Rap, Crap or Verse?

Reading the Raven

Reading The Raven, I was craven
And the rhyth did drave’n me, to this poem make’n.

What a time, reading this rhyme
In moist clime, grey chime.
And while, I wile
You smile, awhile
And see that I’ll, blabber and rile.
You see, this is me
What is free, to be
Mimicked, and gimmicked
For a minute, I’m in it.

So f*** it, or chuck it
I love it, I’ll pull it.

This life, my strife
Is drive, -ing my knife
Is it chemical clown, that makes me frown
Or brings me down, hit hard ground.
What sense, what pense
-iveness, redress
Hot flash, watch MASH
Just crash, dash dash.

I’m high, you’re nigh
I fly by, in your sky
You’re pissed, the gist
I missed, your fist.

But Poe, his woe
Knows no, far shore
As I submerge, and purge
Abandon search, for that perch.

Mrs Dalloway is Fun But Hard

Why do I come here and write?

Its not like it helps…it’s a burden, especially cause nobody’s listening. A tree falling in an empty forest…

Am I my own audience? Only I know what happens and what remains.

Only I know I try to study but cant, but is that right? Only I would lie to myself about something like this. Only I would screw myself and only I would want to save myself.

Only I would want to die

Only I would want to not.

Only I would try without success or fail without trying. Or cry.

Is the world tough, or do I make it tough, or does time really enjoy all this?

Well…just try, na.

Got 95Percentile...Not Saying Much Yet

Can’t I pick on someone my own size?

Why do kids bother me? I feel utter contempt for smartmouthed bratty kids, which is more than what normal people might. It lingers with me, this feeling of rage, for minutes after coming across such a kid. I’m sure others don’t even give it a second thought, while I actually think about how I should tell his/her parents off or how hard I should slap them (the kids, I haven’t seen the parents).

I know that they’re only kids blah blah, but I feel its never to early to make a kid learn to be well-mannered. Like I was walking my dog, who decided to stop to shit near a group of 4 kids playing (about 8-9 years old I guess). So the alpha male says “Bhaiyya aap isse hataenge, please?” with some rather sharp-edged sarcasm…very Veronica Lodge attitude. Idiot.

Anyway, this is something that they don’t grow out off. I’m part of the last generation (those who are 20 now) who know how to speak without each line dripping attitude, without the generous coating of ‘who the hell are you’ mentality. And although I am told that each batch feels like this, but man…juniors just don’t know how to behave. And the problem is that we don’t know how to be tough…cant take it by force.

So are we doomed to never get the respect that we deserve and that we offer others? Kya koi sanskaar nahi raha? Sadly, I feel not.

New Gateways of India

My breathing’s better but I’ve this nagging cough now.

I guess everybody’s heard of the attack at the Gateway of India recently. Man that was scary. Just imagine, that out of the blue some maniac comes and slashes you. Its like a scary movie! Really unsettling. But through it all there’s one angle to this incident that makes me glad (now I sound like a maniac). I saw in the news yesterday that there was a man, Salil something I think, who came to the aid of the 2 girls and may have been critical in saving one of them. He heard the screams, say the girls covered in blood, rushed them to a hospital. Applause to him. It is rarely, if ever, that one hears of any good Samaritan, or even a helping hand in time times of need. That was something that made me feel safe, far away here, to think that maybe, just maybe there are more like him.

But again, I want to point to myself. I would like to think that I would have done the same. Probably. But it would be cowardly and selfish of me to expect someone to help me if I am not going to help another. I wonder if I would. In delusional dreams I may kick serious ass, but in real life will I be too scared or even confused to react. That guy said that he didn’t think before acting, and that if he had he might not have helped. Would I think? Would you? Nothing that can be answered…not now anyway.

Changing to a much lighter topic, I was telling my brother, and let me tell those of you interested, Peter England has really good t-shirts – collared with stripes, 300-500 bucks. Also Buddy Davis for pastel solids, check them out if you want.

Jai Hind...Happy 15th August

58 years old as the world's largest democracy. Sometimes I wonder if that’s a mistake. Power in all hands equals insufficient power in most hands. Blasphemous, it is, but truth be told, we as a people cannot take right decisions. Why else would labourers have 5 kids and drink?

