On a high those times.....

I was on a high those times.
I had a woman by me, and
The world seemed easy.
She did nothing more than
Make me a mirror out of myself.
She did nothing more than
Soothe those anxious worries.
She wasn’t of much help otherwise
Than to lend some light to the nights.
She could care less, than to ask
For an effort out of my laziness.
She did nothing more than
Love me for my sake folks.
She did nothing but let me know
That I was a man in my right.
She did merely inspire my vanity
To become a gentleman.
She did nothing but court my
Conscience with devotion pure.
I was on a high those times.
I had a woman by me, and
The world seemed easy.

Wish you were here....Pink Floyd

So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found? The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

Hope

Dil na ummed tho nahi, naakam hi tho hai,
Lambi hai gham ki shaam, magar shaam hi tho hai,

yeh safar bahut hai katin magar,
Na udhas ho mere humsafar,

yeh sitam ki raat hai dhalne ko,
hai andhera gham ka pighalne ko,
(Jara der ismein lage agar)

Na Udhas ho mere humsafar,

Nahi rehnewaali yeh mushkile,
hai yeh agle mood pe manzile,
(meri baat ka tu yakeen kar)

Na udhas ho mere humsafar,

Kabhi dhood lega ye karwa,
Woh nayi jameen naya aasman,
(Jisse dhoodti hai teri naazaar)

Na udhas ho mere humsafar ...

One Phone Policy

I am going back on my 2 phone policy. I have an office phone and I have a personal phone, to make personal calls.

In February, I could not pay the bill for the Reliance number, because the bill exceeded 6k. I am not able to receive calls in that phone for the past month, and no one has asked why it has been so. Showing that I am talking to people and people are not talking to me.

So from today on, I will stop being a pest, and take care of myself. People who have to talk will talk, wont they?

Eat Well Restaurant, Benz Circle, Vijayawada

I landed in Mumbai on the 1st of may. Was received by Abe Varghese, went to his room, met Saravana Kumar, another classmate of mine. Found 2 other nice roomies of these guys there, Vishal and Akash.

In the afternoon, Abe wanted to buy a Swatch. So we decided to go to a mall called In Orbit Mall, in Malad. In terms of size, the mall was ok ok. But the ambiance created by the people simply dumbfounded me.

This was the first time I had been to the hep Mumbai. Else it would be a short visit to all tourist places. Women and men dressing so well. Such taste, such style, such physical beauty. And the people generally seem to carry off their styles and fashions very well. Wherever I turned, I could see opulence, indulgence. What else would you call having a vending machine coffee for 25 rupees inside the mall, when it is 5 rupees in every railway station?

I got a bit intimidated by all this. We had lunch there at the mall. I got a quarter portion of mutton biryani for 120 rupees, ended up spending a cool 300 rupees for a lunch for 2 people. Things are so costly. Cost of anything that is not at MRP is 3 times more than what you can get in Chennai or Vijayawada, or for that matter even Bangalore.

It beats me why things must be so costly. The land is worth many crores, each shop pays a rent in lakhs or crores. But why? Its better for me to call Eat Well Hotel, near Benz Circle, Vijayawada for my standard menu à 1 chicken b/l curry, 3 rotis and 1 curd rice for exactly 92 rupees with assured excellent, but unscientific CRM. Life is so much easier this way.

Morals

It got really hot in Vijayawada last night. So much that I could not sleep at all the whole night. Sweat was pouring down me by the bucketfuls. I tried taking bath twice during the course of the night, but to no comfortable end. It sweated more.

It was 4.30 am and I could stand it no longer. I decided to go out to have a cup of coffee. You have to wear those bloody helmets at all times you ride a motorcycle here in Andhra. Just the other day I paid a fine of Rs. 100 at 5.30 am in the morning! So I thrust my wet head into the helmet and set out to drink some coffee.

There was a gentle breeze, and I felt revived under its caresses. I decided to hit the highway to Guntur, my favorite road. I kept riding for about 45 min at slow speed, enjoying the cool air. My back was aching from the lack of sleep, but I was not tired. My spirits were high. The headlight beams of the trucks were amusing to see in the slight fog that was enveloping the morning. The sun was just about permeating through the murky indifference of the night that was giving up so easily, as happens at this time of the year.

I decided to stop at a motel, in plain terms nothing more than a dhaba, with some cots and chairs lying dispersed by the side of the highway that was getting busier by the moment. An attendant, who turned cold only when I did not want breakfast, but just coffee, greeted me with a cold nod. I got the coffee, and I went around to another small shop to get some matches.

