on the road, the hollow rush of the tires and engines and the quick dull thump as the tires roll over the steel joints of the span of the nearby bridge.

Something in me loves a bridge like I love dreams in which I’m flying. The suspension, the rise coinciding with the falling away of the ground, the feeling of traveling over water.

Something in me fears a bridge like I hate dreams in which I’m flying. The pinprick feeling at the nape of my neck of no solid ground, the notion I might jump and fall, the ending of the dream.

As the night’s curtain parted for dawn I could see the blue and the branches, tall slumbering trees, sap thickened and slowed by the night cold. Things of the night withdrew like the tide as the sky lifted and lightened ushering in a brand new day…..

From sport to sport they hurry me,
to stifle my regret

And when they win a smile from me,
They think that I forget..


An English Ballad from
P.G. Wodehouse's ~ 'Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves'

Trek haiku

trek . . .
we plod our way up
to little butterflies

{Lalchung Village}

mountain climbing:
my neck feels the force
of my fears pressure

(Bhakre walking up the flank of Mt. Pandim)

In Camp:

Rushing to greet us

A freak storm...

Into thin Air:

I gasp for air

in this Icy embrace..

back home:
describing the mountains
night lingers . . .

Memories of Sikkim

Though here at journey's end I lie
in darkness buried deep
beyond all towers strong and high,
beyond all mountains steep,
above all shadows rides the Sun
and Stars forever dwell;

I will not say the Day is done,
nor bid the Satrs farewell....

I have been kind of subdued ever since I got back from Sikkim. I miss it very much, seldom do you visit a place which speaks to your inner self so intimately or awakens the emotion of belonging there. How I want for that inner voice to be true that I belong there and I wish I can keep going back there time and time again and maybe one day find my own Utopia there... a wooden cabin on the spur of a mountain, with a naughty brook of fresh ice melt, leaping from stone to stone on its way to find a bigger stream and its journey to the sea.

I am still reveling in my memories of that enchanted place. The sense of peace I felt there, is hard to express in words. There are times when you say That this is as good good as its gonna get. Well such was the feeling I felt there.

Every stone spoke volumes, each gust of wind brought a fresh smell and freshness of the rhododendron flowering forests and hillsides on its wings,

The lakes there had every imaginable shade of turquoise and blues from dark cobalt to aqua marine and millions of shades in between.

The skies shone with a clearness which you cannot experience in a city now a days, The local Lepchas and Bhutias derive a certain happiness living off the land with their Yaks and wild horses. They always had a smile to offer to you and it lit up faces and rosy cheeks, Somehow in the city we lack this simple joy of living...we are too busy in our own mundane existence to worry about LIVING LIFE for fun.... It was magical for the short time I was in that environ

Since I have been back, I have a far away look in my eyes. In my mind I am still there. I am quiet and have nothing much to say to anyone *which is normal*, but there is a reluctance to speak about it as if sharing the experience will somehow rob some of the luster off the visit for me. There is an emptiness that I feel which again is hard to explain. I feel like a foreigner back at home & homesick for Sikkim once again.

There are very few places left in the world which are unsullied from the march of progress and the everyday rat race and traveling in the valleys of Sikkim you come to just such a place, a bubble in time and space.

Life goes on there on its own pace, sure you find Coke and Pepsi there too..but still considering other parts of India, I am glad that Sikkim is relatively secluded from the rest of the country.
The only other place to evoke similar feelings in me was after my first visit to Ladakh & Spiti Valley....I like to call such places my Zen Locales where I find a completeness unlike anywhere else.

My time here draws to an end..2 more days which we will spend visiting Monasteries nearby and just relaxing and taking in the sights and then its back home..



Spending time in the mountains, is like a rebirth... a regaining of lost prespective to the lonlieness that had been stfiling me of late...almost strangling the life out of me..but this foray into the wild has brought realization and some insight into my life... it was sorely needed.



Mt. Pandim Between Dzongri and Thansing (with Mount Pandim in the Background): during the downward Climb to Thansing



There was a wonderful week camped on the flanks of Pandim, the mountain we will attempt next year with a couple of our mates. This time we were just two of us me and Bhakre and we climbed upto 18,400 ft...

ON THE SCREE SLOPES ....



We were pushed back by a storm which left us tentbound for 2 days. It was scary but fun, it snowed and the wind howled down the mountain at enormous speeds, threatening to rip out our tent with us inside, it was touch and go a couple of times when one of our tent pegs came off and our whole tent was soon filled with a layer of white powder in no time, both our sleeping bags got their fair share and after we resecured our wee little tent and finally got back into our inviting bags it was a cold surprise and so we spent a miserable night in soggy bags cold and no warmth.. but it was fun none the less... you need something like this to happen to you to really make it a memorable trip. (its funny how you only remember the worst nights and forget the others which you spent warmly encased in your own private cocoon)...

