one

life with a dog in a room awaits.
life with fragments deposited across time and space
life without trust in familiar institution

a place surrounded by wide open spaces, lots of kids in the neighborhood and less traffic.
a place connected to the past by images, witnesses and a new generation growing up.

the silence grew in the first week. 
i got to eat a lot.
it took time to know i had dug myself out of another hole;
even made a decision, and sold a part of my past.

now i feel nothing
now i have nothing more than what I did not leave behind
now i have finally completed what took two years to stem in terms of sad stuff. now is zero. now is when i am sure that i am definitely not the person i imagined i would be as a kid.
i do not see anything but through what we uphold over time.
i see what it takes to get this far. as life, as people, as society, civilization as well as the fact that no person is completely absolute.
 

blue skies, dark clouds, same Sun

THIS BLOG HAS BEEN RESET

THIS BLOG HAS BEEN RESET

Happy Birthday Lavanya

In the beginning, we were together, briefly.

Dear Daughter Lavanya,

Today is your third birthday. Just like the first and the second, I am absent.

No one will think of asking us what we wish. You; too young to know or remember me and I too trapped by Indian law and legal system to get my rights as your father. Which includes breaking the blockade your grandfather, grandmother and mother have thrown around you. May you never find out their true nature, for it is masked from you by genuine delight in your existence. Just their hate makes them deny the same delight to your father.

Your first birthday, mother and cake.

I never saw you start talking, walking and become a personality on to yourself with a name and an identity. If we were to meet, you would have to be introduced to me. You see, you do not know your father since you achieved cognition.So as you grow, and I remain increasingly apart, there is but one thing I would like to do.

Since I cannot be around to be a father, I would like to leave you in far more capable hands than mine. Jesus is your father. Since I cannot be around, I pray on this third birthday that he may take care of you in your life and that you may know him as your father. He is my God.
I believe in him by choice, not by birth or compulsion. All I know is, my God suffered.
May God always bless you, my dear child. I love you so much it hurts. So much so that I feel grateful to have stayed alive to write this to you today.

Be all you want in life. End all you wish in life.

Always,
- Arunesh 

Miss you, ma.

Ye Olde Indian Ads

VST! VST!

If i am not mistaken, the boy on the right is wearing Gola shoes.

Well, one must smut if one must....

Left me with a lifelong addiction to milkshakes since school

from the sublime to the ridiculous, eh?

Wonder where is she now?

Relegious texts redefined.

Bible: An ancient novel full of murder, corruption, homosexuality, bestiality, incest and cruelty. It is often read to children on Sunday.

Gita: A sacred Hindu text that is incorporated into the Mahabharata and takes the form of a philosophical dialogue in which Krishna instructs others with Machiavellian ease and gathers material for his memoirs to be published 'abroad' for saffron-clad, bald whites dancing barefoot.

Mahabharata: Call it dynasty politics with India now an Indian culture in politics. One of the biggest problems in current day Indian politics is that there is no leader and no successor. Sadly, this problem also has its roots mentioned in the Mahabharata.

 

December night

 On a December foggy night I reached for the light in my brain.

Why should I explain it can never be 2011 again. Yes, it was a real cold night. 

The wheels that stole your heart are the wheels that healed my heart.

Missing you was the last smart thing I did on my part.

  

Everyday I look at the same moon as an open wound.

It's just the way blood must flow down to the ground.

 

   

With covers ripped apart, go right back to start.

Letting things to is exactly what hurts like a needle bed in a butcher's cart.

That butcher's cart you ride carries death to your bride.

That butcher's cart you pride cuts a conscience narrow and a trail wide.

That butcher's cart you ride left me boiled, steamed, stewed and fried.

That butcher's cart you ride cut out my heart when my hands were tied.

So obviously that butcher's cart kept you rolling while my hopes died.

Until one December's foggy night I reached out and turned on the light.

In my brain, it shall never be 2011 again.

Now (now) can (can) we (we) forget the pain?

bloody cold and bloody lonely monday morning i am having.

Excavate  memories, each brings it’s own sequence of dreams. The sun peeling in skinny depletion, while those who came before confront the truth, so say the dreamers. With your secretly feared reamer from the past, my brethren behest was that i do onto my will till I shuffle with pressurized malevolent intent. Sheer luck collected by daylight, these sequences pale into.

Upstairs cryin’ in my bed I lay
 
Since you left me that very day
 
I screamed and fought against the pain
 
I even rocked myself to sleep again and again
 
Then I gave upand called myself insane.

Simple Words

Simple words
failed to make anything.
You trembled.
I fled. You bled.
I fumbled for response.
I erected a few stones.
I stared till I could no longer see.

So much insouciance.
So much stone.
You could have been there forever.
You could have been there alone.

FlashbaX

I get hopelessly sentimental.