Anyway, I hope you watched Swades. It sends out the right kind of message. This movie did badly, people thought it was too preachy. Maybe they missed the swa- part of swades. I watched Lakshya myself. Good film. Made me want to become an Army man, but I decided to find other ways to serve the country. I will donate to animal shelters and help villages and adopt a child.

The streets are deserted today. But while walking Scarlett (my lovely Irish-Setter) I saw some people who may never truly know life and may never be able to day Happy Independence Day. It was a man pushing along a “Machine ka thanda pani” cart helped by a 6-7 years old boy, with his wife walking behind, and a 4-5 year old daughter sleeping on top of the cart, which was rumbling like an earthquake. What day is today for them? A day when deserted streets mean lesser earnings. How happy is that? This is the shape of their tryst with destiny. This is their Swades.

What will we do for them? Help me out, what can we do? How can a nation of a billion sustain itself? China can, why can’t we? Will my writing this help?

Will I help?

I saw kites in the air. I saw blue and white. I saw the family on the street. And now I see this screen. But I don’t see the future, and I don’t know where I figure in it. Why should people remember me for other than family ties? What will I do that makes me worth a second thought?

Enough of that. My brother passed through Delhi on the way back fro Tokyo (am I the last one to realize that Tokyo is syllable-wise the reverse of Kyoto the old capital of Japan). He and my sis-in-law are going away to Manila for a couple of years. So I saw them for the last time today and, in case of my sis-in-law, Friday. Hope it’s a good place - Manila.

Broadband Downloading Isn't All That Fast

Well asthma seems to be back in my life. It’s been a long time. I wonder if this is one its sporadic visits or whether its back for good. Its one of those times when you wish you’d listen to your mom when she says, “Do yoga”. But the good thing is, I revel in the regained joy of using an inhaler, which is feel is one of western medicine’s greatest discoveries, along with the simple crocin and some other select panacea.

I’m trying out the tratchenberg (or something like that) speed system of basic mathematics. Has anybody heard of it? It’s a book of shortcut maths, that’s supposed to be really good. But the introduction speaks of the man who invented it…a Russian who was a politically outspoken person, caught up in the Russian revolution, then escaped to germany where his propoganda for peace made him a target for Hitler. He was put in a concentration camp, where he did maths to keep himself sane. When he escaped he compiled his theories into what is now this book.

Maths teachers sure were a lot cooler in those times.

So anyway, I bought the vcd of padosan today, mom wanted to watch it and I haven’t ever. So I hope its good. Also got coffee with kishore, a new collection of his songs. Man sometimes one yearns for the great music of kishore kumar and rd burman and m rafi and asha bhosle and so on. Somehow I feel music was a lot more experimental in those days, even the trends and styles of the stars. Maybe its just me, but today actually sems a lot tamer. There’s no special spark in them at large. But maybe that’s just an inevitable outcome of global village-isation. Whatever they try and do now is just another “been there, done that”. Maybe that’s why we like ar rehman so much, the guy’s so damn fresh all the time. Also shanker-ehsaan-loy and aamir khan and rani mukherjee. Mangal pandey should be good, though reports are that the story is flimsy, but I’m willing to forego that for a raging aamir khan and rani mukherjee’s vari vari number. Also, swades, which they’ll show on the 15th on tv, is a good movie with a message that’s also god. Well made movie, and touches all the right chords without being senti. Man, I don’t know if I should be embarrassed or proud (metrosexually speaking) but the yeh tara who tara number in the film made me all misty-eyed.

Anyway, what should I use to download songs and videos? I’m told emule is good, but slow and kazaa has too much spyware and whatnot.

For people like me, the net lives up to its name.

