Writing a wrong

For the PU prompt ‘ to write about a time when we realized we were wrong about something, and what we did after the realization hit us.’

I thought I was making the right choice

At that time

You ticked all the boxes 

on paper 

Soon 

I was boxed into a corner 

Crushed by your corny love 

Heck I wasn’t even horny no more.

I decided to sleepwalk through life

If I opened my eyes truly

We both knew 

This would be already over 

You lovingly blindfolded me 

I loathingly cuckolded you. 

I woke up one day 

And decided to live the truth 

Consequences be damned 

I still remember your cries

As I sunk into my sofa 

We were away by so far

Yes

I never deserved this 

Kind of love 

But you said 

I’m incapable of love

Called me a robot 

The only time you spoke your mind 

Was when I was leaving you behind. 

I bleed too.

I’m thriving now

Hope you are too 

P for Pain

 

            P for Pain

 

                                           

P  is for pain,

is also for pleasure.

 

That drop of blood

Which is supposed to torment me

Actually excites me

excruciatingly enough

P is actually for perspective

What pain is for a masochist.

 

Pain is the paint

I brush my body (heart) with

So that I don’t have to

Process my pertinent emotions.

 

Pain is the feeling I embrace

The bruise which I keep on picking

A gift which keeps on giving.

 

The obvious physical pain of

Broken bones

The odious psychological pain of

Broken homes

I embrace it after all

only because 

 I don’t know how to exist

 as a person

Without pain

 at all.

Pitch dark

A shadow has crept over my soul

Inching through my defences

Making me darkness herself

I wallow in grief over things lost

In the invisible bonfire

And try to survive on the warmth of embraces

Of kindred spirits

Only that it feels like a stranglehold

And I push them away with a

Weaponized tongue and my newfound strangeness

Friends and foes are all the same

Only difference is the name.

I burn through whatever light I get

Worried I might never see again

In haste I commit little crimes

And wallow once more again. 

Abducted

I happened to read about the girl in a box , Colleen Stan recently and her story really shook me. I tried to imagine myself in such a situation and find it impossible to sound optimistic , so honest I'm being. 

Dear whoever who gets this,

I hope you really do get this.

But I am pretty sure he will tear this up.

 Another one of his psychological games.

I don’t really know my name

Not anymore

Like before

Objects don’t need names

That is insane!

But I was a person once before

Used to hate my life

For being so normal.

Perfect parents

Enough income

Boring lifestyle

I wish I could get back to that life

haha

He penetrates me everyday

Tearing parts of me for himself

My flesh fully exposed

My limbs chained to the ground

I am his slave now.

He let me escape once

I think 5 years back?

Could be months too

Hell is always for eternity.

I was out in his front yard

Naked except for my cuffs

Unused to all the sunlight

And freedom of my limbs

My starved body wouldn’t move

Shivering in terror

I was almost thankful

when he came with his stun gun

And told me he always knew I couldn’t do it.

Why am I saying all this to you?

Please take my baby

And raise her well.

I can’t be a mother

From the bowels of hell.

Plato's Fault

Tick Tock

Tock Tick

Tick Tock!

Exam in 11 hours , 3 new questions to do and 34 more to revise. They hadn’t slept in 3 days due to the previous 3 back to back exams…..

Crushed Red bull cans and empty mugs which once contained black coffee lay on the hostel corridor along with 4 girls who were splayed across sheetless mattresses dumped onto the corridor from their respective rooms. The corridor overlooked the normally empty grounds of the hostel which was now patrolled by sleepless students scrambling about in despair.

JJ’s eyelids were closing in on her against her will. Not now baby… only 1 more exam then Freedom 4evaaa! Almost echoing the same sentiments, came a voice from the other side of the mattress with a hollow , dreamlike quality “You know what is the true freedom? Sleeping forever…for eternity”

The voice belonged to Kalra , she who loved saying crazy things for the sake of drama and she who sometimes was drama itself in a human shape. The third one , ‘Rambo’ had given up on life after being utterly exhausted and had taken the student’s route to conquer it – apply some Zandu Balm on bread and Bam! You got your energy. In rambo’s case since she was a bit big , she overestimated how much she needed and had way too much and now she was high as high can be and was just rolling around and annoying others.

Wait. What was that noise? Oh that’s anan

“After a certain point you just have to admit that NOBODY gives a flying ___ about what Plato , Aristotle or Aquinas gotta say. What about what we have got to say? I had no say when papa wanted me to follow his footsteps and become a lawyer. I must be the only person in India who wanted to become an engineer and wasn’t allowed to become one!”

