Delhi’s Civil Construction Safety Record & Metro

Take another look
I’ll be around
Stay the while
Don’t make a sound

Watch the deep
It’s there still
Shining above the dark
Shadow of the hill

Take another path
Take another route
Take another road
Traffic jam! Mixed fruit

This is a big city
It swallows us whole
The only time we stop
Better not be under
A crane or a traffic pole.

Won’t be long

When we wake up from childhood
And find things are not as they should
Do we stand and say it out?
If they don’t hear you whisper
Do you shout it aloud?

This time I will be heard
I tell you, this is absurd
The way things are going on
It won’t be long, it won’t be long.

Information isn’t meaning
So stop all that screaming
Can’t you see nobody’s winning
My imagination isn’t dreaming

Look where you’re headed
Your folks have already been
On this trip and dead-ended
Themselves to what could’ve been

This time I will be heard
I tell you, this is absurd
The way things are going on
I won’t belong, I won’t belong.

And So We Go On

Somewhere there’s a chance
That doesn’t need explanations
From you and me cause it’s easy to feel
Forgiven all around
Forgiven by the sound
Forgiven as it’s all around
Forgiven cause it’s surround sound
Everybody in this town
Everybody in this town
Makes their heart jump around
And so we go on, and so we go on
And so we go on, and so we go on

Take an another look
I’ll be around
Stay the while
Don’t make a sound

Watch the deep
Is there still
Shining above the dark
With shadows on the hill

Take another party
I don’t want to cook

Take another path
Take another route
Take another road
Traffic jam; mixed fruit

Is this a big city?
It’ll swallow us whole
If we call a stop.

Living in the holy land
Can’t you see it get canned?
2000 years of culture
Circle overhead like vultures
Demanding to pluck out eyes
As we stare at certain size thighs

Living in India
Just one in millions like me
Just for fun, just imagine
All that love, respect and freedom
Divided among three million
Sill my country’s up for grabs.

Too many quotes
Not enough séances
Too many presentations
Not enough production values
That’s where we’re headed
No one knowing where it ended
This river has the bends
Without telling where it flows
The stars button the skies
To tree-lined banks on both sides
Behind me is a beginning
Like so many others
Before me is an ending
That can only be mine.

Bad Brains

Bad brains, bad brains
Gonna beat it all out
Gonna stick it all up
Gonna gum up the works
Gonna kill it if it shrieks
Gonna hit it if it jerks
Bad brains, bad brains
My brains gone to town
Can you explain
Bad brains, bad brains

Dead River Body

Across the bridge
Can you see the water
Under the foam
There’s a river flowing
Next to your home
Dead river, dead body
Dead river, dead body

Washing vegetables
In the water
Black water,
White cucumber
Do you remember
They threw coins
In the river
Dead river, dead body
Dead river, dead body

If you’re hanging around
At night you might end
Up face down
Yeah, right
In the water
Dead river, Dead body
Dead river, Dead body

Warm chemicals
In my blood stream
O happy blood
Sounding out
Foam-flecked seashells
Float in the breeze
Another induced dream
Nicotine drenched clouds
Where rain comes down
Enchanting an amused smile
Paints her face with lies.

I made a lampshade

I made me a lampshade
It took all night and day
When I wasn’t working on it
I simply sat and stared
Till bit by bit, it began to grow
Each time I added some more
At last it began to take shape
By then I’d learned to gape
At it for hours on end.

Not Everyone Who Wanders

Go from pain
In a shell
They can’t explain
You must be well

Yesterday’s clouds
With their bloody lining
Are mental shrouds
Intertwining

Coiled together
Breed apart
Running forever
From the start

They like to roam
Not everyone who wanders
Is lost to the unknown

Legacies

So they ripped her flesh in birth
But the fruit were bias
The river ran deep
Deep and red in it’s death

Men were born no more
No more than they lived
But flew back to the system
For reasons only they knew
Power replaced no pain
While the fever ran cold
And tears ran so free

What could be left?
What could be done?
Ever.

Birds hit the wall
So their souls were united
Oppression, they screamed
When last sighted

Men left behind words
In silent hallways of truth
Words of learning ran amok
Anthems to revolution stood
Up words in effect
While outcasts strayed
To the edge, hand-in-hand

Their history in their creation
And their creation in limitation
Stood hollow and empty
Yet tall, by design and definition

Time was swollen
Winds began to shift
Uncovering golden visions
and original symbols of light

Times were wrong
Sanity was suspect
The edge was too close
It had to go wrong

The lights were across
The river in spate
The silent boat drifed
While fingers grew roots

Shedding all vestiges
Some screams to the wind
Same stories every night
Forgive me for I have sinned

Our father who would not exist
Fearing multitudes in need
Long since made to desist
Say naught of my call

Wrought-iron wafers slip
Along their memories of life
Leaving behind mense rust
In alleys of fate seized
Raped was her call
Wild-eyed before her kin
Her back against a familiar wall
Cold steel began to fall

No more should deeds bury
No more should colors dry
No more should outcasts recall
No more should words be small.