Storm at 18,000 feet..

Walk In... Campsite no 5.





In the shadow of the mighty Kanch, we climbed up to GAUCHO LA and onto the flanks of Mt. Pandim. Its a colloussus in itself at 6791 mtrs but is dwarfed by the all conquering Kanch.. Makes you feel Miniscule. stuoendous panoramas of the whole massif greet you if you look up from the treachourous scree slopes which have to be traversed before you get onto the snow slopes but all that slow grind up the slope is worth it, once you reach the snowline..



It was exhilirating to climb again after a haitus of nearly 8 months, I had forgotten how good it always makes me feel....The crunchy sound of snow being trodden on cramponed feet... it was heavenly and there were some amazing views to reward us for our hard work. mostly we climbed unroped and only roped up 3 - 4 times during a couple of tricky pitches up one gulley, which seemed a perfect candidate for a windslab avalanche but miracously it held our weights, but while coming down we did notice that it had avalanched while we were up there...

The route we tried out looks doable but there are some places were it is hard going, and grade 5 climbing which will require us to rope up those sections. All in all it was a worthwhile visit.

Camping on the Way to the Misty Mountain Hop

The weather except for 2 days was just perfect, this place is so very TOLKEINESQUE.m ( reminds me of Hollin & Ithelien as described in LOTR.



Some parts we walked through to get to the mountain indeed remind me of the Alps... Rhondodeddron forest, picketed with swarms of wild flowers which pepper the landscape as far as the eye can see... They are everywhere... rocks covered with lichen and moss, the smell of the rotting leaves and that particular aroma you get when you are in the mountains was just soooo,...soooo... pleasing to the self..



Wildflowers on the Walk In..





The valleys are shrouded with mist which hangs low over the landscape, it is just too beautiful for mere words to do justice to the locale...breathtaking... Many a times we just stopped without violition and just stared at the scenes which would open up in front of our eyes...

The walk in to Yumthang Valley was great, and the only downside are the leeches...scores of them...they hang eager from leaves and infest stones awaiting you to pass through and as you cross they invade every hole in your clothing, no to forget shoes and suck you off...now that is a blowjob I can do without ...every night we had fun burning them off with our cigarettes...actually I must admit to deriving insane pleasure from watching them wither and drop off my arms and legs... served them right for sucking my blood...



Yes...I did take a lot of pics but as we had limited gear this time and no frills couldn't update through the climb like I was able to last time.. so I reverted to my dairy but am loathe to type it out right now...



While returning to Gangtok we took a detour to CHANGU LAKE to watch the Yaks...they were busy doing what they do best.....Yakking away....that is..


Changu Lake
It is just a pleasure to see animals in their element , drifting across this high grazing pastures, having the time of their life,...there are also some herds of wild horses and mules...and the place is just stunning...



TSMONGO LAKE.



Tomorrow I am going to Rumtek Monastery to spend a couple of hours with a college friend who is now a lay monk there. I wonder what got into him that he decided to join the ranks of the Yellow Hats....it will be interesting to find out ...





My Hip Yak Friend... I wonder if he is Rapping Yak...





Well thats all for a bit..will update with more pics later..

cheers

Z

The Oldest Memeber

Everyone who lived in the village and the hamlets nearby knew her. In their minds they associated her deathless years with the existence of their village. Both were facts accepted since the birth of conciousness.

She was so old , she had become static in time, could never be older, had surely never been young. Her dry wrinkled skin was loose around the impatient skeleton. It enclosed her eyes in folds, hiding the yellowed cornea surrounding lustreless pupils, Yet there was vision enough to make her concious of its loss.

She used her withered hands for feeble grasping, her crooked deformed fingers for uneasy touching. her bent legs for unsteady shuffling and not her eyes but time's familiarities for seeing and recognising her changeless curcumscribed world.

Through the years the mud of the walls had not changed, the same wooden arches supported the same sloping thatched roof, the same heavy wooden doors leading outside creaked the same warningas it opened...

This was her complete world as she lay in the sun on the string bed --- the walls, the arches, the thatch , the doors to the world outside.

The world had changed, quickening its step in noisy obscene haste as she lay on her bed, shrivelled lips moving in constant prayer, she heard the impatient sounds of the machine mad world, - a distant horn of a car a screech of tyres and the whine of an overheated engine...