She moped in her shrill sad voice as she always did. Her friends had only eye rolls to offer her. Rolling Rolling Rolling   

That’s what happens when you realise that you hate your career choice every exam time and resolve to tell dad you are quitting, only to come back placated, thanks to the latest iPhone he bribed you with. You lose the moral ground pretty fast. Sorry Anan

“ If you keep telling me this story I’ll end up writing it instead of this Hobbes theory lololol” JJ started crying out in laughter. She is losing it! And yes she is one of those cases who ‘say’ LOL. God bless them.

So JJ continued with her Hobbes theory despite lack of sleep and overdose of laughter. That dude apparently believed that law is a social contract that the first generation of beings voluntarily gave up their  rights for and the forthcoming generations have no option to get out of it. Isn’t consent material to any contract? This is just plain fraud and coercion on the state’s part! I don’t want skl , college , job , government , taxes , pathan notes and red bull cans! But I am forced to take part in all this because someone already decided what ‘civilisation’ is. Why can’t there be a strip of land where people who don’t wanna be part of the contract can like chill and make rocks out of fire without the government asking us to pay taxes. wHYY?

But before she could Rambo woke up with a start. She looked into Kalra’s eyes and smiled serenely. Kalra got scared and asked her “ what is wrong with you Behen..”

“ Behen! I have figured out life” she spoke manically not unlike a religious fanatic “ We have been going about it all wrong. The point of life is not being awake , the point of life , the point is to sleep! We are supposed to find food for energy purposes , eat them and go to sleep where we can live in our dreams , where anything and everything is possible. There is no limits of logic and physics in our head. We could enjoy being a millionaire and have an eight course meal and feel everything. Isn’t life all about feeling and perceiving. It is not what it is but what it can be. With more sleep and practice I believe we can control our dreams and that is how we fulfil our destiny. What the hell are we doing reading Plato and Aristotle when we can be our own thinkers? When did the world decide we have finished establishing rules. Omg I’m gonna copyright all this. Yipee! Bye losers , I’m becoming famous”

Rambo got up and ran to other parts of the hostel to scare more poor souls. The other 3 silent looked at each other not sure what they should. Wake up the warden and tell her that Rambo has lost it? But who wasn’t losing it? Some only more than others.

“ We ALL have theories and ideas. But we don’t publish it and force other people to study it in one day and make them go mad” wailed anan.

“I don’t think Plato set our exam papers anan..” quipped JJ.

“ Arey JJ , no one wants your stupid logic. Okay I am getting bored. Teach me something about your South India.” butted in Kalra

“ Kalra , if you can at least tell me the names of the 4 Southern states , I’ll try”

“I know that your name is Jayalalitha and that’s funny cuz your dead CM had the same name. Okay don’t get pissed. Mallu Land, Madras , telugu nadu and the other one I forgot”

“ Wow , I hope that you can retain at least the name of the people you have to write about tomorrow”

Mildly offended Kalra lashed out “ Tell me, does your Chinnai have Punjabi food like naan and butter chicken?”

JJ lost it , “ Enough of this b.s , I don’t live in a village. Obviously we have everything!”

“Saali , what I wrong with villages. Don’t show off your big city arrogance”

“ You started it , you racist prick!”

Sensing a cat fight which no one had the energy to fight Anan chipped in , “Guys! Don’t let Plato destroy our friendship. This is ALL plato’s fault!”

They hadn’t come to an agreement on that quite yet when a loud noise came from above shocking them. No guys it wasn’t Plato coming back to defend his now tarnished image but it was the drug addled Rambo! She had managed to find a dangerously high place to stand on.

“ Everything is fake! Dreams are what is. To prove this truth which no one seems to believe I am going to jump from here because I know that I am trapped in an eternal nightmare called reality.Cheer me on ladkiyon!”

Her friends gaped in horror as she took the plunge and came crashing down. Her eyelids were shut firmly and finally..

Tick Tock

Tock Tick

Tick Tock

The clock was ticking in the exam hall and Rambo woke up from her dreams. Didn’t know how much of that was a dream! Did she have zandu balm , was she on the roof , lol did she have friends by the name JJ , Kalra and Anan even? She didn’t know anything , couldn’t focus. However , she did recall the answer to Plato’s Republic. Truly this is all his fault.

Shhh

Nothing good comes after 3 AM

The monsters are waiting just around that corner

I am losing already.

Great confusion over life goals

Nothing comes easily

The landscape where I once seamlessly stepped into

Now not really.

Hush! You are no more a little baby

A sad and helpless insomniac

Penning thoughts for solace in sleep

If only words can make you drowsy

Maybe I should do a push up

Or simply shut up my burning eyes

What about this constantly humming brain?

