Book Lust

Memories of a lifetime of book lust. An ever-growing urge to escape the visible boundaries of my dross, uneventful existence and plunge headlong into the infinitely exciting and unbounded lives of others – men, women, children, Indian, foreign, of all races and classes and colors and aspirations. Plunging into their strange hearts and minds and souls. Using them as looking glasses to examine and make some sense of my own existence.

Staring in open eyed wonder at the old-style glass cabinets in my dark basement school library. That was the place that opened up a whole new world to me. A world far more interesting and personal than the glossy, too perfect to be true world shown by television. Once books entered my life, television took a backseat. Cinema faded into the background, only to emerge as a more powerful influencer in later years.

I still remember feeling my pulse quicken reading about the Hardy boys rushing downtown to solve a case. Or half-comprehending the mental prowess of Sherlock Holmes brooding over a new case while staring out of the window of his 221B Baker Street apartment. All these pleasures came to me in that barely lit underground library with gargantuan wooden tables and red plastic chairs. Shy student that I was, I would sneak into the library by bunking academic classes and carefully place a novel in the middle of my textbook, appearing suitably engrossed in science or maths.

I discovered bookshops really late in life, only once I started earning. The sweetest memory that comes to mind is buying Orhan Pamuk’’s Snow from a Crossword store in GIP, Noida from my first salary. It was the kind of impulsive purchase middle class people engage in when they feel like being lavish after getting their first salary. Had only heard of My Name is Red from Nobel laureate Pamuk till then, but the pristine white cover of Snow, with Ka smoking a cigeratte had me hooked instantly. And what an amazing purchase it turned out to be. A strange, dream-like tale set in a cold, faraway land with a poet as protagonist. A poet who doesn’t write deliberately, but to whom poems “come” in a feverish state during his journeys in an unfamiliar town. Peppered with themes of politics, religion and spirituality.

That first purchase from a bookstore was preceded by 3 long and miserly years as a college student satiating his hunger for the written word from books borrowed from friends and the British Council Library in CP. Funnily enough, the membership fees for that library was gathered by shrewdly coaxing two college friends to join as silent co-members. As I expected, they hardly borrowed their quota of books and I ended up reading their quota as well by paying just 33% of the fee.

Returning to bookstores, before I could allow myself to get addicted to them came the e-commerce revolution and affordability and convenience made Flipkart my new best friend.

To be continued as I have lost interest in this post for now....back to that book I was reading for now...

A Lost Generation

We do yoga in the mornings in search of an elusive peace of mind and body.

We work our ass off during the day chasing money we spend on things we don’t really need.

We go on holidays so we may have something to talk about and nice pictures to upload on social media.

We party ritualistically on weekends as if our lives depend on it. We drink till we drop to make the rest of the week bearable.

We smoke weed looking for a temporary nirvana.

We read to quote, write to impress.

We got all the basic necessities of life on a platter. Hardship for us is a measly 10% increment.

We don’t know what we are after or where we want to be. But we are running like mad to get there. With the spirit of competition injected in our blood since childhood, we scamper breathlessly up the corporate ladder to prosperity, two steps at a time.

Perpetually lost between the poverty of our past and the promise of prosperity of future generations. Living cozy, causeless, casual lives.

Cocooned in glittering urban centers of the “shining” parts of India, we are untouched by untouchability and other grim realities of caste, class, race and gender that continue to shape the lives of millions of others of our generation. Rohith for us is just another “Breaking news”. Our Protests beginning and ending with the click of a Like button on Facebook.

Breathing our careers, we are immune to the faint, barely audible call of Identity.

Our lives parched of Politics. Of Passion. Of Poetry. What will your legacy be, they ask us. We stare into space for a long moment, snigger at them and click a few selfies to clear our minds.