Her grandchildren, great grandchildren flapped the loose hanging skin of her arms and lie on her lap, when she chewed an invisible cud, at the fascinating movement of her chin towards her nose, just missing it and then dropping down to begin again its upward drive. They would suddenly scream with high clear laughter and run away...

She dipped into the well of her memories, She had no need to stretch in her effortless reaching to draw its constant treasure.

The live past was always happily with her, the present an irritating dying burden.

The fly that sat on her nose a moment before was as forgotten as the reflex brushing it away, but her nose still twitched with the itching of the one that had sat on it seventy or was it eighty years ago.......

The Ice Maiden

Kanchunjunga from GOECHALA


She stands apart from all the rest of her kind.
A bit aloof, not snotty but just a bit imperious...

She is a shy woman..She preserves her modesty always, clothing herself in layers of white
like a greedy bride..layers of white petticoats

A thin VIEL of mist shrouds her face
Now and then she gives you an intoxicating glimpse through a momentary shift and a flank is revealed.
Pristine, smooth as silk, almost flawless....

I try to picture her whole from the fragments that I see revealed.

She towers above all the rest and one can easily spot her in a crowd.

She is definitely attractive, She holds me enthralled, I want to explore her body
Discover her deepest darkest secrets which she clasps so tightly to her bosom..



She is moody Sometimes she cries and her white tears dot the landscape,
Rivulets run down her body and it saddens me

She is tempramental, She is somewhat prone to melodrama and rapid mood swings and this makes it difficult for one to know where one stands with her...Keeps me on my toes...

When aroused she is frightful to behold. She whips gale force winds and sheds some layer of white clothes in rapid succession & off they come rumbling down her sides...

But for all that passion
she is a distinctly cold woman
One ought to be wary of treading too close for she is possessive and a jealous lover..
if she catches you dreaming she will keep you forever in her various folds.....

But then I was always attracted to such devious females....yes...she is definitely my type ....
The ICE MAIDEN....cometh....


View of Kanchunjunga from Dzongri....

Letting off Some Steam {Sikkim Trekking I}

Steam Engine, Narrow Gauge...

One of the wonders of travelling in the East is this age old toy train, between New Jalpaiguri and Darjeeling...

It passes through stunning scenery which thanks to the huge windows you get to see very well.... A Perfect way to let off some steam....

I miss travelling by Steam Engines...there is something very romantic about steam... The noises the engine makes, the bellows of white smoke it lets off at each station... its just takes me back in time when all we had in trains were Steam Engine... it's a slow train coming.... but invredibly fun way to travel...

It is one the great rail journeys by steam in the world and this is my second trip on this THE DARJEELING HIMALAYAN RAILWAY...it is slow but the views make up for the lack of speed...mist laden valleys and huge mountains glimpsed through the fog which settles and miles and miles of tea estates...

Toy Train...

Ghumane Aiye Hain Hum....Ghum main Dhoom

Ghum on this track is the second highest railway station in India... and the highest narrow gauge rail link in the world..... Thats the towns only claim to fame and this too attracts tourists... but there is nothing else around to see just time enough for a quick photo op and then its back on the train and onto Darjeeling...

where I hook up with my regular climbing partner Pratreek -urff - "Bhakre"...who got here from Kathmandu yesterday, he is originaly from Darjeeling and his family runs a very nice small hotel..its named THE MILKY WAY... (yes...his father too is a Hitchhiker through the galaxy..)...

A View of Darjeeling from The Milky Way Hotel..

I am freaking out on Mommo's here, it is one of my favorite things to eat...and here they make them very well..steamed mommo's....

After a day spent in Darjeeling we got going by bus and after an incredibly bumpy ride which chaffed me and bruised my spirit we got to Gangtok... Its a small city which looks like something out of a fairy tale...small houses...vivid colours...monasteries...markets...beautiful girls...and very nice faces in the crowd..people keep smiling here and that is one of the best things about this place..

If I lived here I would too smile 24/7 its such a beautiful place...

Today we went out shopping for food stuff (vegs, rice) that along with our tinned food will have to last us 1 week in camp..we head out tomorrow to YUMTHANG VALLEY..by jeep, though photography is not allowed I am going to sneak my camera in..and be a little discreet while clicking photographs cause it is amazingly scenic and the best part is that there are wild flowers everywhere...It would be such a waste not being able to capture this beauty on camera because of the nearness of the INDO - CHINESE border which is very near by..