Maybe symptom of an everlasting pain

Make this stop please I beg

You can if you want to, says a voice from within

But isn’t that a case with everything?

The question of how might beat the question of when

And the collateral might defeat the win.

Shhh.  

The guilty hypocrite

When I renamed my blog , I promised myself that I would write only about topics which absolutely gripped me and mattered to me. Filling space is easy. But filling space is why I write exams. I want my words to matter here. It is not my intention to not write in this pretty blog but college life , examinations , holidays - basically life makes it tough to stay true to your other commitments.
And with that assurance of my bona fide intentions,  I begin with this post.

What do you do
When you wake up one day
And find out that
your entire life was a lie?
Not in a Paranoid Schizophrenia way
Oh no sir!
Something which is more subtle yet
equally life altering.

Every positive thought
Every negative one,
Which you may or may have not
admitted to yourself ,
About yourself -
Turns out to be
TRUE!

What do you do
When you wake up one day
And find out that
You are your worst nightmare?

You are everything
You asked others not to be .
In short . you never practised
but  screeched what you preached!

Do you let your new found hypocrisy
eat you up alive?
or
throw up all over the place?

Do you change your morals or your actions?
Or do you wait for this overwhelming wave
of hypocritical disgust which has hit you
to recede back with time
so that you continue to be yourself?

Hope that time will make you
forget this discomfiting discovery ,
so that you can 'move on'
with your self concept intact.

Answer me pliss ya .


- Semi 

We could have it all.

Sometimes when your immediate environment gets entangled in a certain mood , the said mood tends to stick on to you. In this case, the death of a close relative of my friend caused the effect and set my mental wheels into motion. The following points are my abstract thoughts on 'loss'. There is no context for this loss - it can be something as innocuous as losing your favorite toy or something as devastating as losing your limbs. I have presented my thoughts to you in the raw form as it came to me . No explanation ; open to interpretation :) 

1.

When you lose something , it hits you .

Most often like an epilepsy attack

Ugly , painful and most importantly 

SUDDEN. 

2.

It is most important to acknowledge a loss 

when you're down and out. 

However more vital it is for you to 

appraise loss, from a position of 

strength - that so occasionally enraptures you and gives you space to lock up your unresolved emotions-.

3.

We actually never lose anything .

People - good and bad -

become memories - good and bad- 

Skills lost are actually just converted into new ones. 

Energy diverted from one focal point to another. 

4.

Sometimes some one else's loss hounds us so much that 

it haunts us to a point that 

we start imagining their losses as our own

or fantasize those losses in our already pitiable life. 

Not too healthy .

5.

People survive loss of limbs , deaths of loved ones , the vanishing acts of love and a 100 million more life changing horrors everyday and conquer it with panache. guess what? You can too. 

So just take a deep breathe . Close your eyes . And believe. 

Only your belief can save you from your mind manufactured hell . Reality is not the culprit it is your perception -who is your enemy. 

6.

Ain't nobody got time for feeling like a loser

when there is a whole world to win out there

or atleast live.

The Sickbird

I found this short story in my draftboard and was appalled that a) i wrote this in 2010 b)forgot that i wrote it c) my english was so bad xP I did find it a bit intriguing and so i am posting it. Don't ask me where i got the story line from - I am as clueless. 

Everyone got sick of the sickbird after one point or the other. She always complained about some pain or the other.At first they thought they were real and sympathized with her.That was true even for our hero Hari. She was a distant aunt to him and had come to stay in his house for a week for some unknown reasons.
The event thus follows their first meet : 
Hari came home after playing bone breaking , eyeball scratching basketball and came home with legs full of bruises and tee shirt full of dirt. He headed directly to the bedroom and locked it before his mother could stop him.He started removing his tee shirt and headed to the bathroom which was attached to his room.He was about to open the door when the door opened by itself and a small lady was there in her towel. "AAAHH" he cried out. "Abishtu! Abistusheshu!" yelled the puny lady.
"WHO? who are you?..." 
"I should ask you that, young man! How dare do you come inside an occupied bathroom"
"I.......er.....didn't know. SORRY"
"what sorry? blah blah blah etc etc.....*fie minutes later* OK who are you?
"well, I live in this house........"
"Oh !! HARI!! Ayyo evalavu valandutha!(u have grown so tall!) YOU are leela's son right?!"
"no! she's my mom" he grinned.She didn't get it. Anyways that is the weird introduction


