A Bleak 19th

Yeah. Completed 19. Yay. This is the second version I am writing today, because the first one sounded too planned. And for me, too much plan MUST lead to an early demise. After a point, I realised I didn't have anything more to say. I did, but all of that was what is expected of me to write. Yeah, I'm happy with my life, I'm sad with others' life, the same old routine shit. The same routine every affluent "College Revolutionary" will utter. It's true, that I am happy, and I am sad too. But does it really matter? It is my birthday, and I should be given some importance on this day atleast, the day I graced this world. But no, importance to me alone cannot be allowed. It can't be allowed because the world is not happy, or sad. It is just existing, existing while going down the excretory whirlpool. The world, including me, and you, we all have, and are going on committing crimes one after the other. Crimes against existence. The existence of the world, others, and us. We are not living, we are a bunch of near-dead madmen trying to grasp the existence of an 'existence'. Or are we?

As the age increases, the questions too increase in volumes. And the following silence, when added together, may make one realise how vast emptiness can be. Life isn't good. Life can't be good, and the faster you realise that, the faster you can start working against life. Because if you don't, you'll die. And I'll die. The death which makes you a bit more dead every passing day.

Age, breaks innocence. Knowing that, it can't be a "Happy Birthday" anymore. So, just an indifferent birthday, old boy. Oh, and sorry the 17th me and the 18th me, I know you wouldn't have wanted me to reach this destination. But the path you had chosen back when you were 0, has lead me here. All I hope for, is the move towards a less bleak 20th. Do tell me about it a year later. Till then, goodbye, and may the Existential Crisis be with you.

Immersion

  I trudged back home. It was late. It was way past my curfew hours. The roads seemed empty, orange. Orange sticks. I like orange sticks, they're just like the roads now. The shops were closed, the autos were off, and I could hear the dhak beats from near and far. Bhashan. 
  And I saw one of these processions right in front of me, jamming up the road. Fuck. I was going to be late. I already was, so I guess I'd be 'later'.

Dyang-dyadyang-dyangs and the tyang-tyatyang-tyangs, coupled with the pyanpyan of the synthesizer. Stop it, you people. You're disturbing the world, can't you see. I tried to observe the crowd. Middle-aged men, women, young men, young women. Children. All dancing, joyous.

What joy do you have, fuckfaces? Why do you dance and sing and make merry out of nothing? Who has asked you to be so happy? Don't you know you have a miserable life? You are despicable, you are filthy, you are average. You are the common man. You don't deserve this happiness. You've never lived a life, how dare you enjoy one?

I observed the dancing women. Fat women, skinny girls, all gyrating to stupid beats. Disgusting. You are not worth my fantasy. You don't have those eyes I desire to see. You don't have the flesh I desire to taste. You are not the woman, you are not the girl, I desire.

People poured out from the roadside buildings, making the road a bit more impenetrable.

I want a gun. A machine gun, maybe, I don't know. I just want those guns they show in the movies, which fire continuously, until no one stands. Yeah, that. Then I'd show these people how a bhashan is orchestrated.

"Arre, nacho boss, nacho! Aschhe bochhor, abar hobe? Hyan, ki bolo?" I hated the man who said this to me. I'd kill him first.

I like to think myself as a college radical. I like to think that I care for the common, the downtrodden, the marginalised. I do, but, then, if they have my sympathy, why should they be happier than me?

Fuck, the man was trying vehemently to make me dance to the beat. Fuck.

The sky lit up. Crackers, a hundred stars were dancing. Hawui chherechhe.

The road was empty, orange. Sickly. I was late. I was late for life. I trudged back home.

Plath And I

Sometimes when I'm sad
I pretend to have tea with Sylvia.
She sits there, talking,
“I am. I am. I am.”
And listening to me.
She, with me, thinks my thoughts to be important.
But by the time the time is over,
We reach a perfect sync,
Sylvia and I.
We hold-on to each other
And the bitter warmth
Makes us whisper,
“We are. We are. We are.”

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"I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart. I am. I am. I am."

- Sylvia Plath

A *rather* short tale of horror

I have this friend, you know.
The type you meet everyday.
I can't say though, that
I meet him everyday,
rather, I get to see him everyday.
Every              night.
UnlessIfallasleepearly.
If not that,
when
the night is late, and deep inside the night,
I see that friend.

I can see him even now.
He sits on
the dish antennae on the roof of the opposite house.
He is at about 10 metres higher
than I am,
and he is sitting on the dish antennae,
his feet dangling down
over the smooth, gray, fibrous body.
And
he is looking down at me.
There,
right there,
I
can see him.

He is looking at me lookingdownatme,
a strange expression,
a sad smile
it seems to me.
I've never really seen him bare his teeth though,
so I'm not really sure how they are. But I think
they are pointy.
He has pointed ears,
that I can see.
Rather interesting.