Ground Ziro

Vast open rice fields all around a tiny elevated piece of heaven. A green sky beneath our feet and a clear blue one above. Pure air in between, clean as white clouds seen from an airplane window. The people - young, bohemian, some looking to escape, some to impress, most to seek and discover. The easy sound of guitars waltzing with the breeze.
Rice beer and wine served in bamboo glasses. Light on the head, heavy on the spirit. Travelling from the sun soaked fields of Punjab to the rain drenched hills of Meghalaya on the wings of a song.
Gum boots and bamboo huts and airborne photographers. Apple cheeked and innocent eyed school kids wearing colours of the sky, ambling by. Up and down a hillock of grass.
The Apatani people - friendly, wearing shy, honest smiles. Humbling the outsiders with their hospitality.
Night - bonfire, guitar and guttural sounds mixing in the mist. Laughter, new friends, old songs, new meanings. Prem baba and chacha galibh flying kites in a starry sky.
Tents and sleeping bags and musical dreams.
The morning after - more of the above.
A festival for saints, seekers and memory keepers.  Addictive.
Banao banao banao banao...right now!

A raped woman speaks

Go rape your mother first
She deserves to see the real face of the monster she gave birth to
In your childhood
When you sucked at her supple breasts, did you bite them like you did mine..with the same demonic glee?
Did you shove your thing inside her like you did inside me?
If you think it makes a man out of you..go do it to her...
Give her back her love ...along with the interest of your barbarity
If boys are boys let your mother be the certifier of your manhood...she deserves it for spouting out filth like you...
Not me...no I didn't ask for it...didn't want it...now I won't let any other man love me...for I am yours for life ..whether you want me or not...I have a right on your thing...I will hack it up into so many pieces that your tiny brain will not even let you count...
But not before it goes inside your mother...from where it should never have come out...so go on now...prove that you are a "man". and I will rejoice in not being cursed by that evil identity... For I can create what you can only destroy..
Rape me a thousand times and each time I will rise...not as your victim but as the mother you betrayed...

Mujhe nashe me rehne do!

Mujhe nashe me rehne do
Main nashe me hu to kya
Par nashe me mujhme 'main' nahi
Gar is mai ne mujhse 'main' ko nikala
To is mai se bada duniya me koi nasha nahi

Glossary:
Main: me
'Main': Ego
Mai: Alcohol

Beginning of Ram rajya?

Six thousand lives for six percent growth
Not a bad deal, sirjee
Not bad at all!

He gave us Gujarat
We need development, right?
Never mind Godhra
A blot on the hinterland
Even the moon has spots

He will make a man out of us
Teach us to leave our wives
Wear khakhi shorts
And embark on yatras to annihilate histories

Textbooks will be rewritten
Ram temples will be rebuilt
Ram rajya will return
When Lord Ram himself will lord upon us

We will bomb the bloodsucking neighbours away
They gave us 26/11
We will rule them 24x7

Billions will come rushing in now
Our ratings will soar
FDI, FII, the sleeping sensex will roar

Who cares if the 10% live or die
We can do without them
They are a dark spot on “shining” India
We will shove them away
Sahranpur banega Shanghai
Let us go the China way

What if its their home too
But damn them, they are so few
Let’s build a few more nuclear bombs
And  of course we will subsidise their tombs

A lament for modern times

Shining iphones with a million apps

Wafer thin handsets, the promise of a zillion pixels

I live in a land of subway surfers and candy crushers

Where our phones are smarter than us

It’s got an eye at the back and a mirror in front

Yet it doesn’t show me

But hey it got 47 likes on facebook, must be a ‘nice’ pic, no?

Let’s burn all the faceless books out there

And download free ebooks

Otherwise what’s the use of that ipad I got

Oh it’s so easy on the eyes, and so many options too

The other day I browsed through a hundred titles

But couldn’t decide on one

Don’t want to waste time on mediocre stuff you see!

Why are the damn birds so angry?

I used to envy their flight once

Tried to emulate it as well

But what the hell

I learnt to tweet instead

#afarewelltosanity

The other day, the mirror asked me

Are you all right?

Did you have a breakup?

You haven’t changed your display pic for like a week!