Getting to know the sick bird:
After she finally left his room , hari had a hot shower and came down to have dinner.There only the small lady's voice could be  heard. She was telling them, " Hari is soo naughty! He was waiting outside the bathroom to scare his poor aunty! He doesn't know that I have heart problem.Shiva shiva! My BP seems to be high and heart is slightly starting to ache! Do you have jfienjadj tablet? NO! Oh my god it is such a important tablet nowadays what with all these boys screaming and yelling.........can u buy it......its only rs.200....I will soon pay it back....."
and that was only the beginning of a long list of ailments Hari had never before heard in the 13 years of his life put together , let alone in one place affecting a single woman! Immediate sympathy and impulsive concern were slowly replaced by obvious disbelief and the inevitable deafness that teenagers develop after being over exposed to adults. 
He had no idea who she was and how long she was going to stay. But he was sure as hell that he didn't care about her whereabouts and her illness. He wanted that tiny bundle of sickness to leave his abode ASAP. This apparently exaggerated hatred finds more context after we learn that the sickbird has nested in hari's room and that he is forced to sleep on the hall sofa - ouch. 

Shooing the bird : 
He decided to make her life a living hell - atithi devo bhava not withstanding the test of times - . He couldn't openly ask her to get out, for he would be thrown out if his parents heard of it. So passive aggression won the day.
At first it happened by turning a deaf ear,
"dei hari kanna! I feel very weak , can you go buy me a dozen bananas from the shop?"
Christ! What do bananas even have to do with feeling weak?! He simply continued tying his shoe lace and walked out with his basketball . When he came back two hours later , sweating from head to toe after  playing two practice matches at a trot , the sickbird was still sitting on the same sofa in the exact position from 2 hours ago!
She opened her eyes and very casually asked " Where are my bananas?" .
The next step was learning to say no. So he grinded his teeth and said " No aunty , I am very tired , I am going to sleep".
"WHAT?! tired at this young age? It is no excuse! When I was your age I used to walk 6 kilometers to the railway station and another 5 before I reached my school. We never got fancy footwear and clothes like you kids and ate very spartan food . Now go buy me my bananas or else I'm complaining  you to your parents * all in chaste tamil - translated for you *
Bewildered by her sudden outburst he did end up running the errand for her .

a hopeless hypochondriac or is something graver?

Telling  mom -
6 weeks flew by and there was still  no reprieve for Hari . It took him all his 13 years to convince his parents to give him his own room and yet all it took was an annoying aunty to intrude it! Oh how he would love to play a prank on her. However , firsthand experience had taught him that he would be the one that was crying by the end of it.
Amma was busy in the kitchen cutting vegetables. He pitched in and started cutting the onions. His mom's curiosity got aroused and so she asked , " Fine . What do you want? ".
"Nothing , i just decided to help my mom"
" On a sunday , by cutting onions! Comedy pannadha hari" ( stop trying to be funny hari )
" I know right. I'll tell you a better way - stop inviting guests all the time. That too ones who never help and never leave."
She gave him a long stare - one that usually shushed him and secretly scared him out of his wits - and then after a long silence began speaking.
"Geetha aunty is not an unwanted guest. In fact , we're the ones who forced her to stay here. You do not know anything about her and I am going to tell you some things so that you will truly understand and respect her. However , this should remain a secret and never leave these 4 walls , understand"
Hari nodded his head vigorously.
"Geetha is a very distant relative of ours . I don't want to bore you with details. Two years ago , while traveling to your poonal ceremony , she lost her whole family in a car accident and is suffering from PTSD or post traumatic stress disorder. She believes that she shouldn't have lived and that is why she keeps complaining of ailments which she doesn't seem to have. I need you to be a little patient and sensitive with her hari . I know it has been rough for you , giving up your room which you love so much. Growing up is not only about having your own room but also being sensitive to ones around you"
Hari was stunned by this over load of information and needed time to process it all and hence he simply muttered , "okay".
"Also I never ever want you to judge a person by their appearances and behavior"
"I never did!" he shot back
" I am your mother darling. If someone is unpleasant to you or asks you to do something you hate , promise me that you will try to see their side of the coin also"
"i promise"

Later that evening , Hari's dad Mr.Swaminathan was pleasantly surprised by his son's extremely courteous behaviour to their overstaying house guest. Seeing his wife's mischievous smile he asked her what was happening , to which she replied , " Hari still hasn't matured enough to respect his guests - so I told him a small lie" she winked.
" By the way when is the sickbird leaving? I'm sick of her trying to make me believe that she has pulmonary edema and that her blood vessels are leaking blood or some other impossible medical condition...! "
" I never asked you before swami... but why is she like this?"
"Oh this! She has just been craving for attention since birth - a hopeless hypochondriac . Hope her husband picks her up soon enough."