He just might be my
long lost brother,
waiting
for me to go up there
and join him.
But for that, I must acquire a black, shiny skin.
I have to get one soon.

You should visit my room one of these days, and you just might see him sitting there, high above. You might also see your long lost brother sitting beside him. Just saying.

Choices, a sketch

What'd you choose? Huhn? What would you choose?

"WHAT WOULD YOU CHOOSE?" Interesting sentence. By capitalising up the emphasised words, we can get very interesting ideas regarding their speakers.

"WHAT would you choose?" The "WHAT" makes this sound like a shocked parent getting floored by their "straight" son.

"What WOULD you choose?" The "WOULD" makes this sound like an angry boyfriend lambasting his confused girlfriend in apnar neighbouring shopping mall.

"What would YOU choose?" Now this, this sentence, because of that "YOU", it can either mean a condescending wife, or an ever-pressurising wife.

"What would you CHOOSE?" That? That's just plain suited up hawkers in multistoreys.

But you know, no matter what they choose, it all boils down to either a shadow-less mirror, or a closet full of skeletons.

Now, what would you choose, huhn? 

Dusting up the past, with Hemingway's Broom

  I crept through the forest. I had but one puny little, sick looking stick to protect me. And I knew, I would not be protected, I would not be spared. I was going in there, alone, because at the end of the day, that is who you are. Alone, little, and shit scared.

  The strange thing is, I had always waited for this very moment, I waited for this since forgotten ages, ages when I was young and rash, and my back was straight like a brash skyscraper. I had imagined I'd go in there smiling, into that deep forest, and come out from the other side, unscathed, and victorious, for who can refuse my chains? I'd hunt back, what belonged to me. Hangovers, severe ones, I had back then.

  But now, I am older, and the straightness of it all has reduced into a mild curvature, a sign of age and grace, maybe. But does grace lend one an air of cowardice? Does it?

"Courage is grace under pressure."

  And it was that courage, which pushed me further into the heart of it all, the heart. I was to face the demon, of whom every man on this Earth is terrified. The heart of the demon, is what scared us all, for it is the heart which is unknown. We charter out our brains, and their brains, and the sense of coherence may dis-allude many a great mind. But the heart? The heart is where the darkness lies, it is where the true eccentricity of a mad-hatted wickedness lies.

"All things truly wicked start from innocence."

  Yes, an innocence which I had deflowered. And purgation, was the order of the day.

  Let me tell you, I had met the demon. The demon which was ready to mince me into a vicious heap of sadness. But surprisingly, all she could do was mince up the demon in me. It was the fight of the inner selves, a fight till the end, and my inner self, I saw it die. It died in pain, spitting and shrieking and cursing and writhing all across the concrete floor of that jungle. It was a vicious sight, a sight of the turning of man into a child, through pain, maybe only to be reborn as man again. But, a fairer man.

  Believe me when I say it, by the end of the trial, I had seen butterflies. She, the demon, was there no more, just butterflies, and lots and lots of sunshine. Innocence, not restored maybe, but rejuvenated.

"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places."

  And so was she, and I, atleast that's what I hoped. I was able to come out from the other side, scathed, free of my chains. Destroyed, yes that too.

"But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated."

  I was victorious.

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  But then, why do you sit down to pen this then? A victory is not what we want, it is only the pain, that amuses us, and touches us, and maybe somewhere, helps us feel pity for you.

"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed."

  And so, the Chronicles of Catharsia continues.

The Blind Dog

  Once upon a time, I knew a dog. It was a silent dog. I never had heard it bark. Whenever I approached it, I saw it turn away, stretch out into the millenia behind it. It never barked at me. It never ever actually barked, y'know. It just turned its face away. A sign of utter rejection. A rejection to what was in front of it.

  One day I decided to finally talk with it. Make it bark out, "woof woof", or maybe even a yelp.

Me: Dog, why don't you talk?

Dog: Because no one ever talks to me.

Me: But why not you, why not you, who should be talked to?

Dog: I do not know, but I am blind. I know not a many things, just like this.

Me: You, are blind? But how can a dog be blind, it is the fairer version of man.

Dog: The fairer is the blinder, so the fairer can be fiera in life. And so it is blind. But me, I was just born blind, not by fate, but by accident.

Me: Dog, does that mean this world has not been seen by you yet?

Dog: Do you really need eyes to see, and sight to read?

Me: Yes, of course, how else could you have guided Yudhisthira in his voyage? How could you have distinguished between the Egyptians, and the Jews? How could you have guarded the gates to hell?

Dog: You must understand, I am but God in reverse gear. There can not be much difference, however long the vertical distance maybe among us.