Gosh, I must unfriend that bitch

Don’t worry, I told her

I’ll get over it

Try Black Label, she said

It’s a girl’s new best friend

The world consumed in a race to click the best selfie

While the self lies alone – unheeded

Shrinking into an abysmal wretch

How many friends does it have?

How many likes?

STRANGER

Custom made on an assembly line
An owl staring into the sunshine
A one-faced coin in a sea of head and tails
A sly serpent slithering away from its scales
I may be velvet in a cotton mill

A bird with clipped wings
Is a bird still..

NOSTALGIA’S CHILD

Pierced by the fresh, the old gold inside turns to dust
Fresh sounds sound like noise from a damaged radio
Murder, victory, conquests, evolution
Love, power, revolution…
All algebra to my dyslexia

New tastes singe the soft tongue
Bring forth a liquid torrent from the drying eyes
Touched by new flames, I shrink like burnt paper
Retreating to the cold comfort of nostalgia’s cave

Cave of visions – broken mirrors – some bite, some excite
But the pain of stepping on them, I recognize

A medley of sunken sounds
Old songs with new meanings
Old poems smell as fresh as dew
Broken words fall from a string of meanings

I scurry after them like a bounty hunter
Afraid of losing the map to my treasure
Scared they too might desert me like my 4’am dreams

Memories wash me like hot water from a geyser
I am building a tomb:
Of unripened truths, baked myths and nascent mysteries

Pray, when finally exhumed
I am taken there to be buried
It shall be worthy of me
And I of it….

A bookish love story: My Entry for the Get Published Contest

Kabir, an unusually shy guy in his early twenties has recently started working for an MNC in the capital city of Delhi. One day, he goes over to the house of his sister’s friend to return some of her books. He has seen her and talked to her on a few occasions before but never found her attractive. But now, as he finds himself sitting in her drawing room, looking at her approaching silhouette; a strange feeling of calm passes over him. He forgets to be anxious – something he can never avoid in the company of an unknown. But is she really an unknown? He wonders for a moment and then loses himself in the innocent wonder of her eyes…watching her lips gently form words…words he does not hear that day, words ringing hollow behind the din of his wildly pounding chest. They exchange a few pleasantries before moving on to the topic of books – the only topic they are both comfortable with and passionate about. She, a literature student aspiring to be a writer; and he, a secret admirer of the written word who never quite had the courage to acknowledge his dream, let alone pursue it. They open up to each other like a young bird opening her wings to take her first flight – nervous, but wildly excited at the thought of flying in the free air. She starts talking about her poetry and acting, and he sits there like a log. Suddenly, he remarks quite coolly that he also write poems. She insists on reading one and he promises to bring it for her on his next visit. Quite bewilderingly, she asks him to write it down the next time instead of getting a print out. That’s weird, he thinks. Let her try her luck with my horrific handwriting, he chuckles to himself and says his goodbyes. This short visit leads to a series of meetings, culminating in the coming together of two strangely awkward personalities. Both lost in their own ways, each waiting to be found by the right eyes – eyes that don’t look past their dead faces, but eyes that look inside the inert façade to see them as they are. Without trying to change, without trying to judge. Both looking to come across love, unwilling to find it……….. An old world love story about two simple souls finding solace in each other, what makes this story enjoyable is the attention to the protagonists’ feelings and their deep awareness of emotions – their own and those of lives around them. In the end, I believe what matters in a love story is how much it makes you remember from your own life – that adolescent crush, that adorable someone, the excitement of getting drenched in the rain …..simple emotions etched on the canvas of our strangely complex lives. This is my entry for the HarperCollins–IndiBlogger Get Published contest, which is run with inputs fromYashodhara Lal and HarperCollins India. Total no. of Words - 500