The need
To reflect
On life
Is every warriors
Strife

From creature comforts
To the horrid sort of danseuse
From narcotic chanteuse
To sheer verbal abuse
I’ve passed through my mind
Every kind of woman and even
Regretting missing those I could use

S. stood and stared

S. stood and stared
At accusations and fingers
Pointed at him and his sins
Till now in the world

Be gone united
Feel free divided
Stand straight
And get chided

When he was a boy
They never said
No matter what you do
Virtue is no reward

S. stood and smiled
At his confusion again
They knew his mistakes
But couldn’t explain the pain

It came and went
Until every memory
Was marked ‘sensitive’
Till he had a human moment

My Love

My love don’t bring me diamonds in the night
Suck the marrow from the core when my steel’s too tight
Or maybe she’ll bring pearls in her ovaries, lenses
Inferiority complexes and stage fright
By when she would’ve left me to make it all right
My love don’t bring me diamonds in the night

I don’t mind the owls

I don’t mind the owls
I’m just walking my way
I know where the mushrooms grow
And I know this is the end of today

Keep out of my head
Or hear me shout a lot
Camelot had nothing
To do with this

Keep out of my head
Stay out of my mind
Keep out or you should
Prepare to meet your end

Once I held my breath
Nothing to do with this
I had the power
You had the need
And I stayed away
From your greed

Keep out of my head
You don’t belong
An accident, no blame
My visions can be wrong
Still my mission’s strong
I keep my distance
I keep my silence
None can be freed

Cardboard construction
Of courage
Jig your tree
Become free
From liberty
Roads go on
Forever using
Milestones of pain
Along the way
A running whisper
In the middles
Of your life
That the end
Is coming soon.

On The Bike

Riding a light beam straight into darkness
Soundscape following me round the bend
Swinging between what I know and know not
Arc lights tremble like driftwood ensembles
You know, you can’t tell if its heaven or hell.

Don’t want to suggest
Something negative but
I think I understood
What we should and
It don’t seem good
To carry on this way

Don’t want to say
There’s no reason to stay
I must do something
That seems to carry on
From where I left you
Yesterday; yesterday
Come what may

The way we go on
Reason to be strong
Sickened by stresses
Oops! In another mess!
What’s all the fuss?
Today, ever since yesterday
There’s not much to say.

Tears

We ring your eyes with evidence
Washed up from the shallow grave of your sins
We fell when they crowned the prince
We flash when the usurper wins

We climb the mountain trails of history
Making our symbols on this moonlit tree
We broke out when the smoke rolled in
We announce the triumph of the free

Within the electronic tube of image
Or hidden as emotion amongst soft pages
We open the warm brim of your heart
With women fight their many stages

We link expressions in the face of a lifetime
We mark her departure from him
We stood, a small price at the brink
Of isolation, watching the sun

Every circle
Would straighten
Itself out
If only it knew
Where to begin

First there was an opening
Now there’s a concern
Somehow trouble and I
Seem to get along

There’s something screaming
There’s something inside
It’s so strong

Your breath burns my skin
Forever, that’s how long it’s been
Since I killed anything

How do I ask you my reasons
When I know you’ve been
Through the worst and
Why do I open my mouth?
Why don’t I open my eyes?
And see you there

It’s because I am
Makes me this way
Don’t look now,
You’ll catch me
Arm-deep in your head
Searching for your heart
Which if I tell you
You’d hurt me right there

Finally I’d say
Sod the tears
If I had to go
Well, it was anyway

Shell Talk

Mother Venus asked a crab
What it was doing in there
(He) Said, ‘Im securing my shell
There’s an ocean out there
Can’t you see, if you hold me up
You can still hear it roar
Enjoy it but understand
I’ve got to live in it
Until I can get out of here
Leaving behind sounds
That are empty as hell

Milestones

22nd Milestone
Childhood’s end and
They all end up like me
Watching time for
Some meaning to life

32nd Milestone
Sound makes my bed
Hate collides with hate
You’ve just settled
For the year-long rage
By refusing to accept
This single outburst

42nd Milestone
“Bus; stop!!
Let me down”

I Went Out

I went out stupid today
I went out to the marketplace
I lost when I should have sold
Now I can’t go back tomorrow
It’s true: everybody is a waking suicide.