Me: But then, how could you become a bomb, a leaf-out-life bomb, in the battlefields? How could you get high on cocaine, so you'd always sniff out a bit more of the acid below you? A discourse, a disgrace, or a digress?

Dog: It is not my doing, it is yours. Your kind, and what they make me do.  Their thoughtlessness, a good reason for my sightlessness. You ask too much, kid, you know that?

Me: I'm sorry, but Dog, tell me, do you not miss seeing the midnight madness of the moon? Do you not want to roam about the streets, your tail being the proud flag-bearer of the last free world? Do you not miss howling when the apocalyptic seperation anxiety strikes? Do you not want to hunt, with a twenty other warriors, just so you'd know, you have lived, for a day more?

Dog: One never really misses these. Such things, they are our private memory. They live in us forever. Not something we miss, not something we share, not that you'd understand anyway. Besides, I am a shy dog. Go now, I've answered enough for a day.

Me: Well then, that was weird. By the way, Dog, would you like a biscuit?

Dog: *bark happily*

And the tale waves on.

Anarchy For Dummies

Smash TV screens

One million pieces

Spread to the wind at dawn

Douse radio speakers in ice water

(snap crackle *POP*)

Firebomb roadside billboards

Torch cubicles, and a lamp

Shred a few shoes

Topple satellite dishes

Call in bomb threats

To foreign dreamshops

Abduct politics at gunpoint, then

Mail  it back to the fan clubs

In a thousand more pieces

Take out hits on Bollywood actors:

"Terminate with extreme prejudice"

Hook fashion models on heroin

(if they aren't already)

Reduce flashbulb icons

To street walking struts

In the dead of winter

Make it all into

a web based reality TV show

(we love watching

people suffer on-screen)

Shave the skulls of newscasters

At the hook of a torchblade

Assorted talking heads

Force them to read aloud

passages from the Anarcho-Gita

Liven up their shit eating grin

Plastered to their plastic kin

Scrap up the peddler to sing out 

Hedonism/apathy soundtracks

Flood grocery aisles, mall outlets

Stalled elevators, phone lines

Reception rooms, garage pits

Theater lobbies; bomb 

Public arenas

With soothing ambient loops

Of tonal cues

Positive affirmations aplenty, 

Instead restore reading room

To padlocked souls

Through intricate terrorist network 

Of merry fire-poppin' pranksters

('Turn that frown level down, infidel!')

Subvert entire mind control apparatus

Bring neon Leviathan crashing down

Their shiny bloody driveway

Don't let them in your head, don't let

Them in your head, don't

Let them in your -

*BOOM*

Moon-voyager

21st July, 1969

The figure loomed bigger and bigger in the sky, a speckled ivory sphere. It slowly was descending on to the Earth. We always hoped that it'd be something bigger. Grander. Might I even say, more luminous. But the moon looked just like the way it used to, in the sky. A mere dreamy globe of chalkdust and finely powdered seashell, and thousands of years of mythical dreams stored inside all that. Something which had made the cavewoman croon out, the pagan worship, the soldier homesick, the voyager backtrack, and the sniper find his target. It was the very cosmic representation of womanhood to me, personally. And I had convinced myself that I'd doubt my belief one day. But that day wasn't today, the day we were the closest to the jewel of the sky. Infact, the jewel itself was hovering above our existence at present, almost like an offering, to explore her virginity. The moon was almost touching the ground below our feet, an orb the size of a double storeyd house. It stopped.

"Get ready guys! Neil, you go first."

That was an order, an order I had dreamed to obey for so long. I approached steadily. My hands were now in the shape of a fist. The shape of the moon, of the Earth. A part of me was all of the whole celestial history.

"This is one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind."

I was now standing on the moon.

And swiftly, the moon started to rise up again, following its vertical path up into its astral abode. I could hear shouting and cries, some urging me to jump back into the world I lived, someone asking someone else to bring a lasso to tie down the moon. But both of us had left this world forever, and my journey had finally started.

                              ...................................................................................................

That's the last time we saw Neil. He went away into his own world, maybe. We did hear him once more though, the last time, before he deactivated his transmitter. It went something like this -

"It suddenly strikes me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, is the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blots out the planet Earth. I don't feel like a giant. I feel very, very small."

In celebration of the 43rd year of first man landing in moon (even if it may be a hoax).

Random Chatter

Death, is but just a door to the second part of our conjoined lives,

And birth is but just the pause to our eternal existence in a world wide web of the single mind of some non-cosmic being.

It makes me think at times if we are actually anything but the imagination of someone else, or maybe someone's dream.

What if we are just chitterlings of some giant octopus, or maybe we are cheese nuggets of some super-celestial cream?

I'd love life to be that stupid. But it ain't so. And that's where I want to really scream.