The rejected script for a short

The present

Scene 1: A sultry hot afternoon in a small town somewhere in north India. A few 6-8 year old children are playing hide and seek in the compound. There is a lot of noise and chaos. The camera zooms in beneath a staircase. In the cool darkness sits the protagonist, a 7 year old boy – average height, fair complexion, hair neatly combed to one side, plump face; he is sitting on his haunches, anxiously awaiting the seeker, staring straight into the camera for half a minute. Then he looks down and there is a sudden gleam in his eyes – something to his right has caught his attention. The camera focuses on his excited eyes as he bends forward and picks up the alien object. He hides it in his fist and pockets his discovery. Then he goes back to his original stance and the noise outside returns to its earlier chaotic levels.
Scene 2: A small bedroom in the small north Indian town described in Scene 1. A middle aged woman, around 35, medium height, wearing a cotton sari; is sitting in front of her dressing table. The camera shows us the woman from a distance. Next, it zooms in on the sunlight entering the room through an open window and moves on to the slowly revolving ceiling fan. We hear the woman humming an old film song slowly. Then the camera moves to the mirror. Through the mirror, we get a glimpse of the woman’s face. There is a faint, excited smile at the corners of her mouth as she applies kohl to her eyes. The little boy (the protagonist) comes running into her arms. She lovingly lifts him in her arms and places him on the bed. Then she holds his little face in her hands and says – “Tere papa ka phone aaya tha, wo kal aa rahe hain”. This brings a wide grin to the boy’s face. The mother leaves the room, humming the song excitedly. The boy jumps down in front of the dressing table, deftly touches his shirt pocket and lifts his mother’s mangal sutra. He puts it around his neck and starts grinning, staring at himself in the mirror. The camera moves to the TV set in the corner of the room, flashing images of the Kargil war.
Scene 3: An army truck, moving on a rugged mountain road. Just before twilight. We see a group of soldiers sitting in the open back of the truck. A soldier standing on one corner of the truck, stares into the open space around. He is a middle aged man (35-40), but looks older. Has thick stubble. The camera zooms in on his focused, unyielding eyes.
Scene 4: A small railway station. It’s around 11 am. The station is in its perennial state of chaos. Amidst the crowd on the platform, we see our protagonist standing with his mother, waiting for a train. The child is holding his mother’s finger. He stands with his head down, staring at the shadows of the passing passengers, humming a rhyme. His mother stands craning her neck in the direction from which the train will arrive. There is a glint in her eye as the sun shines on her face. Soon, we hear the rumbling sound of the approaching train. We see in the distance the smoke billowing out of the engine. Then slowly, losing pace, the train enters the platform. Mother and son take a couple of steps forward as the train slowly screeches to a halt. The man shown in Scene 3 emerges from a compartment some distance away from them. He is carrying an army trunk, which he drops at the sight of the approaching duo. The mother takes a few quick steps and hugs him. They let go after a few moments. The child, waiting patiently till now, tugs at his father leg. He lifts him in his arms, grinning widely. The father kisses the child on both cheeks. The child then takes out something from his shirt pocket, his fist clenched tightly around the object. He says to his father – “Papa, aap humara budday bhul gae the, but hum nai bhule. Hum aapke lie present laye hain”. The father asks what it is. The boy asks him to close his eyes. He obliges. The boy slowly opens his fist and puts a black thread around his father’s neck. The father looks down on his chest to find a plain black thread containing a small, yellowish pendant. The camera zooms in on the object in question. It’s a golden bullet, glistening in the shining sun. The camera moves to the father’s face as the son asks him – “Kaisa laga humara present?”. The wrinkles around his eyes are enhanced as he looks at the pendant, then at his son, in a state of utter confusion. A dark shadow crosses his face as we see a closing shot of the glistening bullet, resplendent in the warm sunlight. The sound of a gun going off is followed by darkness. THE END.

Blogadda

Night

When the day has run its heady sprint
In glaring sunlight your eyes burn
The winds of change distort
Age-old patterns on your skin
Innovations block evolution
Clipping the wings of desire
In honour of survival, quietly walks the songbird
Away into the sunset
For it knows there will be darkness
At the end of every shining beam
The dark night will return
Silent, cool as a shadow
Smoothening its furrowed forehead
With a soothing touch....
Its arms open unto infinity
Songbird embraced...no questions asked
No plans perceived
The darkness will restore the vanishing light
To those swollen eyelamps
And rekindle the embers of the dying fire inside
Prepare you for the many battles ahead
The many silent nights
Biding their time, behind the glare of tomorrows!