I was lighting my cigarette when I heard a lady’s voice asking for a cup of tea. I turned around wondering what a woman could be doing at such a place at this time. She was about 35 years of age, slightly plump, with long hair and flowers longer than them. She was wearing a very shiny saree that was but a cheap imitation of silk. Her face was all powdered; she smelled of some inexpensive perfume, her lips were colored by a shade of red that could be termed too bright.

It took some time for me to come to terms with the sight of the woman I was seeing. It took only a moment to distinguish her as someone who sells sex. I instinctively walked toward my bike, as if it could shelter me from my own notions of being near such a lady in a public setting. I felt more secure near the motorcycle.

The cold attendant never turned toward her, and she had to ask for her cup of tea more than 5-6 times, when there was no other customer to be served. The shopkeeper was just ignoring her. She then produced some coins as payment. The former satisfied as to the prudence of giving her some tea, gave it to her in the end.

I noted that there was a downcast countenance about the woman. Her eyes were nearly wet by the time she had got her cup of tea. Her face was distorted by some torment that could be discerned even in the dull setting.

I observed that there was some audio playing on a loudspeaker. It was a local made drama in Telugu, with obscenities, as would no parent warrant their children to be afflicted with. Pointed deliberations about embarrassing things, double meaning phrases. There was general laughter at some of the jokes by the truckers present and having an early breakfast.

Sex was being downgraded, sullied and sold. The person who sells it is never happy. The person who buys it is never satisfied. The onlooker is always disgusted, though one may feel all the sympathy for the woman. What is a primal need for an animal is still a primal need for man. Man has grown no more than a dog in morality, though we can state fancy phrases and concepts as accepting prostitution as a necessary evil for the society. We have grown intelligent.

The society maintains its propriety; the individual need not lose morality. For some actions can be classed as necessarily immoral, but can be ignored to avoid the sex drive of men being turned toward adultery and its complications. Aren’t dogs better in morals? They haven’t claimed to possess morals, have they? Prostitution is only an indicator of one individual’s moral decadence? No.

It is the outcome of a moderation of values that is required to make a system work. It is the systematic and cold-hearted work of ingenuity worth our applause. Give a man some easy thrills and he will never question the system. His unfathomable moral gravity will feed him with opium and put him to a guilty, yet tranquil sleep. The greater cause of a group of people or a family can thus be won too.

Feed a country with cheap liquor and opium, there will be no revolution for a hundred years. Feed a man with some thin layer of accession over his actions, and he will not mind complying with another set of morals questionably not his own. When will we grow up? When will we be perfect?

The Night Spent

Would you care to come?
When I sleep in my home, alone.
There is only deathly silence now
In a mind that was tilled by love’s plough.
I have played the wonderful game
When like the breeze cold you came
To ascend to my summit of caring.
Never even in my dreams daring
Did I ever see my future with you.
Yet this heart listens not to you
Nor it waits for me for direction.
It soars alone to you, void to the discretion
Of my mind that needs only this silence.
The blood of the cold night was spilt
On the carpet of the morning’s warmth felt.
Would you fell this bout of masquerading?
Would you go farther and be my dearest?

Streets of Philadelphia - Bruce Springsteen

I was bruised and battered and I couldn’t tell
What I felt
I was unrecognizable to myself
I saw my reflection in a window I didn’t know
My own face
Oh brother are you gonna leave me
Wastin´away
On the streets of philadelphia

I walked the avenue till my legs felt like stone
I heard the voices of friends vanished and gone
At night I could hear the blood in my veins
Black and whispering as the rain
On the streets of philadelphia

Ain’t no angel gonna greet me
It’s just you and I my friend
My clothes don’t fit me no more
I walked a thousand miles
Just to slip the skin

The night has fallen, I’m lyin’awake
I can feel myself fading away
So receive me brother with your faithless kiss
Or will we leave each other alone like this
On the streets of philadelphia

The Dance of the Nymphs

Vanity Fair

“It is not that speech of yesterday,” he continued, “which moves you. That is but the pretext, Amelia, or I have loved you and watched you for fifteen years in vain. Have I not learned in that time to read all your feelings and look into your thoughts? I know what your heart is capable of: it can cling faithfully to a recollection and cherish a fancy, but it can’t feel such an attachment as mine deserves to mate with, and such as I would have won from a woman more generous than you. No, you are not worthy of the love which I have devoted to you. I knew all along that the prize I had set my life on was not worth the winning; that I was a fool, with fond fancies, too, bartering away my all of truth and ardour against your little feeble remnant of love. I will bargain no more: I withdraw. I find no fault with you. You are very good- natured, and have done your best, but you couldn’t—you couldn’t reach up to the height of the attachment which I bore you, and which a loftier soul than yours might have been proud to share. Good-bye, Amelia! I have watched your struggle. Let it end. We are both weary of it.”