Grammatical Errors.

Life, is what you make out of it. Yet the ingredients are the biggest mystery. What can we, and what should we add, that is the question. I have read over and over again the rantings of many a poor soul, how they have had a tough life, how they have been raped by their uncle, how their mommies have been drug abusers, how they want to end their lie. But the fact is, none really leaves a mark on me. Apathy? Insensitivity? Cynicism? Or detecting a sense of poor grammar in the sufferers? None of the reasons really seem to compensate my indifference. But I must say, the last one is the most dangerous of all the faults. Am I that great a stuck up grammar faggot, who'd just ignore the help cry [maybe(skepticism again)] of someone 4,000 miles away from me? Guess what, yes. I adorn myself with the "faggot" term, because I am no great Shakespeare.

Life goes on, and grammar is nowhere near to being the last coach of the train. I should stop being an unindistrious lad and really check out the whole train. For my own safety.

A Comparative Report On Friendship

I like sitting beside a sea, contemplating. Most think I'm a man of the mountains, and I claim myself to be one. But I like sea too. I especially like the waves, the one which are washing my feet over and over like a broken record. They're mostly phosphorus, but at this time, with the sky a pale, chalky blue, the inner light of every wave is breaking down. I'm sitting here, near a harbour. The giant Ferris wheel in the background makes an inappropriate wheel of shadow on the pale sky. It disrupts the harmony of the sky and sea and their endless conversations. It is 4 in the morning, and sunlight is near. I sit down, the waves polishing my trousers into a darker shade of what they are.
 I like ships. I like boats too. Just like the ones resting on the sand-bed beside me. In a few minutes, the first voyagers of dawn will roll them out and sail out in search. Of food, mostly.
 I can see a ship leaving the harbour, a giant demagogue like figure. Just that, there is no more rationality left in it, just ration. And the boats leave too, one by one. All my life, I've sat here and seen them go away. I wish I was a boat. I could leave too then. I could leave and not look back. It's nice not to be rooted, I feel nowadays. A strange indifference creeps inside me, creeping me. I wish I was a boat.
 Boats are a lot similar to people. Especially the ones which leave never to come back. They get lost in the sea, they crash into shallow sea beds in the middle of nowhere, they fall apart, broken. And sometimes, they just leave to reach a new destination. And start a new career in being the same old carrier, carrying a hundred new faces maybe, or just a few everyday newbies. I like those boats. They never come back, and eventually, I forget them. I forget those coveted yet tattered sails. I forget those wooden planks with dried salts making a hard, dry cover in their undersides. I like boats which never come back. I miss them, yes. But I still love them.
 It is the boats which will always come back that I'm scared of. They always end up near my feet in the evening, after I've tired my eyes and my soul seeking out a new boat to seek shelter in for the night that'll never come. Every morning, I beg them silently not to leave me behind, but no, they must go on. They are but a boat. And I'm just a boy who wants to be a boat.
 The sea calls away the boats, but why doesn't it ever call me? Is it because I'm not a boat? Is it because I can't swim? I hate the sea at certain times of each day. When it takes all the boats and ships away. And when it brings some of them back. You can ask me, some boats do come back, why do I still prefer to be angry at the sea then? Because once you go out there, you never come back as the one I loved. Your mast break, your sail peel away, your wooden planks smell of fish. You're not the same boat anymore. You're just a scribbled on and dirty rendition of something under which I decided  to lose my shadow one day.
 I do love those boats again, eventually. But as days pass, the boats get stronger, sailing hours after hours on cold water, and I become stronger. I become colder, like the sea. So one day, when a boat never comes back, I decide to be happy, though somewhere deep inside, I know that boat sank with a bit of me in it, in it's every plank, every inch of cloth, of dirty plastic and linen, every bit of rope, and every bit of hope. The hope that it'd see me sail one day beside it. But that's just my imagination. Boats don't feel anything. I shouldn't too, should I?
 The sky is turning orange. The sea, imitating the sky. I remember I read somewhere, waves are but like love, they always come back to wash you and all your grief away. They eventually withdraw, but that's temporary. I think I'll give more importance to the coming back, than the leaving part. Maybe I should stop seeking shelter under boats. Maybe I should stop seeking out new boats. Maybe, just maybe, will then I become a boat.
 But I think I'd then want to be the sea. I'd like to wash the feet of another me, soothing his cathartic soul. I think I'll become the sea. And let the boats sail. And help all those who want to be a boat, I'll help them sail away too.
 But then again, I am but just a boy wants to be a boat.