A Funny Thing Happened to Me On The Way to Validation

So, today my results came. And my record with exams held fast.
This is my part 2, literature. I improved from my part 1 (which isn’t saying much to begin with). But I find it hard to have any bright expectations for any exam anymore. See I am not a good student. The way I see it I am an underachiever. It seems that that fact hurts more than just being bad. Its always been like this. Or at least ever since class 7. before that I was mediocre, enjoying only class 1,2 as high points. But it was when I shifted to delhi in class 7 that I really came down. I can justify that now…impressionable age, new place…fat bong guy being put into a huge big co-ed school (I was in a boy’s school before that from 3-6) with nothing to fall back on. Sure, that was scary. Its understandable now.
But what about after that? Classes 10, 11 12? Where was I then? Enjoying my gained acceptability and growing some roots, never mind if I was a flowering plant or not. Unconscious I guess. I mean where do one consciously let oneself slip? Though my father often asked me if I ever deliberately performed below my capabilities to duck expectations. What could I say to that? I kept quiet. I disagreed.
I scraped through class 12. but things worked out funny. I always believed I was sincere in my work (not studies, but extra-curriculars – even here I was not academically inclined, I was more the helper to the organizers, and not a debater or anything). I could write a bit also. Confidence from there saw me through the eca quota in a good college, although I later found out my being accepted was luck, just because some other guy shifted and I filled the gap. But a gift horse is a gift horse.
I do well now, but only where it doesn’t count. I think. I say. But I cannot put it on paper when it counts. I also do. I’m active in college activities also, or at least I used to be, until someone started shining brighter. And I am not good here where it counts either. I cannot take work, and I cannot show working. I am told these are essential qualities. Just as I was told today that giving an examination is an art that needs to be mastered (I told her I’d try and learn the rules). Thing is, I thought I did the right things this time. I studied was exam-oriented, I completed my papers which is otherwise a problem with me. My mistake…I expected great marks, let myself in for a fall.
But I don’t worry much. Even if I fall, yet I hope, because somewhere in me is this dumb confidence. Somewhere I believe in my integrity and that great things are going to come my way. I’m preparing for CAT now…somewhere I have this completely misplaced notion that I’ll do well here and shine. And even after that I’ll keep shining, I wont burn out.
Even today I did okay…I got 56. problem is, that still puts me in the bottom half of my prodigal class. Unfortunately, that matters.

Erected Wit and Infected Will

I used a crowded u-spl bus today after a long time (for those not in Delhi, these are 'special' buses run by the delhi transport corp to ferry students to and from north and south campuses). See i take a lift with a classmate in his car usually. Today's was jam packed, man. bad. And the problem is, i am a very nervous person around women...that is not to say that i'm one of those guys from the ads..."yeh to mera farz tha"...but i cannot stand glares from women in buses etc when i accidentally (never otherwise) bump into them, or brush past them etc. Believe me, this comes from my complete and most siscere empathy for girls and women who have to live in Delhi, the land of erect male minds!!! Note i say empathy, cause i too know how it feels to have these erect minds rubbing against me in the bus (ah the delightful underbelly of Indian society). so anyway, maybe its just me and my worry-wart-edness that makes me imagine it, but today was the same old story. ever had one of those days, when you may be looking from left to rght and just as you scan past a girl she looks up and catches you red-handed...and then when you go back from right to left it happens again...and up-down and so on. you get the picture. and i was absented-mindedly staring out of the window when it seems the girl sitting next to it thought i was looking at her, and made discomforting effort to adjust her clothes. Dammit woman...i empathize, i EMPATHIZE. I'm a gentle soul, i'm not a Delhi-ite in that sense ("guns and guts, only for jutts" plastered across their car)...i think with my mind. what helped was that now these two girls were on 2 opposite sides of my view...so if i turned away to not look at one, guess who spotted me looking at her. please tell me you've had days like these. please tell me i'm not the only misunderstood male around. please tell me its not just guys. Empathize, oh won't you please empathize with me.

My Last Tango In Paris

It’s hard to know when to let go. When do you know if the other person is ready, or if you are? She had told me, though, that her time had come, that her roller coaster ride was over and she’d gotten her money’s worth. That was quite a difficult calculation to make.