Amelia stood scared and silent as William thus suddenly broke the chain by which she held him and declared his independence and superiority. He had placed himself at her feet so long that the poor little woman had been accustomed to trample upon him. She didn’t wish to marry him, but she wished to keep him. She wished to give him nothing, but that he should give her all. It is a bargain not unfrequently levied in love.

Nothing much seems to change!

Nothing much seems to change!
She sat there, looking at the sea.
The bows were swaying lest
Her brows break a sweat disturbing.
The lapping waves were gentle on the pier
Lest a drop of them touches her skin silky.
The birds were quiet, unusually,
May not their flapping break this moment for me.
Seems they were moved too to rapture then.
I had a seen a perfect picture alive.
She turned around and our souls met.
I made her mine and it became perfection.
I knew not what the look meant.
The bleakness of the lone shore was gone,
The yearnings seem to have fled to where
I was headed. Toward a perfect love.
Yes, she loves you, you vastness, I know.
You will live to feel it again, while I will go.
To the next life, away this one fulfilled.
It is dullness now, it is dullness now.

Was it you?

Who lent fire to my wings?
When I was an ugly duckiling,
Paddling hard below the waterline.
When I was awkward and shy
To fly, to explore and to express.

I am now a falcon, that
Roves the skies in proud loneliness
The sky too big for its strength
The earth too low to fly about.
The roar of the winds yet sways it not.

The sea is too wide for this ship.
Yet it chugs on its course straight
The dawns and the dusks occur on it
As late as nature ordains a change.
The storms never have their say.

This vista never changed but, for ages.
The same gliding beauty across the
Vast plain made live by the deep river.
The beholder far across on the horizon
Never noticed to protest the dull skyline.

But the book keeps the poetry flowing.
The verses never wavered in purpose.
You keep occurring in them
Like the sun and the moon,
Lighting up those bleak passages.

Was it you then?

The Dusk's Doing

I was riding down the slippery road
When I thought to compose this ode.
The sun was setting into the abyss
When I realized my heart amiss.
The flies were all around, with
The dance seeking the light of death.
Life was all around me, rejoice galore.
Another day stolen from the embracing
Goddess of death, escaped bracing.
The drizzle was talking to me verses
My lips were singing the praises
My hands were raised to salute
The music that flowed from the flute.
Oh what beauty I saw in the dusk.
To the heavens my heart bounds
When pray the mind is unbound.
Isn’t it all in the mind
Our world and our way?

A Parting from the World

What would the world say
When it finds out?
The years would’ve flown by
I would be among the winds scattered.

My duplicity was not unique.
Never do trust their words, I tell
The child being told my story.
They would have made me an example.

My conceit was not uncultivated.
They all shaped me thus through
A force I could resist in vain.
Who would believe one who is guilty?

My vanity was never out of place.
The teachers applauded my arts,
My peers cheered my tastes.
Who would have seen the rent soul within?

My blindness was but an adaptation.
I, then, saw only the agreeable
I was just being comfortable.
Would the ignored tolerate?

My mask of chastity was for approval
From the world that questions me thus,
Amidst a thousand others’ anonymous.
Can I just go unrepentant?

My actions were reactions
To what was spread on my table.
The sweet & the bitter I took up.
Would my innocence be forgiven?

Oh, let me not stop, for I have braved
To tell my truth now.
I have lived in & not with the world.
I go, hence, to my repose, whence I come.

Onward I would march

The silent breeze that rustles the
Bleak tree, my hair too, it ruffles,
Like the tender caress of my love
And so the evening ended
In a note of fondness.

It had been shortened, time,
By thoughts and music of you.
What is not yours, love.
This evening is but a small consign
To reflect on your perfection.

My path has been alight,
But I have trusted your eyes.
My mind never sought refuge
From the stinging sold deluge.
What kindness is wrought
From your shaping touch.