Meltdown

  The signs began in a small manner. Hardcore sweating, numbness, constant laxness. I couldn't concentrate on being an artist anymore. There was no more inspiration. The world was turning into a giant jelly jar, and I was simply surviving in it. I could feel myself slowly dissolving into that jelly. I thought it must have been too much pressure to meet the due dates. Donna thought otherwise. Sweating like pig wasn't a good sign to her, even though I tried to convince her. Pigs don't sweat, horses do.

  We visited the doctor. Dozens of test, autopsies, rest of the crap. He said he'd contact me once he got the reports. He did. Me and Donna visited him one fine evening. And that's when I got to know, I was suffering from a critical case of meltdown. I was melting away. And there was nothing anyone could do about it anymore. We were too late, it was the last stage.

  We came back home. That night, there was no dinner. From the next day, Donna took a leave. Atleast that's what she said. I think she left her job. There was no more showers for me. No more sponges. No more soap. No more soggy soups. Just hard boiled veg and eggs. Donna wanted me to stay solid. Stick to my ground. Stay there, beside her, standing.

  But nothing stopped the melting. Everyday, the bed would be mucky in the morning. I insisted her to not sleep with me. She didn't listen. There was no more daily activities like peeing, shitting, brushing, bathing. She made me suckle onto ice cubes. And I was okay. I was to become one with the universal jelly. The all encompassing slimy muck which I'd see around me everywhere nowadays.

  Then one fine morning, I realised I couldn't creep out of the bed anymore. I shouted for Donna. She came, she picked me up. I was now the size of a 5 year old. She placed me in a bucket. The same bucket in which I'd once puke when I got too drunk to boost my artistic frenzy. I was okay with it I suppose. The whole day, I watched the television, peeking out from the inside of the bucket.

  The next day, I was liquid. I was disappointed, I thought I'd be jelly, colourful, wobbly, fun to play with. I'd just turned out to be a bucketful of creamy mud. Donna cried when she saw me. I asked her to take a sip from the bucket. I really wanted to know how I tasted. She cried louder. A bit too morbid request for her, I guessed. Finally she transferred me into a mug, and we headed towards the hospital.

  The doctor saw me. He said he was sorry. He also offered me to stay over in the hospital. They'd wanted to do some studies on me. I wasn't sure about it. I couldn't speak. I was just a mug full of mud. Donna refused to let me go. The doctor offered money. Donna was stubborn. So he offered her to stay with me in the hospital. I guess she reconsidered. We needed the money. She did.

  They transferred me to a nice, cozy room, a nice, cozy bed. A nice, cozy mug. I was under observation. Donna was sitting beside me. She sat there for a full day. Then she lost consciousness suddenly while trying to check me out inside the mug. She had refused to eat. She had become weak. So she fainted. I saw them taking her away, while I lay there in the floor.

  Donna had knocked over the mug when she fell. I was on the floor mostly, and a bit of me was in the bed. I could hear the nurses screaming, I saw the doctor panicking.

  The cleaner came. He moped me up, put me in a rusty bucket, and finally flushed me down the toilet bowl. I could finally feel a oneness with the universal jelly. It and I were finally becoming one. I rushed down the sewers.

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  When Donna came back to the room the next day, she found a new mug. Suddenly, she skipped a heartbeat. What if Eric wasn't there inside the mug? What if he'd left, angry with her leaving him all alone? She paced up to the mug, and there was Eric in it. Eric was there, in his full, slimy glory, almost basking in his victory over mankind.

  She cuddled the mug. She'd live the rest of her life with this mug full of Eric. She was decided on that. She had Eric with her, there, in that mug. She'd always have him.