Just Deception

I spend my time
shamanizing everything
Floating conversations like
Breadcrumbs on soup
Nah! I don’t wanna change
I wanna like myself
When I change
Others might like me instead
But have I changed
And what has it got me?
Do you see a new line
Upon my face every year?
My mother refuses to relax
She says she’s preparing for death
And I alone carry stories
Of what might have been
I spend more time
Describing how I spend time
Thinking up more ways of description
Oh, it sure feels good
Even if it’s all just deception

Urban Digression

We all came from a village
Once upon a time, all of us
Executives and MBAs divine
Your fathers dug the earth
But it takes interest rates
For you to measure its worth

Is there no prayer that works

For a restless imagination and lonely heart

Is there no way to reach the end

When you face pain even before you start

>

On a tumbling staircase

My screams made spiral sounds

With a hint of fear

Freedom from Freedom descends

I close in captive relationships

Which abused my morals

For just looking.

I've Been Had

Shrieks?
I burnt your curtains
Broke your telly
And smashed your face


I should’ve known better
The beginning of the hunt
Always comes
To the end of the chase.


I would kill
If I knew what I wanted
So far gone
This is my reward

No more lies, only anger
I’ve been had

Life In Delhi

I came to Delhi last.
From train windows
I grew childhood associations
From Delhi, I went the most
In all four directions
And returned to rest

In Delhi, I grew the most
From boyish wastrel
To the husk of a man In those windows
I kept my signs
From those rooftops I painted designs
(Needless to say, on the sky)
On those staircases
I heard voices
Stopped to pee

I miss those elevators
That never seem to work
In these colleges
I learnt to rock
From these markets
I learnt wholesale talk
On these roads
I learnt to ride
I also broke a tibia and fibula
- period.

Dig-ability Factor

The prophets say the markets push
The agents talk through their pocket linings
The artists create volumes of space
But only time tells tales of success

What Am I Writing

Beginnings, ends, middles; all notes over ten years. Imperfect prose, shorthand prose, easy poetry, involved illustrations, ruled copybooks and a stagnant pool of paper that is going nowhere. Maybe now I can get some fish in it.

More promises to myself to write down some angst and grudging portions of my childhood. Abuses of power that children notice, jading of younger energies in people already dead — social vampires who move unknowing through circles, sapping energy in the twilight.

Statement of Purpose?

ANTI-NOTICE

I don’t have any product to push
I don’t have any dogs to distribute
I don’t have a business to run
And I don’t have any furniture to sell
Therefore, you don’t have a reason to read this
And it’s best we never met

My baby girl

Messiah: The Second Testament to Punk Rock In New Delhi India

Five years back, Messiah supplied The Antidote to the rapidly developing formulae rock all around us. Sick of cover bands and heavy metal’s scared shitless intellectual content, they did their own music, our way!

Not that it was easy, from the manure beds of the Delhi college band scene, the band grew independent of trend. Experimenting with a bizarre range of selective covers and always with an emphasis on making our own songs, everything they played eventually ended up sounding like Messiah music. While they bandied categories like punk, grunge, alternative and new wave, everything was still distinctly Messiah — raw, in-your-face, and markedly different from everyone else. So too, were the regulars who followed the band’s progress simply because they were tired of what was all too easy to be real music.

The band grew from an on-stage trio to add a 3-member road crew, picked up a minor but dedicated following in Mumbai (Thanks Rishu!) and against all apprehension, awkward instances and disapprobation from fellow ‘experienced’ bands when they went into the studio to record The Antidote.

After recording the first album, The Antidote, life finally caught up with the trio. College was over, careers were calling and while attentions were divided amid these, things cooled down for the band. After a 5-year hiatus wherein Mickey (Bass) and Sumit (Drums) became professional sound engineers and Kush (Guitar, Vocals) added degrees to his educational qualifications, it was the intermittent jams that kept the name alive. After all, jamming together had got under the band members’ skin, like blood.

Now with careers, parents, girlfriends and everyone connected assured that the trio were not a dead-loss-to-humanity, the band is together again with new-found maturity, skill, equipment, strength and the same old purity of purpose. All that was needed was a trigger on the event horizon.

It happened and the band is back with a brand new single, Boys Don’t Cry, and pleasantly surprised at their brevity in the face of the same old insanity; a new and improved method to their madness; if you will. Still, at the heart is the same old Messiah, hunkered under new musical muscle, promise!

LYRICS TO "BOYS DON'T CRY":

How long i gonna cry?
As far as i remember boys are not suppose to cry.
My love still got force,
In one leap I can take off to Mexico,
C'est la vie you said,
What a great escape and you changed a little too fast,
But Gogo you should know
All the things I left behind to just be with you
With you

Loving as you were
One day you thought you have had enough
You have to complain
But Gauri listen this is no time to play games
Mired in your caste
You are trying to do your duty at your best
My dreams aren't dead
One is broken and others are obviously dead
Is out of sight is out of mind is out of mind is out of sight....