IT WASN’T A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT….

“It was not a dark and stormy night, but quite the opposite actually”. Now that was something different, something ‘hatke’- a word used so often by those fat slobs at the publishing houses, that it had inadvertently registered itself at the back of Ruhaan’s head. What did they know about literature- could they even tell apart their Tolstoys from their Bhagats? COMROMISE. That was their crack cocaine. Nothing like an eye- catching sentence to begin a novel. Follow it up with a few pages of Bollywood- style masala and the readers are hooked. Then put in whatever literary rubbish you wish to, who cares. The publisher gets his bestseller and you realize the long cherished dream of your first novel in print.
Oh ! To think of people like them; sitting in their plush, air conditioned offices, thinking of cheap little tricks to sell a few thousand more copies of a book at the expense of Literature; governing the fate of writers like him. It used to drive him mad. But now it only brought a smirk to his face. 7 long years of rejections had finally gotten to him.
With this- “the perfect first line”; he began to write (or rather rewrite) the story of his life, not exactly as he had dreamt.

THIS DAY

This day, this hour, this moment…..this moment of loss….of unrealized dreams….of an unclear future…..is the purest, the most natural of all moments…..where the clouds of fake dreams burn before my very eyes and rise up in smoke and burn….burn and scream and die- a slow, anti- pheonixian death. The poison which they were hitherto spreading within me, intoxicating my senses is now powerless in front of my soul…..My soul which, hidden from my own eyes….lay quietly, patiently…..waiting to be seen heard felt……. breathing life into my life…..This soul is now set free….it is flying…and I am flying with it…..flying in the cold mountain air…bathing in the icy blue waters of the ocean….breathing from the moist green grass…and LIVING…..Let the damn world be damned!!

HOPE

Hope- A man’s best friend and his biggest enemy too…..Its as double edged as everything this life has to offer…..stinking of duality….not here not there….raising its ugly little head everywhere….some days it makes my chest swell…. It makes me write great stories, paint beautiful canvases, make wonderful films in my head…..and then when I get drunk on it….imbibe it in my veins…sway to its intoxication…then it kills me…….how I long to be free of this disease…this elixir of life…how I wish to rise above my petty hopes and struggles…and become the man I have to be….the very next moment how I crave for the hopeful little child inside….unbearable is the schizophrenia of hope….

Solitude

Science of silence
Unending conversation with the self
Love...longing...loss
All living on a lonely island

Escaping the brutality of waves
Waves of wisdom
From the sea of society
The vast, all- encompassing sea

A cathedral on the island
White as the wisdom of seers
Of mystics and mavericks
Untouched by the sea
Untarnished, uncaring
Just trying to be

Calm as the ocean in the stormy sea
Content on their little island
Flying free
In thoughts and dreams

Unburdened by desire
Driven by sweet curiosity
Enshrouding the island
In the sanctity of Solitude!!

Colours

White....a halo wrapped around the omiscient sky...a crown adorning the hill princess of Lavale....adding to the effervescent green...the green calmness of a cat's eyes...mysterious...content in its sly solitude....Grey...cold and forbidden at first glance...a ready reminder of the rage within...the wet brown ground....pure as the purest passion...the orange red sky full of deep untamed desire....a glimpse of the pallet of life...colours seen from my window at Lovely Lavale...

My Cold Cold Beloved (Delhi)!

Winter brings out the best in her....She becomes as demanding as a queen.... And I her humble slave....Bow down to her whims... She has me chained and bound....the cold winter seems warm against her heart....She scratches and bites.Yet how she delights!! There is love in the dark chilly afternoon winds....dividing my heart in a million little things....Oh the faint shadowy sun....watching helplessly over her lovely countenance....His grandeur, his might no longer a lure...For what ails my beloved...has and will have no cure....The cold wind has unclothed her...Naked she stands in the cold....What beauty, such dignity.... No eye can behold....All science be damned....in the cold she expands...A blooming balloon...Making me dance... Like the sea to the moon....bewitched by her charms...how I crave for those arms....those places those streets...where I trundled and crawled...with my baby feet...where I stumbled in my youth....to be rescued by her...


Those grand monuments of love...so pure in the veil of thin mist....huge shadowy trees... touching the skies- white at day and red in the night.......tall buildings...small slums....the people infinite....their heads on her thighs...all breathe from her sighs


We all love her, claim her...But who can ever tame her...One sweep of her gaze....and our lives are consumed ....The serenity of snow we do not deserve...ours is the grey cold winter...with harsh, slashing rain.... drowned in duality....smiling through pain....

O Restless Cloud

Where do you travel, O restless cloud?
Is it the wind that moves you
Across the infinite sky
Or is it your desire to see the unseen
To reach the end of being
The genesis...the horizon

Are you not bound by the rich earth?
The mountains that aspire to touch you
Or the ocean that reflects your serenity
Can you not hear the whisper of the birds
Sending their love to you

Oblivious to their desperate calls
To guard over their troubled selves
You drift away into the unknown
The unknowable...

Across the emptiness
Of the full sky
And the barren, thirsty earth
On a journey without an end

A mindless pursuit
There is nothing you create or lay claim upon
No end that you serve
But who else can understand
Why should they?
So carry on my beloved cloud
Float away into a bigger sky.....