Respawn

  It was getting dark. The room was getting dark. There were too many people. And the windows were all closed. He tried to look around, but these hospital beds, they don't let you move. Or maybe it was because of that cringey neck of his. Whatever it was, he knew he didn't have much time left. All these people who had gathered around, they were here because he was about to die. And so they could mourn his passing away, and yet breath easily as they themselves had now more space to occupy in this cosmic circus. He could feel it inside, like a push was being exerted on him, as if someone was just knocking on incessantly on the door, and he had to go and attend to it. Forceful, yet gracious. That push was urging him to let go of whatever worldly ties he had left, atleast the ones he could still feel.
  He knew he wouldn't be seeing the sun shine again over the sea, which was just a few feets away from his home near that posh sea town, or hear birds coo in a spring night making sweet, sweet love. He knew life was just about to jump out of his infinity bound roof. The push was getting stronger, the urge, stronger.
  Had he spent a good life? Well, he raised his kids well, he never really cheated, that is, he didn't have any coital relationships out of his marriage bonds, anything below that doesn't count. He always had had friends, friends who loved him, laughed along with him, and even cried a few times when he tried to make them laugh too hard. He had worked faithfully, he never really bitched about his boss, he accepted whatever salary he was paid, never accepted bribes, in cash. He had sent his son abroad, he had married off his daughter, his wife was dead already. What else could he have asked for before death? A last bite of that amazing shorshe ilish his mother used cooked once, that maybe. And suddenly food reminded him of his mother, his father, and all those long deceased, and long left behind images of men and women. He wanted a mother again, a father again, he wanted a new home, a new life, a new chance again. Suddenly, the life he had lived didn't seem satisfactory enough anymore. He had survived a world war, a division of his mother land, multiple wars across the world, multiple ups and downs in the economic chart. He had survived labour strikes, student agitations, police brutality, mob madness, he had survived history. He was mankind itself. Suddenly he felt he had seen so much, felt so much, yearned so much, dreamed so much, yet he was just about to die in a crummy hospital room which smelled of that clean, hygienic death.
  He deserved more, his kind deserved more. He felt the whole mankind, the whole history of it, all the billion and zillion figures, all the achievements well up in him. He was about to burst open in a prudent atomic explosion, and if he did, this world, and all its revelers would see the history enacted before them, and they'd be so lucky to shake hands with so many great footsoldiers of a vast civilisation. He felt the push, he just wished this push to open him up before the world and show them what they have forgotten and buried in their civic closets, all the brutality, all the crudity, and yet all the beauty in between those vulgar fluid, wasted in time.
  He once saw in a movie that when you're about to die, all your ancestors gather around you to take you back to your cradle. But he couldn't see anyone of them around. He had seen his parents alive, his grandparents too. And even the great-grandparents, he had seen their hazed out photos. But no one had come to receive him. Did it mean he wouldn't be dying this time? But the doc had given his words, he had assured his children that they can shed a few tears now, finally. He had seen the whole of it enacted before him, so that surely means he's about to die. Then, why haven't they come to receive him? Are they all too inside him, this tiny cage of his, were they pushing him too? Pushing him towards a final resting place? Or maybe were they waiting just on the other side of the frail veil he could see form before him, waiting to receive him in open arms?
  His eyes were clouding up, he felt confused. Was he happy he was about to die, or did he still want a little bit more taste of the worldly boundaries. He couldn't understand, he couldn't understand himself, or his emotions, or this world anymore. Was he to die a bitter old man, or a satisfied human being who had found his answers among the wordless scribbles behind the math book of destiny itself?
  He didn't know. And he didn't want to anymore. He could see the light outside the tunnel. He knew his end bound chariot had arrived. And he could feel himself being pushed towards the light. It was getting brighter, brighter by every eternity long nanosecond. He wanted to wave a last goodbye, give a last kiss to this world of his, this beloved world, but it was too late already. He was boarding his chariot, the light was blinding around him, the light, oh the sweet, warm light, the sweet sunshi...

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  The about-to-be-a-first-time-father was pacing around tensely, when the doctor shot out of the labour him, bouncing towards him, his own brother he felt

"Dada, it's a girl, it's a girl, dada!" shot out the young man. The now-definitely-a-father stood perplexed for a moment or two, and then dashed towards the labour room then and there, rightfully followed by his elders, and her elders now. They all were eager to welcome the new sunshine, like a new dew drop to soothe, however temporarily, their worn out souls into this worldly abode. 

  The wait, was over. The new one, had arrived

Midnight Duel With Mr. Eliot

You see, the problem with you sitting down to read this piece, is that you are just wasting your time, dear sir. There is nothing to be seen, or done, or felt here, right at this very moment. If you think this is some new form of poetry, then no sir, this is no poem, and I am no poet. I, am just a hollow man, just like a hundred others. We all are but hollow men.


  We are the hollow men
    We are the stuffed men
    Leaning together
    Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

We, the men of darkness, we wait in the cellars and dungeons, and underneath heap of fossilised skulls bearing the tooth mark of unknown ages. We all are but the hollow men, hollow to the deepest corners of our cranium cavity, with blood trickling between our legs. We are but the menstruating waste of our time, ready to be spat out by some overbearing frugal vagina.

Eyes I dare not meet in dreams

    In death's dream kingdom

    These do not appear:

    There, the eyes are

    Sunlight on a broken column

Our solace is in our knowledge of the final answer to bitter, bloody, vengeful love, a knowledge which tells us we are but humans, and we are lying, lying to our ancestors for drilling up our cranium cavity so we can find an empty space to hide our face, and cry and whimper in our dreams about the sunlight we stole from the Garden of Zeus.

Is it like this

    In death's other kingdom

    Waking alone

    At the hour when we are

    Trembling with tenderness

    Lips that would kiss

    Form prayers to broken stone.

We walk alone, we are a generation of trekkers, each finding a route to our spirit, which lost its way in the Arab deserts, long before the Lawrence left his mark in the hundred sandy clitorises and left on a train back home, sipping away his tea of China. Oh, China, it makes me think, what if confusion and Confucion are but the same, the same like me, like the hollow men.