Well, she’d been through the sum of all fears these last few months after I gave her AIDS for our second anniversary. I didn’t yell ‘Surprise’ or any such thing, the doctor took care of that for us later. The only thing that I ever thought about from then on was to never let go of her hand. I didn’t know who would be the first to leave, whether she would go alone or sooner. Well, it was sooner, and now my eyes and my life just focussed on our two hands, both pale – hers anaemia and mine under her hold on me. Her delicate snow-white arms were now slashed by hardened veins and stabbed by a deep needle.

Yet she looked pretty as ever in her blue hospital gown. Her soft blonde hair fell over her face, blocking the bright lights in the room that beat down on her beaten body. They reflected the harsh rays back with defiance and she looked at me. They were such pretty blue eyes that looked at me, she spoke her last to me with out words. Her eyes smiled at me and said, “Don’t worry. I’ll be waiting when you come.”

Oh God, how I loved her and how I was afraid I couldn’t face this alone. How I cried when I learnt I gave her AIDS. I got it after my accident when I got blood. She got it after our anniversary, when we made love. We were both quiet for some time as we waited for the doctor to correct himself. Instead we were left to pick up our lives and leave that room only to return when the doctor could help us no more. Later at home I broke down when she was in the kitchen cooking. She ran to me and held me and tried wiping my tears. But, eventually the only comfort I could find was in crying in bed with her as she curled into bed and put my head on her chest and ran her snow-white hand through my hair.

Life since then was about living, and we worked hard at it. All the movies we hadn’t watched and the places we hadn’t been were on our list. We danced every day and cried every night. We even took a trip to Paris, something we had always dreamed of doing. We found such satisfaction in art. The Mona Lisa was not an enigma anymore, we saw that bitter-sweet in each other ever since that day. The French really say it well when they speak of the joie de vivre, they just don’t mention that you find the joy when life is fleeting, or maybe the timing is something we decide for ourselves.

This past week we slowed down when life caught up with us again. She caught influenza and suffered a cut the day we went to the Eiffel Tower. Both took their toll on her weakened immune system .She laughed about it just yesterday, “Ah, Paris has been cruel to its most favoured. It killed Picasso and Van Gogh, and now I join their ranks.” That was not her only joke.

A few days ago, when I returned to her room after my bath I found her motionless on the bed. I rushed to her and frantically tried to wake her, but she didn’t move. I shook her and shouted out to her, but to no avail. With tears streaming down my face I jumped towards the door about to call the doctors, but when she called out to me. “You scare me, do you know that?” I was in shock at that point and I couldn’t even reply. “Is this how you’ll be when I am not there to look after you? Will you be this jumpy?” Well, she’d be proud to see me now, not even a single tear.
Another time I walked into her room and found her up and waltzing. I almost let out a cry of surprise before she quickly grabbed me and pulled me in saying, “Don’t let the doctors see, they think I’m sleeping.”

“Shouldn’t you be?” I asked.

“I know I should, but I couldn’t help it. They were showing that Al Pacino movie where he has this lovely dance with Gabriella Anwar. There’s so much in life apart from what we see, we just don’t see it. I don’t want to spend my last few days in bed. What am I resting for? I want to dance while I can. I got tired of waiting for you so I just started on my own. Now come, come. Dance with me. One last tango.”

I looked at her hesitantly, I didn’t know if she could take it.

“Please, I know you’re concerned, but believe me, it won’t hurt me to lose a few minutes of sleep, but I cannot sleep if I don’t have one last dance with you. So please, come and dance with me.”

I smiled. The most painful smile that I can remember. I took her hand in mine and pulled her to me and grabbed her other hand from behind and we both swayed with music that we couldn’t hear. But we both felt the rhythm that night, and danced like never before. It would be ironic now to say that we danced like there was no tomorrow.

That was yesterday.

I don’t know when the dance ended. I just remember it being very dark out and she was quite out of breath when I tucked her into bed and fell asleep next to her in a chair. I was woken a few minutes ago by a shrill tone from her vital signs monitor. I tried to get up, but I felt something holding me back. I turned around to see her hand tightly clutching mine. I turned to her face just in time to see her eyes closing as she smiled at me. Something in her face was soothing. It was as if she was saying, “Don’t you worry dear, I’ll be seeing you soon. I’ll be waiting.”

Well, the nurses and doctors have covered her body, and just her hand is still in mine.