I am delighted to here at last and each step that I take is towards the big Misty Mountains... The weather has been overcast with some light rain..which just makes everything look clean and sparkling but hampers the view of the big mountains which now and then will show a glimpse through a tear in the fog...

I hope we get some clear days of sun and clear skies to film Kanch...and other huge mountains near by....

Kanch - Kanchunjunga the third highest peak in the world..

The Ides of March.....

When could they say, till now, that talk'd of Rome, that her wide walks encompass'd but one man?
Julius Caesar, I, ii, William Shakespeare

Today Caesar died. The Ides of March. And you, Brutus?

Are you not ashamed..

Oh how do you sleep at night I wonder…how does your consicious allow you to slumber but then you don’t have a concious to keep you true…

The Deed:

"So it began, and those who were not in the conspiracy were so horrorstruck and amazed at what was being done that they were afraid to run away and afraid to come to Caesar's help; they were too afraid even to utter a word. But those who had come prepared for the murder all bared their daggers and hemmed Caesar in on every side. Whichever way he turned he met the blows of daggers and saw the cold steel aimed at his face and at his eyes. So he was driven this way and that, and like a wild beast in the toils, had to suffer from the hands of each of them; for it had been agreed that they must all take part in this sacrifice and all flesh themselves with his blood...Some say that Caesar fought back against all the rest, darting this way and that to avoid the blows and crying out for help, but when he saw that Brutus had drawn his dagger, he covered his head with his toga and sank down to the ground."

Plutarch, Life, 66

" When he saw that he was beset on every side by drawn daggers, he muffled his head in his robe, and at the same time drew down its lap to his feet with his left hand, in order to fall more decently, with the lower part of his body also covered. And in this wise he was stabbed with three and twenty wounds, uttering not a word, but merely a groan at the first stroke, though some have written that when Marcus Brutus rushed at him, he said in Greek, 'You too, my child?' "

Suetonius Life , LXXXII.

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O Caesar beware of the Ides of March......

The night before Caesar died, at a dinner at Lepidus’ house, he was heard to answer the question “What death is the best?” with the instant answer, “An unexpected one."
So would a soldier expect to die; so he did.
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Premonition Ignored:

Cicero quoted Caesar, in the Pro Marcello, as saying “Satis diu vel naturae vixi, vel gloriae” (I have lived long enough both in years and in accomplishment)

Caesar is alleged to have said, in the year before his murder, "It is more important for Rome than for myself that I should survive. I have long been sated with power and glory; but, should anything happen to me, Rome will enjoy no peace. A new Civil War will break out under far worse conditions than the last" ( from Suetonius).
His words were prophetic.

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The Last Laugh:

"But that great divine power or genius, which had watched over him [Caesar] and helped him in his life, even after his death remained active as an avenger of his murder, pursuing and tracking down the murderers over every land and sea until not one of them was left and visiting with retribution all, without exception, who were in any way concerned either with the death itself or with the planning of it."

Plutarch, Life, 69.

An extraordinary example of Caesar's luck was passed to his heir in the summer of 44 BC. Octavian (as AUGUSTUS was then called), portraying the grieving heir with great dignity, agreed to follow one of the honors voted Caesar and gave games in his honor in late July of that year.

The sources agree that - with extraordinary aptness - a great comet appeared in the skies over Rome on the very day the games began (it would have been just after Caesar's 56th birthday).

The comet ruled the skies until the games ended, at which time it disappeared. No stage manager in world history had a better omen to claim that the great Julius was now taken to the gods themselves, his divinity manifest to all of Rome and his murderers guilty of destroying a god.

Octavian immediately fastened, not only on Caesar's star, but on his status as the [adopted] son of a god, "divi filii," and used it to devestating political effect in the months and years to come.
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Do we pray for a new Caesar, a kindly emperor to solve all our problems?

I am fascinated by the man...Gauis Julius Caesar, not only was he a great man, he was great among a time when Great Men lived in the Res Publica of Rome.

Among his peers he could count the Great orator Cicero, Pompey, Mark Antony, Brutus, Cassius, Cato, Cleopetra VIII of Egypt, Crassus, and in his lifetime he had known both Gauis Marius & Sulla.

He was considered in his own time to be an superb advocate and orator, second only to Cicero for skill and eloquence. Caesar spoke Greek fluently, sign of the educated upper-class Roman; he was knowledgeable and discerning about Greek philosophy, literature and art. He was apparently possessed of great magnetism, personal charm, and a vibrant sense of humor and wit. There are several phrases like VIDI, VINI, VICI, & The Die is Cast which are still in common use which are attributed to Caesar.