Do ghante aur!

Do saal do din do ghante hi sahi
Mil jaate agar to kya kia karte ham
Kya jaan lete wo shireen raaz
Jo band aankhon ke piche chupe andheron me quaid hain?
Kya chu hi pate un andheron ki tanhaiyon ko?
Us khamoshi ki tamaamiyat ka andaz bhi laga pate ham?
Kya us pyaas ko bhujane ko kaafi hain do ghante,
Jo is rooh ki gehraiyon me ik sadi se baaki hai?
Us masoom chehre ki ek jhalak bhi dekh pate agar
Jo is shakl ke hijab ke piche se nazar aati hai aksar
thodi dhundhali, bohat azeez si zaalim
un aankho se do jam hi pi lete agar
to samajh lete ham bhi
ke do ghanton me paa liya wo
jise kho kar na jaane kitne janmo
se ye aks zaa’i hai!

This post has been written for Indiblogger's Surf Excel Matic Get Smart Contest - If you had two extra hours in a day, how would you spend it? To Participate click on the picture below...



You can see my post and vote for it here: Click on the image below...

Another couple

Two hours you say. That’s 120 minutes, or 7200 seconds. Phew! That’s a fat lot of time to spend. Hmmm... Can’t deny that I’m tempted by the prospect. Half an hour of extended sleep in the morning, an extra 20 minutes socializing on Facebook and Twitter, a couple of more articles to read, another episode of my favorite sitcom. That’s a neat little package. And that is probably where the extra 2 hours will end up each day. Piling up on the already tall heap of ‘meaningless’ daily activities. When did I end up devoting 40% of my day to these vicarious pleasures? How about a little exercise for the prematurely ageing joints? Well, since it’s only a plan I am supposed to conceive, I would like to be noble, if only in thoughts. I would like to spend 1 hour teaching my maid’s child, half an hour exercising and the remaining half hour sleeping. It’s one thing being noble, but an iota of practicality is essential to make the resolve strong, necessitating the inclusion of the last activity on the list. I know one hour of tutoring the young fellow won’t change his life or anything but that is the least I can do. And the best I expect from myself. Why this sudden softness of the hard-as-a-boulder, young urban heart, you may enquire? Well, I suspect there is a selfish motive behind it. I expect to feel good by doing the deed. Yes, that is what it is all about, isn’t it? They say every good intention has a hidden motive. This is the little devil behind mine. When I send that little kid off in the evening with a toffee for doing his homework well, I expect to treat my love lusting heart to a little toffee of satisfaction. So that the next time I blow up 500 bucks on that yummy pasta at Big Chill, the guilt is a little less heavy. Plain logic. You give something, you earn something in return. Meanwhile, the young fellow might bestow upon me a few newly learned abuses, but that’s another matter. If I get that kid to sail through the treacherous waters of school, I will be tempted to invest in his college education, which will perhaps be some real philanthropy. Till then, I’ll be quite satisfied if I can make a start by doing my bit for the underprivileged. As for the rest of the plan, I am supremely confident of my abilities to rest the old body for an additional 30 minutes. Roaming around in the tranquil gardens of sleep and conjuring up a few extra dreams has never been a challenge for my lazy but imaginative mind, and I expect the devil to rise up to the occasion. Well that’s it then, except for the darn exercise bit. Let’s see how that works out, given I haven’t ran so much as 100 meters at a stretch since the end of my splendid cricketing career (spent in the most cramped of northern Indian gullies). And that glorious career was succeeded by another fine one in smoking and beer gulping, which is yet to see the sunset. So, 30 minutes of jogging will be more like climbing a mini-Everest daily. I plan to take along my Doctor friend, just in case.

This post has been written for Indiblogger's Surf Excel Matic Get Smart Contest - If you had two extra hours in a day, how would you spend it? To Participate click on the picture below...