Indian mothers! xD

Hari never learnt that it was a lie and went on to become a very hospitable host in life( so much so that many relatives had a 'hari day' in their calendar and visited him atleast once a year).Geetha aunty aka sickbird continued to complain of weak blood vessels and hernia and even dyslexia wherever she went. Leela died a contented mother filled with secrets that made her son into a fine young man.
 

Food for thought

"I should totally blog today."

you can succeed only if you try

After 21 days of fruitless inaction , I thought it was my mind playing mirage-like tricks with me again. Then I realized it was my lack of determination and fear of writing bad posts, that has caused this drought .  Remembering  what Hrithik Roshan said after his disastrous 'kites' in Kofee with karan  - it was something like ," You have to do something in the first place for it to be right or wrong. Worrying about an exam before writing it won't get you anywhere" Thank god he did write his exam - and we got zindagi na milegi dobara :')
So I should totally blog today. But I'm not guaranteeing you any quality.


 Ironically QUALITY has become my biggest problem right now. I don't even know what I mean when I use that word. But , I read all the blogs out there - enormous amounts of talent and potential :O and the sheer amount of posts in a month stun me. However there tends to be more misses than hits when you generate 50 posts a month ( or so I think ). When I was young, I used to cry to my mom about how my friends always wrote more pages than me during an exam and she calmly reassured me that ' quality is more important than quantity'. So I try to give my best every post and pray that at least half of what I hoped to convey reaches you.

I do promise you one thing ( i hardly promise anything in my blog - as I almost never keep it up :P) I will concentrate on writing more in this forum for at least my sake, if not yours.

 Sorry for the writer's rant :P I am sure fellow bloggers will understand. I needed to let it out of my system to progress . In this post I hope to 'rebuild my empire '  and give you tidbits of insights that have struck me this summer.

1)  Food for thought - I watched master chef USA 3 as it aired on t.v . I was never a huge fan of  the USA version in comparison to Australia as the former relied more on drama and antics, than anything remotely related to food. However ,since becoming the admin of 'Gordon Ramsay memes' ( see how I subtly put it? :P ) I felt an overwhelming sense of duty to watch the show . And surprise! this season was more about the food than about hate speech towards one other! :O And the most surprising of all - the winner of a cookery contest was blind. I heard tales of 'fixing' permeate the room but the truth is always far more inspiring :)
The finale was between the industrious josh and artistic christina. It reminded me one thing about food which we tend to forget somewhere in the over complicated world of reality shows - taste always triumphs . Josh produced stunning looking dishes with complex techniques but Christine simply made food full of flavor and yumminess . At the end of the day ,we do not care if the food is sauteed or grilled as long it tastes heavenly :)

2)That moment- After reading Agatha Christie's innumerable mysteries , I was very keen to get an idea

The eye in your mind paints things differently

about what went through her head and picked up her autobiography. Surprise! She led a very normal Victorian life , befitting the era. She puts us at such consummate ease, that her writing tips made sense to amateurs like me :') Among other things , she was a world traveller at a time it was enormously difficult to global trot for women . She didn't want to re visit countries she had already been to - she didn't think she could re capture the magic of the first venture. And somehow I totally emphasize with her . If she is scared of revisiting her favorite spots on earth , I am afraid of re reading my favorite books for the same reason. Every book has some poignant memory associated with it , and it is tough to breach the same ground without the feeling that it won't be as good as the first time. Sounds like blasphemy - but I haven't read even Harry potter more than once! :O

*Wow this post has drained me already :/ *

3)  The end? - The greyest book I have read in recent times is Dan Brown's Inferno . Among other things the book's plot is about the threat of overpopulation and that it will lead to extinction. Ironically living in India , I haven't really thought about that angle much. The 'antagonist' wants to wipe off 1/3rd of world's population , so that mankind can survive from extinction for a longer time . Is man made disaster the answer?  Should humans take this matter into their hands? Genetic engineering looks appealing from the outset , however its potential for danger makes it scarier than nuclear bombs. Should we interfere with evolution just because we assume we are 'superior' races? but what is the alternative - waiting for the inevitable? That doesn't sound very homo sapien -y :P I am asking instead of answering because I'm very confused about this topic and I don't want to make an uninformed statement or create an opinion too fast. If the book was true , you'll forget what you just read and deny that overpopulation maybe the end.
The book does conveniently ignore the enormous amount of resources trapped with the very rich - which has already resulted in general squalor in the 'bottom' rungs.

"The darkest places of hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality during times of moral crisis "

cheer up till then
semi :P