After a lifetime of seeking glory within the terms of the aging Republic, all Caesar's best adversaries were dead or silenced; he had the love of the mob, but the hatred of much of the nobility; he had chosen to fight his enemies using the tools that had, by now, become familiar, but were still guaranteed to earn him, forever, the infamy of the man who destroyed the Roman Republic.

One senses that he knew this but his opponents left him with no other choice, if he had not gone to war it was the end of his public career and for a man like Caesar not an option.

Whatever doubts exist about his political actions, Caesar's military reputation has kept its pristine glory; with Alexander, he is generally accounted one of the greatest commanders of all history. His record of almost unbroken victories was envied by, among others, both Napoleon and Hitler. His lessons of swift, unexpected attack reverberate even now.

When a young man in Spain, Caesar allegedly wept when he saw the statue of Alexander, having accomplished, himself, so little by the same age.

His death on the Ides of March, 44, occurred when he had conquered the Roman world and finally saw his chance to take that hunger for world conquest to the East, like Alexander. His legions were marshaled, his preparations made, his personal affairs settled.

Those who love liberty can never accept the concept of a benevolent dictator, a contradiction in terms.

Yet Caesar's greatness far outweighs those of the many petty politicians who, neither Ciceros nor Catos, attempted to control Rome in his own time.

It is difficult to drag Caesar down to earth to judge him impartially with them. Yet he left a solid body of legislative achievements behind him that helped lay the legal and political groundwork for an Empire.

In his will he formally adopted his great grand nephew (the son of his sisters daughter) Gauis Ocatvius, *also known as Octavian, Octavianus & later AUGUSTUS) and left a bequest to each and every R0man alive, thus it was the mob, which had so loved him in life which began to worship him inspite of all the hinderences the Senate put to stop this...Even today there are are always offerings and flowers where the people burnt

GAUIS JULIUS CAESAR...The last Dictator of Res Publica of ROMA...

Augustus' remarkable political and social achievements are his own (though in his reign he did more than Caesar to bury the Republic). Yet Augustus built in every direction upon Caesar.

There was a reason that all emperors were called Caesar for thousands of years after the man himself was gone.

Caesar is Dead, Long Live Caesar.....

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* the Ides of march falls on the 15th of March

* the month of July is named in honour of Julius. his gens just as August is named after his heir Augustus.

* the calendar we use today is the JULIAN CALENDAR which was introduced by Julius Caesar...

* There are several phrases still in common use which are attributed to Caesar : VINI, VIDI, VICI (I came, I saw, I Conquered).... Crossing the Rubicon....The Die is cast *what he actually said was Let the Dice Fly High (a quote from his fav greek poet Menander)

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Recommended reading

The Masters of Rome series by Colleen Mc Cullough ( a six book series on the life and time of Julius Caesar)

One Liners....

They are short in construction. Powerful in delivery and have permeated the physche (atleast mine) to leave a lasting impressions

They are:
Some of the best one line dialogues from the World of Cinema, which have stayed with me or I can still in my minds eye picture them, simply because they are just so ...so profound.

1. “I’m going to make him an offer he can’t refuse” –
(Marlon Brando as Don Vito Corleone, in The Godfather Part I. ,1972) The other phrases
which I like from this film "Luca Brasi is sleeping with the fishes.... and "Sonny says
we're going to the matresses...

2. “May the force be with you” – Star Wars 1977.

3. “You Talking to Me” – (Robert De Nero in front of a mirror, in the Taxi Driver 1976.)

4. “Go Ahead (punk) make my day” – Clint Eastwood as Inspector “Dirty” Harry
allaghan in Sudden Impact, 1983.)

5 “Say Hello To My Little Friend” - (Al Pacino as Tony Montana (in a great Latino
accent) weilding a machine gun in Scar Face)

6. “Free Your Mind”- Morpheus to Neo in The Matrix.

7. “Oh, The Horror, The Horror.” – (Marlon Brando as Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse
Now.)

8. “Fasten your seatbelt Dorothy, cause Kansas just went Bye- Bye.” – From The
Matrix a pun on “Toto, I’ve got a feeling we are not in Kansas Anymore (from
The Wizard of Oz, 1939)

9. “I love the smell of Napalm in the morning … it smells…. Like Victory” –
(David Duvall as Lt.Col. Kilgore in Apocalypse Now.)