I’ve been coming off two break offs with the same person again. what I can say is that  a couple of years ago, my ex, who had been vexed by my broken leg chapter, suggested I make friends in office. [I walked on a mal-union for a year, before getting a rod in my shin and loosing half an inch] I was well into whiskey and anger, contemptuous of everything almost and capable of extremely hurtful, invalidating and biased comments.
So at a friends place usually teeming with college buddies, I  fell in love with a girl who didn’t say much but heard my every action. I was stupid and instead of letting go of my new found friend, I proceeded to monopolize her. I couldn’t see how my aggrandized nature was stifling her,  Instead of letting go of my new found friend, I tried to find my soul mate. Almost did, too, but there were differences along with the things that make two people want to be with each other. We couldn’t handle the rest of our lives, let alone each other’s. It was an opportunity but I took it for granted. Played out my personal demons and lost all perspective.

I was too blind to see beyond my baggage. She snapped; I went to pieces;  I begged her to come back; she relented; I got confused, I couldn’t handle what was needed to fix it all. I was too fresh from my depressions.

Y’know, it felt bewildering, everyone went on about their way in a daze, including me, not saying anything. Then, with take two, I realized that I was unable to do what she said was required. In the back of my mind was a bit watching me act like a nutter. Then, with time and isolation, I began to see where I needed to operate from a more mature definition of love and life. I was just being a crazy guy snatching things when he could. Unable to express my hidden feelings or read her responses correctly.

Things came to a climax of sorts, out of all safe proportions and there was I, knowing that I had to get away and try to do it right. So I did. So many dumb approaches, that I truly deserve what I got for being so dumb. Strangely, I am somehow glad to know that I can still feel pain.

Since then I’ve been rehabilitating my heart, taking each day weakly as it comes. Learning to live again, re-learning all the small actions needed to say alive and contiguous (probably the last time I use that word). Crying rivers and hanging on to the pieces. Still in love, in so much as I could not change with her around. BAD NEWS is that I am ex-communicado and she does not even spare a single word. Today, I was finally watching a movie and suddenly I find myself rising at the sound of a passing car. I know she won’t even stray by my street in her dreams but I can’t help it sometimes. Feverish, yeah!

Anyway, I’ve begun my journey. I’ve accepted the situation. I fully intend to make the changes because, quite simply, I can see where I was wrong. I’ve begun by repaying my debts, facing the music from those I hurt and somehow hope to still hang on to some good, in all. Somehow glad that I am not all gone and have learned some things that I, frankly, only learned after she left.  I hope to do a lot and won’t rest till I can meet all Ayn Rand-based definitions of self esteem.

“I cried when I wrote this song;
Sue me if I play it too long.”

I could never make it up to you out there. Way I think, ever since I remember, the odds have been something the less thought about, the better. Still, I claim all is redeemable. Still I believe in the enduring cycle from befuddlement to wisdom of the heart. I believe that under all circumstances, hanging on is all one can do. I get entrusted and I let you down. Truly, I cannot see my own moment of forgiveness. I cannot imagine when I would be forgiven for my transgressions. I have to face the facts. Nor can I see any reason to carry on except to make amends. I’ve been warned off by you and yours because I ruined all chances and still I howl at the gates insisting that all is never lost. Some assure me but plan contingencies. I don’t blame them. My years of unpredictability have given me a horrible reputation.

“It’s a world where no one takes a stand within themselves. Unless it is for practical reasons. Practical as it means currently can stretch across all activities. Collaborative evidence has never been stockpiled higher. Sub-divisions go around in circles telling each other it’s sustainable. Falling across the grain so many times has given me awkward flashes. Some glimpses of what could also be. Not really glimpses but more like an elongated or encompassing feeling of having popped through the skein of things once again. Making zigzags across what most approach linearly.” Approxs my erstwhile bullshit philosophy that made a mess of my life. “I’ll clean up my mess I guess.” (Tom Petty, Handle with Care, Traveling Wilburys).

Weird part of it is that I have seen all kinds of compromises and all kinds of stories that the human heart tells itself. For all kinds or reasons. Mine does too. I’m sure yours does too. The more we see outside of our own life, the more we choose to accept as an ‘also’. I’m still looking to live life on my own terms, believe in what I choose as good in my life, not fall for at least 90% of the stuff that is fed to us, look for the next reason to stay alive a little longer. Defiant of all condemnation, my only alternative is to carry on or die trying. In this space, city, place, I have been put together with some people. Some allow me to live, some hate the memory of me, some always welcome me and some want me to allow them to live. For the latter, I have no answer, but to retreat into my silence. Begging the skies above for some way to repair. Then acceptance falls all around me and I feel the emptiness I felt before when I started again. I empty my mind of all past and figure out my first few steps. I keep my head down and focus on getting my first few steps right. Then I looked up at what I had done wrong. I picked the closest to start. Always loved a concentric circles model for self-transformation.

Nursed a butterfly. Picked him up from the road while walking my dog. Put him on a flower in my bike yard. Few hours of sun and he flew off to a nearby tree. An hour later, I was standing around and he came to visit me. I tried to see if he’ll come onto my finger but he avoided me. He was black all over with orange edges to his lower wingtips and white spots lower on his wings.

call it science fiction, advertising or just plain nostalgia

old friends...bookends

A cracking good book to read: Ready Player One

call it science fiction, fantasy or just nostalgia, this book is kinda sensitive too.