The directions lose bearing when
The heart seeks your presence.
The oceans would seem silly
If they were to bar my way.
Onward I would march,
Onward I would march…..

Repairing an Electric Stove

We say I am bad mechanic. I am bad at numbers. I am bad at cooking. I am the worst driver ever. I would like to narrate something that has disproved that I am bad at repairing things.

I have this electric stove at home. It has heating coils, which heat up when the power is turned on. It suddenly stopped working last month, I did not know why. I really felt like cooking and having homemade food, but was forced to eat out.

Last night I couldn’t sleep. I was hungry, and I had to do something about it. So I decided to repair the stove. I have a decent set of tools at home, though I never use them.

The whole underside of the stove was rusted and the screws were all jammed. I first oiled them, found the right spanner and screwdriver, and slowly opened it. It was after all a very simple apparatus. It just had a connection leading from the plug socket to the heating coils.

I carefully opened the socket, which had a lot of small screws and nuts. I made sure that I put the nuts and the bolts together after taking them out, lest I should lose them. I took the coils out, which were wound around a base of non-conducting material.

And I found that a soldering had gone off from one of the end terminals. If I put the coil in contact with the end terminal, the stove would work again. I don’t have a soldering iron at home. So I open the end terminal and I just tied the coil’s end around the screw.

Half the job was done. Now I had to put it all together. This is the most difficult part. Now you have to remember, and also use common sense and a lot of thinking in general. For its too easy to dismantle, but really difficult to undo a dismantling.

But I managed to do it, because the whole thing was organized properly after I had dismantled the stuff. The last of the things assembled, and I switched on the stove. And yes, success. It worked again. The coils were glowing orange.

Now I forgot to do one thing. I had used oil to loosen the rusted screws. I forgot to wipe the oil off. Now the coil was burning because of the oil. Dumb as I was, contrary to the dexter I had been during the past hour, I poured water on the flames that were growing. And you know what happened? I got an electric shock, and the fuse went off. No power at home!

Then I had to change the fuse in the main fuse carrier, then wipe the whole stove clean of water and oil, and then I made rice, then I made a spicy curry. And at 4 am, I was feasting on some well-deserved food!

So I wouldn’t agree as a fact that I am not good at anything. Just that I take the time to do things that I think I am good at. For the others, I just don’t take the time. An idiot is lazy, to think. A fool is someone who thinks he cannot do something he wants to do.

The Complexcess!

I have seen many people, wonderful, intelligent and charming and so much more, being cowed down with various inhibitions. And the worst among them is that about the body. It is awkward, but the easiest to overcome, because it is merely about something physical.

This feeling gets deeply etched in the mind when people who we depend on, like our parents or siblings reinforce the compliments made by the rotten souls.

It takes a lot to see beauty. And it takes a lot more to appreciate it. Believe me, there are a lot of inhibitions to appreciate beauty. We may sometimes feel that we are compromising ourselves in the eyes of others by calling something beautiful that we think is so. So to buy a shirt of red color, I have to be brave! To go out with someone, I have to be bold enough. The world thinks it is entitled to make opinions. So much is at stake, for this is Vanity Fair.

The gorgeous displays at the shop windows, parlors and boutiques, they all seem to reflect the perfection that man can create. But there is another dimension too to this. They seem to symbolize the symmetry that man is not endowed with bodily. Such things can be shopped, and made to adorn us. Such as fancy phrases, fancier clothes, anything that seems to elevate our pride.

Whence came this need to satisfy, and gain approval? What else is at stake but our vanity? Is this vanity so powerful that it will stop us from being our own self, for some assumed identity?

Yes, this thingy is powerful, especially since we have seen to what extent people will go, the things they could do, the words they could use, the airs they could throw, the level to which they can stoop, to gain approval. To be seen as “cool”. Liposuction. Piercing. Tattoos. Anorexia nervosa. Fuck man. Hey Dude. A lot of other nonsense.

In this fair of sorts, it takes a lot of character to be actually beautiful. It takes a lot more of character to actually feel beautiful. Such people are the gentle giants among us. Who are the grace that shines on our brows. They bring forth the smiles, and the happiness. Whose mother is not beautiful? Whose best friend is not the most handsome? Isn’t a girl that the guy loves the most beautiful woman in the world?

Vanity so sickens us thatg we all want to be the handsome or the gorgeous. Wanting to seem beautiful for a few people is healthy. But wanting to be omnipotent in charm and agreeableness is sickness. I would rather be me.