10. “Oh, I’m sorry, did I break your concentration”, (Samuel L Jackson as Jules in
Pulp Fiction)

11. "Is it safe?" (Laurence Olivier as Doctor Szell in The Marathon Man)


12. “Show me the Money” – (Cuba Gooding Jnr. To Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire)

13. "Am I not MERCIFUL!!!", (J.Phoneix as Commodus in Gladiator.)

14. "At my signal Unleash Hell" - Russell Crowe as Maximus Decimus Aurelius, in
Gladiator. Another from this movie "What we do in life echoes an eternity"

15. "You had me at "Hello""--- Rene Zellweger to Tom Cruise in Jerry Maguire.

16. "Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine." - Humprey Bogart as Rick in Casablanca 1942 another one "Here's Looking at you Kid."

17. "Get busy livin' or get busy dyin' -- Morgan Freeman as Red in The Shawshank
Remdemption.

18. "Kitne Adami They" - Amjad Khan as Gabbar Singh to Sambha in Sholay .1975

19. Choose Life, " . Ewan Mc Gregor as Mark Renton *THE RENT BOY*. in Trainspotting.

20. "E.T. Phone Home" -- E.T. Directed by Steven Spilberg

21. "Run Forest Run". Robin Wiliam Wright Penn as Jenny in Forest Gump.




22. "Frankly, my dear I don't give a Damn",Clark Gable as Rhett Butler in Gone With the Wind.1939


23. "Are you trying to Seduce me Mrs. Robinson?" - Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate

24. "Gentlemen. You can't fight in here. This is the War Room!" - Peter Sellers as President Merkin Muffley: in Dr. Strangelove. directed by Stanley Kubrick.

25. "God must've been a fucking genius"-- Al Pacino as Lt..Col.Frank Slade in Scent of A
Woman another quote from this movie I like is You are in no position to disagree
I've got a loaded .45 & you got pimples




Now its time for the corny ones, the ones you wish had never been uttered. The ones you could strangle people for ever uttering them and the ones which make you cringe....




1. “I’ll be Back” – Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Terminator.

2. “I am The King of the World” – Leonardo Di Caprio, in Titanic.
(How much I hate this is beyond words, I hate it, hate, hate, it.)

3. “The name’s Bond, James Bond” – Dr. No

4. "Yeah Baby" - Austin Powers in The Spy Who Shagged Me.


5. “Love means never having to say sorry.’’ –

Ali Macgraw as Jenny Cavilleri in Love Story & in many a Bollywood film we have versions of this or something very similiar., they have absolutely made it the most clichéd of the cliché’d dialouge in the world.

Spoiled my reading which was otherwise a very good book for ever because I picture Salman Khan & Bhagyashree (or choose any from the myriad assortment of dumb bollywood bimbettes, willing to say this on screen.) I curse them to the pits of Dante’s Purgatory for queering the pitch for me & a lot of other people.

The woman from The East....

He headed towards the river and dived into the water, which was surprisingly warm but had cold pockets in it and he tried to stay in one such. He dived underneath and came up spouting water like a whale..

He stood on the sandy bottom, the water up to his neck and looked up to see the stars and the sky glorying in their presence.

A cloud reached out and grappled with the moon for possession of the night.

In that brief instant as he looked shorewards he saw her, her frame highlighted in the dim light of a lamp, leaning on the window frame, Her sarong was half held towards her and she was looking out to the river.
He knew she was looking at him and he wondered whether he had been seen.

Then she took away her sarong and lay it down and picked a clean white towel and gently patted her face and watched him as he watched her.

Her long dark hair hid most of her, but she moved it until it carrassed her back and began to braid it. All the time she was watching him and smiling.

Then suddenly, every flicker of current was a caress, every touch ot the breeze a caress , every thread of weed a caress -- fingers of courtesans, crafty with centuries of learning...




She was perhaps twenty four, but in sun-rain lands of Eastern India looked eighteen and virginal.

The darkness of her skin had a milk sheen to it and her eyes were jewels shiny garnets they resembled and her hands petals of the fire orchid and her feel lithe and her ankles slim,

Her child -woman body was satin and held within it the happiness of a hummingbird. She was a child of of the sun and daughter of the rain. Her nose was slender and fine and the nostrils delicate, one of them pierced.

She was all satin, liquid satin. Firm where it should be firm. Soft where it should be soft. Strong where it should be strong. And weak where it should it weak.

Her hair raven. Long, silky, A Gossamer net to cover her.

He smiled at her. He tried to hide his embarrasment and be like her, free and happy and not the sanctimonious prick he usually was.

"I pray that I shall be worthy to make thee happy and make thee soft-sleep. and I beg thee to teach me all the things that thy man should know to make thee 'close to the fountains of the gods'.