The eyes are not here

    There are no eyes here

    In this valley of dying stars

    In this hollow valley

    This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms

They call us sightless. We might be the unintelligible scum of the earth, but we, sirs, are not sightless. We are the hollow men, the evidences of time's carnal dance of death on the face of our Earth. Yes sirs, you heard it right, we belong to this Earth, to this soil, and you in your presumptuous little bunny holes, waiting to violate another lost Alice. This is our kingdom, this unhallowed muck, forever a sterile mother of ours, singing lullabies to her hundred dead children.

The eyes reappear

    As the perpetual star

    Multifoliate rose

    Of death's twilight kingdom

    The hope only

    Of empty men.

You see Mr. Eliot? We are your last hope. We, the hollow men, are your last chance at killing a new Frankenstein, a new Achilles, a new Saddam, a newer Grimreaper.

 Between the desire

    And the spasm

    Between the potency

    And the existence

    Between the essence

    And the descent

    Falls the Shadow

But we are the hollow men, as you must remember, sirs. We are not beggars, we are the betrayers, and we betray not our brothers, but our masters, so come forth my brothers, this is our holy war, against these fine specimens of social lubricants and cultural moisturisers and saintly cunts. For all that is crude, and all that is sexy, and all that is a pile of shitty whisky, avenge our fathers and mothers, and avenge our lost souls, for all are but the hollow men, hollower than you'll ever be.

 This is the way the world ends

    This is the way the world ends

    This is the way the world ends

    Not with a bang but a whimper.

Storybook Characters In Love

"And as they gasped for their last breaths, shared a kiss of death, they knew it wouldn't be long before their still, lifeless bodies lay deep down there, below that deep blue veil of ocean. But they were happy, they knew they'd never part anymore. Lovers till death, and after..." My story was almost complete. I just need a final fag to approve it.

"You know, fuck you man. I don't wanna die, neither do I want her to die."

The voice in the dark, supposedly lonely room startled me, there wasn't supposed to be any other living object inside the room other than me. So you see it's obvious that a voice not belonging to me would definitely scare me.

" Wh-who is this?"

"Why, don't you recognise me? I am one of the "forlorn" lovers, your creation, your masterpiece!"

The sarcasm was obvious even behind the panting but loud voice.

"Err, what is this, some kinda' trick or something?"

I turned around, and the faint light from the monitor screen made the silhouette visible. A drenched silhouette, as was obvious from the pool of water getting formed quickly on the floor. I understood I was dreaming, and I decided to play on with the game.

"Umm, so you're like, this imaginary character, the one about whom I'm writing about at present? That's what you mean to say?"

"Yes, father."

"Father?"

"Well , since you are my creator, so you are my father, in that sense. A father who is about to drown his son in the cold ocean along with his beloved."

"You mean your sister, right?" I chuckled.

"Erm, yeah, I, I guess so."

"So, you're totally into incest, I see. What a proud father I must be!" It was my turn now to hit him with an overdose of acrimony.

"I don't care if it's incest, or shit! I love her, do you get that, man?" The reference to incest had obviously infuriated him. I laughed wholeheartedly inside, it gives you such a moral boost when you take a dig at someone. Even if he is your own creation.

"So why exactly are you shouting, 'son'? I'm making you immortal, by killing you." That didn't sound right.

"Why shouldn't I? You are just sitting there like a big baboon and killing me and my love. You're just murdering us! Who gives you the right?! What the fuck do you think you're doing!"

"Err, well, I am the writer here, so shouldn't I really have the right to do whatever I want with my story?"

"Well, no, I mean, I see you're point, but you really can't just kill us of like that! What about the life we still have left to live, to love, to make love? You just waste us if you kill us!" Aww, the kid sounds emotional. A bit.

"Someone is eager to get laid, I see. Well, you see 'son', the story demands that you two must die. Only then will the greater good of love be understandable to the reader. You two shall emblaze the concept of true love again in the heart of today's generation! You two shall be my masterpiece! My Magnum Opus, my El Magnifico, etc etc." I was lying, this was just another one of my commissioned projects. I get over with this crappy story, and I get some extra cash for week. That's it.

"Yes, definitely, especially when the masterpiece is just another among the thousand renditions of that same old crappy Homeo Juliet drama. Man, why did old Shaks have to write that piece, he was doing so well with his historical novels and stuff."

"Erm, err, I agree the ending is the same, but, err, it isn't exactly Romeo Juliet revisited or anything." The hell it was. Who'd have time enough to think about new concepts to write about every week? Not me, I was just in this business because it paid good, sometimes.

"I don't care, 'father'! What is important is that you are letting two young lovers die! That's blasphemy, you get me?"