Apathy

I was in Vizag last week on work. I had just had a sumptuous lunch, and was standing outside the restaurant with a colleague.

We saw a group of children ambling along the platform, dirty and ragged. There was much commotion among them because the eldest and the tallest among them, a kid of about 6-7, leading an infant monkey by a leash. The leash itself was not looking inviting to be tied up with, made of very coarse material. The neck of the primate was bruised and red from its bondage.

The child was being admired for having such a plaything, by the other younger children. And the child was no exception at getting carried away. He tried to lift up the monkey by its leash. The monkey was choking. So it grabbed the child’s leg, refusing to let go, in mortal fear.

The boy construed this as disobedience, and seemed to be angered. He grabbed a stick, a sort of plywood, and started hitting the monkey on its head. Of all places, its head. The head itself was as small as a cricket ball. To hit it. He was doing it with the sharp edge of the weapon.

The animal started squealing. It was like an appeal for help. I could not hold it longer, and advanced menacingly toward the boy, scolded him for being cruel. He got scared, and tied the leash to a fence and got busy with some other amusement.

The monkey itself was contented to be left alone. Nobody would know when it had been given something to eat.

I was feeling pretty disturbed by this scene. I could not still understand why somebody would injure something so harmless and delicate.

A few minutes later, the whole troupe of the people started begging to people who were coming out of the restaurant. The watchman at the hotel started asking them to go away. They wouldn’t. An argument started between the watchman and a young woman with an infant.

She was dark, very lean, and probably not more than 25 years old. She was starting to shout at the watchman, and he hit her on her face. She never backed off, and the children of the group were raising a din over the whole thing. Other families that engaged in begging somehow managed to take the woman and the children away. The woman did not cry, but was enraged and wounded, and still had the pride not to break down at her destitution.

Now I seemed to understand the cruelty of the child. He was seeing his mother being beaten up, and for what? A notion called Opulence. He was trying in vain to defend her, by shouting. And no good man was there to say a favorable thing in their defense, when even a monkey had seemed to move one.

Why did I not help the woman? Why did I defend the monkey? Is it because I am an animal lover? Is it because animals are more helpless than humans? Is it because I don’t sympathize with humans?

I am not talking about myself. How many of us would try to save a dog that is being stoned for pleasure? Very few. How many of us will try to help a lame beggar who has tripped? Very very few.

We seem to get scared to touch others. Animals seem less disgusting? No, helping a human is more difficult. If I had helped the woman, I would have to answer the society on a whole, which disapproves of begging. So a beggar can be hit, humiliated or killed. Nobody seemingly needs to question. Compassion takes a back seat to the norms laid by God knows whom.

Whereas think about this. I ask the boy not to hit the monkey. He stops. He ignores it. I am satisfied. People think good of me. I go away. Does the hate in the boy go away? It will come back at what will not retaliate.

Misplaced revenge is cruelty.

So there I was, watching the forgotten monkey, till work called me away. I could have taken away the monkey. I did not. I could have bought the boy a chocolate, and told him to be a good boy from now on. I could have intervened when the man was slapping the woman. I did not. Well, nobody did anything.

They walked away, with their loud and vulgar outbursts.

We all walk away with Apathy.

Hiding

I am hiding.
Within my world.
Unable, unable and unable.
To cope with the vision of perfection.
The world outside lives and celebrates, in vanity
While I turn like I am in my grave.
I am living just like this world.
Nothing more, nothing less.

O’ what do you yearn for my soul?
Is it the rainbow that moves you to joy?
Is it the green pasture that creates raptures?
Is it the love, never to be given?

O’ what do you cry for my child?
Is it the mother that chided you then?
Is it the memory that makes you choke now?
Is it the dream turned sour?

O’ what do you yearn for my man?
Is it the vision denied?
Is it the conceit you detest in you?
Is it the call now being answered?

Grounded

Oh if but my prayers were answered …..
The soul would be perched on the summit of your excellence.
I was in the sky, soaring across the sun,
The world was so far down,
I had wings of fire to top my heart’s spire.
I have run out of inspiration
In this cessation of beauty to my senses.
Its but a world now, small and naïve.
I have been grounded, forever.
I am a mortal again, with small worries
And smaller securities, and stronger bindings.
No longer would I see the stars so close
Or be blessed by a beauty so proud.