You can see my post and vote for it here: Click on the image below...

Monkeys in a cage

We, Homo sapiens, are like monkeys born in a cage....At the beginning of our journey; we are full of innocent wonder. Too dumbstruck by the strange goings-on inside the cage, we feel utterly incongruous in the stifling environment. We refuse to talk to our fellow inmates, who appear to have found a reason for their existence in the cage while we are still wondering. Aboard the chariots of curiosity, we wander afar; hitting the rewind button on hazy records of lives lived yonder, smelling the faint, evaporating aroma of truth. Thus, in serious musing, we pass our days, while adults try to distract us with their silly attention grabbing tactics. They make stupid faces, funny noises and pull and pat our little body parts. Yet we persist, staring at the ceiling, trying to remember the W’s of existence, figuring out why we feel something’s amiss. But slowly we get sucked into the world around us. The lust for lost meaning loses steam as we give in to the biological need to imitate. So, we do and feel and experience what has been done and felt and experienced by the overarching majority of our kinds for millennia. We turn our inherent curiosity to things, objects, mundanities of the worst kinds, insulting our own intelligence irreparably in the process. Like kids on a beach, we build castles of sand and adorn them with our ambitions, dreams and emotions. Whenever, a strong wind blows away parts of the castle, we go about rebuilding it. The inevitability of waves drowning away our little castles never deters us. We are like veteran actors, so used to being on stage that we forget who we really are. We are so lost off the stage that we prefer spending our lives in other roles, complete with costumes and makeup. In fact, we start believing the script that we wrote for ourselves is the reality. Entire lives are lived, wars waged, empires built and destroyed, without so much as a solitary moment spared to look inside. To look at the reflections staring back from the walls of our inner sanctum sanctora – a palace of mirrors, whose key we have lost somewhere. So we ignore the truth for stories, relinquish the thrill of the unexplored forest for the comfortable cage. Running after droplets of rain, leaving untouched the sea inside.

A tiny window

There is a tiny window in a corner of the huge, hollow house that I live in
A window of my escape, beyond the boundaries of illusion
A lovely widow outlined by old, firm vines
Through it I see and feel beauty everywhere

When the clouds turn dark
And the sound of thunder pierces my weak, lost soul
I no longer run for the comfort of my bed
Instead, I stand with my hands on my favorite window

And watch the spectacle unfold outside
I feel truth dawn upon me
The serenity of little rain drops
Their soft touch on my dry skin
The gentle wind caressing me
I devour these dollops of divinity from outside
Without being drenched

It might appear small
But its mightier than the highest walls
For what vision do those solid structures offer?

When the sun shines its sharp rays pass through her
And fill my heart with warmth
It shows me the gentle march of seasons outside
and informs me of the changing seasons within -
The summers of idle dreaming
My winters of frozen melancholy
Monsoons of moist desire
All pass me by as I stand by her

What remains is me and her
Her and me
Looking through each other
Outside and within

Wonderful nazm

“Main khwab khwab jisse dhoondta phira barson… woh ashq ashq meri aah mein samaya tha”

The one I searched for in all my dreams, never did I realize she was part of my every passionate exhalation.

- Farhat Shahzad

THE MOOR’S LAST SIGH - SALMAN RUSHDIE

MY INTERPRETATION OF THE TALE

CAST

1. Aurora De Gama- Mother India (Or the Congress)
2. Moor- Bombay (the early moor), Mumbai (the later moor)
3. Abraham - The Govt. of India
4. Raman Fielding- Bal Thakray
5. Mumbai Axis- Shiv Sena
6. Uma Saraswati- The multi- faceted problems facing and killing Moor (Bombay)
7. Scarface - Haji Mastan ( Bombay Underworld's first don)
8. Nadia Wadia- Maureen Wadia (the Beauty Queen)