"Okay. Why do you exactly care what happens with you in the future. You're just a goddamn storybook character. You die, I write some extra shitty dialogues, and bang, the story is over. The reader closes the book, and goes to the bathroom to pee, or goes to get a fag. That's it. The end of you, and me." Okay, I shouldn't have tagged myself along with him.

"I don't care! I don't care if the reader goes away to philospohise about love, or just plain masturbate. I want my happy ending, just like everyone else!"

"Well, guess what sunshine, life ain't all about happy endings. There's more to it." Yeah, right, a shitty apartment, a shitty girlfriend, a shitty job, a shitty cheese sandwich, and constipation, that's the "more" to my life.

"You forgot 'father', I'm a storybook character, and I want my happy ending, goddammit. I've left her out there in the open sea, alone. She must be really cold by now. So you, mister, will right now bring a cruise ship or something, take us onboard, and get us into some honeymoon suite or something." Ahh, young love.

"It's placed in the 19th century, and in a really stormy Bay of Bengal, you just can't expect a cruise ship, can you?"

"You get us a cruise ship right now, OR. ELSE."

The figure now started walking towards me with zombie steps. I couldn't see his face clearly. I guess I didn't really imagine their faces while writing.

"Erm, wha-what are you doing? I'm your father. You can't do th-" He was strangling me now, and boy, did he have powerful wrists. But I didn't remember making him so strong, on the contrary he was supposed to be nimble and tender. What the heck, I guess the power of love, and libido carves even the softest ones into the hardest, no pun intended there.

"Awright, awright, I-i-i'll do it, I'll d-do it." The hold lightened.

"Good. Very good. Angul bakano is always the best pontha I see. Now, you'll get us into that cruiseship, take us back home, give us a royal wedding. And you will publish this story. And if you dare change a single line, father, that'd be last line of your life. Ashi apatoto" The shadow went away. It wasn't a dream, I could feel my sore throat still ache. I changed the ending and wrote it just the way he wanted it to be. I won't be taking risks anymore, they might just be setting down some committee already with all those characters which I killed. Inquiry commissions are the best way to banshofy people nowadays, as you know already. And boy, I know better now about messing with my sons and daughters. Also, I have to get this piece published, though that'd surely mean the end of my career. No one gets away with such absurd pieces. But, but wait a minute. My hope can be those, half-intellectual, full-ass critics, who just might agree to promote this to be some new entry into the literary faction of absurdity, and save my face, and my income, and the rest of my life, in return for some good old scotch.

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Sadly, the critics didn't think this to be some crazy ass modernist piece, they just tagged me intellectually dead. And so, ended my career as the creator. Sigh, one should never mess with his creations.

A Lovestory [Almost]

When I was a kid, I had a pet ghost. He used to be my friend. He used to be my only friend.
He used to play the game of nothingness with me, he used to sing me songs when sleep never came in sleepless nights, he never showed me my road down the abyss. He was the ideal friend, maybe.
And then, one day we fought, we fought and we fought and we fought, till the sky above was on a fire. Forest fire, illuminating a hundred homes up in the sky right above our head. We fought some more. And then came rain. She drenched us both, him, with his shadow, me with my ego. And she took away our fight.
She took him, and left me, to be a new ghost.
I grew up. I decided being a ghost wasn't my perfect profession. I tried to be an astronaut, so I'd find him outside there, near the gates of something called heaven. But I never found that place. I tried to be a musician, but my music was a sound of today, not yesterday. I decided I'd become a celebrity, so that I find new ghosts. But there was nothing such as a ghost, only skeletal Diasporas with gas masks locked inside their head. So I finally decided to be a writer.
I write about my ghost. My pet ghost. My shadow. And sometimes, about me. All this while, I have tried to find him. I searched for him, I tried to leave him, I tried to forget him. But he was always there, right outside the garden fence of my consciousness, into the hollow cavity cove deep inside some desperate soul, rumbling out sometimes to prove his existence to me. He was out there, or in here, but we never were face to face.
Today, I finally decided to stop thinking about him, and there, now he is sitting right before me. He is sitting in that chair, facing me, his shadow wrapped around him like a mink coat. And that shadow is slowly extending its paws at me.
Different things scare different people. For some, true fear may come from beyond the grave, taking the form of shambling zombies and vengeful skeletons. For others, fear may be born from our own vanity, twisting us inside and out into mutated, murderous monsters. Still others may find fear's ultimate expression in the unknown sounds and sensations that lie just beyond our perception. And of course, for some reason, many of us are most afraid of the soul-crushing loneliness of a live lived without love. That, and little girls.
And me, I'm scared of my ghost. My pet ghost. A ghost who is now a man, and stares at me, a ghost, an unforgiven friend, and a forgotten lover.