He said to her as he came close to her and lost himself in her embrace........

Mine....

I'm looking back
for a history I can relate to,
and I see a past I cannot recognize.
For it is not mine

I'm searching
for something to hold onto,
But I come back empty - handed.
every fucking time..

So I look ahead
And wait paitently for the day to come
when I can proudly claim
what is justly mine!

Hymen Honeymoan!!......

Voice 1:

Virginity, O Virginity
where will you go
once I lose you??


Voice 2:

I'm off to a place I shall
never come back
from
Dear Friend
You who are
my betrayer

I shall never
come back to you

Never!!

I Had a Dream.....

I had a dream and it was the biggest dream.

It was a terrifying dream, of strategy and battle and the worship of gods other people believe in, and those things we do not even guess are gods but some people worship them, and then there was the One for whom we have no name.

A worldwide battle raged and Jesus and Buddha bided their time with a game of checkers.


And in my dream the grey heavens crashed and opened and vast armies marched across a scorched red dying land, shapes shifted, rules broke, prophecy rang true again but not the way anyone ever anticipates.

Sometimes the dreams I have leave me slowly, and I increasingly become aware that I have one leg bent at the knee tenting the blankets, the other leg stretched out under the covers with toes pointing at the dark.

My eyes opened and I can't remember when the dream stopped or when I awoke or when I came back to myself and faded to consciousness.

Do you know that feeling, the rise to surface? The way pressure increases in the chest and the body settles with a weight as if the soul returns from some far voyage.

The Sky....

Azure butterflies
flitting about
flakes of sky

HUMAYUNS TOMB, New Delhi India.

The sky is the thinnest of tissues today.

If I could, I would wet it with what tears I have,

and watch it crumple and tear along its creases in my hands.

Nine

The whole nine yards.
Dressed to the nines.
Nine planets in our solar system..
A stitch in time saves nine.
Nine months from conception to birth.
Cats with nine lives.
On Cloud Number Nine...

• Working from Nine to Five
  
  Numerologic the magnified three, ancient sacred humanitarian number connected to inspired change, invention, and growth.
  
  Single numbers multiplied by nine results in digits that add to nine.
  
  2 x 9 = 18
  3 x 9 = 27
  4 x 9 = 36.
  
  The Hebrews referred to nine as the symbol of Immutable Truth.
  

A three-fold cord is not quickly broken.

Nine is the month I was born in.

It is a number which has gained a permanent presence in my life, which I can almost feel at times.

It has a lot of magic about it which fascinates me....

The Dead Head...

He guards his space jealously,
He puts up a wall all around him.
To keep out the wolves, baying at the door
He withdraws into his own coccoon.

To seek peace he takes drugs galore
To numb his feelings
he knocks consciousnesses to the floor.

Slowly he passes out.... {Knocked out Loaded}

Only to be awoken safely
Right on Lucifer’s front door.

Its a living hell, eaten up alive in
the enviorns of his befuddled mind

In an ocean of dreamless sleep.
he looks for sweet release..

Why does he seek this escape?
What demons haunt him?

I wonder whether he himself really knows…

We Hates Them Forever

I have been tagged...yes once again by Illusion, Risha Rao & Mz. D Iyer

I HATE, I DETEST & I LOATHE

A very wise man named Ogden Nash once said:
Any kiddie in school can love like a fool, But Hating, my boy, is an Art.



This is my way of perfecting that art!!.

• I hate it when: I have to be nice to people I don’t like for the sake of others (I hate being a hypocrite.)
• I hate it when: I am in a sea of humanity. I prefer seclusion anyday....
• I hate it when: Someone wakes me up from my precious sleep (I treasure my sleep, the few times I am actually asleep are rare enough, so buzz off and leave me the hell alone, you approach me at your peril)
• I hate it when: just when you think you are dreaming, reality does a check and catches you out. Dammmn...Reality is a heartless Bitch...
• I hate it when: Rain threatens, but never falls. (the ultimate KLPD)
• I hate it when: I have to say goodbye to a near one. (I've never been good at goodbyes)
• I hate it when: life is normal. I need excitement
• I hate it when: I get all sentimental.
• I hate it when: People patronize me. (Sanctimonoius farts)
• I hate it when: I see plastic bags everywhere.
• I hate it when: I am optimistic.
• I hate it when: I am sober
• I hate it when: People say that they like Britney Spears or her look alike brigade...
• I hate it when: Two is a crowd. (believe me it has happened)
• I hate it when: I am asked to dance in public. I can’t dance for nuts
• I hate it when: All I have as a momento of a person are memories of a stranger!!
• I hate it when: I see parents wanting to relive their childhood dreams through their children.
• I hate it when: I see small children wrecking havoc , I really have to restrain myself from giving them one tight slap

Now for some other pet hates...