STORY

This is the story of the love- hate relationship between Mother India (Aurora) and the city of Bombay (Moor). Mother India, which paints Bombay in different hues and colours; as a little child in its mother's arms or as a king in his castle or as a murderous man when abandoned by its mother (India). The early refrence to the Nargis- starrer Mother India is a clever hint that the Mother doesn't always protect and care for its child. When the child turns bad, the mother shoots it dead to rid it of its evil. The protagonist, Moor is born in a cosmopolitan city (the Bombay of yore) and country - where Cochin is more British than India, where Catholics marry Jews, where wives embrace their husbands' masculine lovers with open arms and become best friends with them; in a house where art is respected more than the artists' religion or place of birth, where anyone and everyone is welcome as long as they are good at what they do, and where Hindus guard the house (Lambajan) and manage its day- to- day affairs (Jaya He). In such a house is born our Moor, but he is not the usual child, at 6 ft. 5 inches he is as huge and towering over all other people as Bombay is richer than and supreme to all other cities. Because of his size and its prosperity, both Moor and Bombay are unliked, envied, giggled at and treated as outcasts by society. In the early Moor paintings, Moor is loved and cared for by Aurora as Bombay was by India in its early history. He has a damaged and powerful right hand, the Hindu right wing of Maharashtra, which is kept hidden in his clothes, but only till the Paradise of Bombay exists. Abraham, Aurora's husband and partner in crime is India's government, the one who does its dirty business.

The twist in the tale is the entry of Uma, the schizophrenic lover who attracts, bewitches and ultimately destroys our Moor. This character is the metaphor for the hydra- headed monster of corruption, politics, the Underworld, slums and all the ills plaguing the city. Aurora tries to prevent the Moor from falling into Uma's trap, but to no avail. India tried to cleanse Bombay of its evils, but failed, gave up and ultimately turned its scorn on the city. This is what led to the total destruction of the city, the abandonment by it own mother. That is why the late moor paintings depict the fall of the empire, the betrayal of Boabdil by mother Ayxa, the breaking of the black and white diamonds while the Mother watches in the mirror. The city and the Moor, both abandoned by their mothers fall under the aegis of the Dark side, the Evil right hand comes out of the pocket and in revenge for its loss, punches and kills everything in sight.
Darkness pervades where once there was light. Hindu fanatics (the Shiv Sena) take over the once secular, democratic city. The final blow comes when Aurora dies dancing her own dance of death (the dance of Shiva, the destroyer) atop her Kailash Parbat (Malabar Hill). This is synonymous to the fall of the Congress (in the late 1980's). Now the whole country is taken over by the right wing Hindu fundamentalists, the BJP.

Sometimes

Sometimes I wish to let go
Of the strands of sanity
Keeping my feet on the ground
To run off the illuminated roads of reason
Into the infinite clamor of chaos

Maybe I’ll find it there
Hanging from a tree
Lost in the shadows of dry leaves
Hanging upside down
Dancing to the sound of blood
Blood rushing to the top of its head

To the very center
Where madness multiplies
Cancerous in its capacity
To annihilate the thin shards of wisdom
Slowly stumbling out of the cerebella

It used to be a perfect place once
Full of farcical finalities
And sweet submissions
The ground beneath my feet moist enough
To bury my cultured corpse
Mummified by that murderous mind

Now the underworld explodes
With violent struggle for escape
Arms flailing, legs lambasting
Kicking at the frail foundations
Aching for a fresh snort
Of fantasy
A dance to the unending trance
The Tingling jingle of bells
Nagging away at the neurotic walls
Of tyranny’s temple

Blood will be lost
And blood will freeze
Only to condense
In a cacophony of clarity
To set the silent night on fire
To drown the din of desire
In a stringy symphony
Of shadows surreal
Your eyes would be dazed
By the might of light
Emerging from the retinas of
My rectitude
And your ears will burst
From the sound of my solitary recital

Don’t say I didn’t warn you
Don’t plead forgiveness
On the tarmac of my take off
For trespassers will be crushed
With the demonic glee of insanity
Burning in the enigmatic engines of escape
And your screams will drown
In the fluid frenzy
Of my freedom flight!