• I hate it when: I find myself in a roomful of relatives I don’t know from Adam and for that matter have no intention of knowing ever & all they can say to me is...So you've grown sooo big... what else was I supposed to do you clutz... Shrink...

• I hate it when: My mother starts to recount an episode of my doings when I wasn’t old enough to remember or know better, in front of her friends.. I mean come on..stop embarassing your grown up son mom will ya...

• I hate it when: You are asked to say cheese before a person will use his finger to press a button on a camera. (What does it matter if I don’t say cheese, and why cheese for that, wouldn’t butter be good enough)

• I hate it when: People talk about you as they see you approach and when you stare at them, they think they are fooling you by pretending to look up in the sky hoping to catch a glimpse of stars in the daylight. (Come on you wankers. I will fulfil your dreams and make you see not stars but galaxies if you want it so badly.)

• I hate it when: People do silly things when they are drunk. (If you can’t handle it, don’t drink....)

• I hate it when: People ask me for my height and weight, my stock reply is that I am taller, bigger and better then they ever dreamed to be or ever will be.
  
• I hate it when: People born and bought up in India tell me how good life is in America. (The fact that they are not the first citizens there, They live in a police state, are so entangled in mortgages, student loans , & that they crave everything Indian seems to pass them by)
  
  
• I hate it when: I can’t afford to buy the book I wanted to buy and I can’t find it anywhere, while when I didn’t want to buy it, it infested every book - shops window display.
• 
  I hate it when: I see children begging. I usually feed them but it is so sad to see children without the smile every child is born with...
• 
  I hate it when: Girls wearing Micro Mini’s complain about being eve-teased. (first of all baby, you haven’t the legs to carry it off, second if you think you do and flaunt it, expect to be commented upon by roadside Romeos and don't you dare come crying to me..)

• I hate it when: People comment on what particular shot a batsmen should have played on a delivery he missed, (well if you are so gifted why are you sitting here commenting on it when you should be out there, you piece of good for nothing - know- it- all shite)

• I hate it when: People in big cars drive like they were enjoying weekend saunter in the park, if they so liked the bullock cart speed they should have stayed with that instead.

• I hate it when: People speak with an Accent, (did you just get back from dropping your aunt to the airport and picked up an accent on the drive home. You imposter.)

• I hate it when: I see people who wear their Identity Cards or Security cards when they are not in their offices, whats up with that shite. (Fine you work as a drone in some MNC office where they hire you just because they don’t have to pay you as much. It’s nothing to flaunt about out in the open. And no I prefer not to know your name)
• 
  I hate it when: I am broke and have to ask a friend for some money, and they lord it over you. Just you wait, when you come asking me to repay that trifle loan.

• I hate it when: I am asked out for a movie (with my family) and I find out it’s a Bollywood rip off of a Hollywood movie, which has songs which again are rip offs of songs sung in English. I mean where did originality go...back to living in a cave or what... makes me believe that we are descended from apes... Imitating A- holes... and Hey all you Bhapi Lahri & ANu Malik wannabe's find some dirty water and drown yourself in shame..

• I hate it when: I see some jerk with blaring speakers driving slowly around my block, just because I happen to live across the street of a “hottie”. (I will ignore the fact that I too lust for her, but I keep my lust well concealed and in my pants.)

I hate it when: I am on such a rant. So I will end it ... albeit hatefully but end it right here I shall......

I also hate to tag other people but this time I shall indeed tag some...yeah you can hate me for doing this but...

1. Fingers
2. Rijula
3. Shaun
4. Nessa
5. Ms. D Iyer
6. Finch Scout.

Is this Love

I can feel you, I can hear you, I can see and touch and taste you even though you're miles from me right now.

If we are made by the memories we keep then : I am in love with you.... Still

because I can still feel the press of our bodies and the lemon and oleander scent of you with your back to the refigerator, your breath on my cheek and my hands in comfortable places.....

What is this thing?... this comfort,..... this stability and strength, .... this clarity, ..... hope, & desire?

I do not doubt it is that elusive and fragile thing called love.

We have been and gone so many places, changed our shapes and continue to match each other, burn each other, the electricity between us almost visible, a tangible thing.

The water rolls clear and deep, a rushing shush and a subterranean roar, constant and far to travel.