This Is The Time

This is the time, to say something, that has stuck in me like a shard of glass. Rasping deeper and deeper every time I move, to let myself unbridled of its pain. The attempt to forget brings back more pain than remembering itself.

This is the time to thank, bow down, let the vanity wash away, strip in front of your angels, unwind from that wringing tension of carrying on, ignoring, unseeing, pretending, most of all, that you are alright.

This is the time to be true, to look back, and start believing in that almighty design, that guides or designs your steps, your choices and your eventual life. Not that belief in destiny is irrevocable, but there is something, which according to many, and among them, me, makes all this worth dwelling in, no matter how many times you screw up, now matter how many malicious intentions your have tended, no matter how much you have pandered to avarice, no matter how much you have erred... Perhaps its people, perhaps its irony, perhaps its life!

Whatever, all credit to this something, you can say, let bygones be bygones...

This is the time, that things might change, they might be doomed in circumstances, they might flourish, or sink in that inescapable inconsistency known to the world as mankind. Apparently, the first half of the word and the rest and colloquial opposites of each other.

This is the time, to sit back, and surmise, what has increased and decreased, what has been added or taken away, the meanings of profit and loss. Distances. Many have been beautifully revived, in spite of the miles, and some have been co-operatively snapped off, in spite of the time.

This is the time, to begin and end. Recuperation does not always mean recovering, sometimes its preparation, sometimes its desperation, sometimes its drifting away.

This is the time, to have that glass of your favorite drink and exchange what you could not have done yet.

Things that were, and those that were not, and also those that were not the way you meant them to be. Ones own airy commitments to oneself cause pain. Expectations and hope, are more wrenching than betrayal, because its something that you nourished all this while and it turned its back on you.

Distance does strange things to us. Even months of staying away doesn't mollify that which isolation could have. Its an existential dilemma, to approach or not, and in which way should one do it. Leaving it is too irresponsible, you tend to lash back in almost vehemence. Putting it on the table is being uncomfortable, you try to evade it and are constantly dazed by the effort of perhaps bringing it in a less acerbic light.

What does one do then?

This is not the time for all of this. What happens, is there, was meant to be, and lead wherever, to its end or towards a more vigorous phase.

Let it be. May it be better. May we get the direction to make it better.

Amen.

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The Iota

The monastery is closed today.

But some are eternally attentive.

You never need to drop in or drop out.

Like Love.

The one who falls out of love, wasn't in love at all.

Abstraction is deep, profound and ambivalent.

It hides everything, but means something.

Something that could be fundamentally different.

Different from how it blossomed in thought.

Yet, somehow the readers interpretation is;

Often more plausible than the writer's analogy.

Like Life.

Its not where, how and when you were born;

Is not all that matters. Its what you make of it.

Every parent is proud of his or her child.

Their frames of reference is smeared of heedless concern.

Like Home.

Even a derelict roof could mean a home.

The process, the architecture, the compound;

That would solidify in a trance of culture.

Its winds snaking on its surface to etch

Grooves of character, the sieve that would be

A sieve through which a similar wind would gush.

When its time will come.

Like a Civilization.

I've been far, from what I call my own.

But in the end, no amount of wanderlust;

No scene of rejuvenation, no abode of respite;

Could stop the doodling steed of a traveler;

Like Me.

Love. Life. Home. Civilization. Me.

I am back.

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The Rule Of The 'K'

Khis kost kis kedicated ko khe kenius kof Kekta Kapoor. v1.0*

PROBLEM STATEMENT:
(The cause of unrest, the precursor of intellectual malaise...)

"Originally, the serial was supposed to be called "Amma" (Mother), but was revised to
the current title on the suggestion of the costume designer."

-Wikipedia on "Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi"

"Some words such as "Kyunki", "Kahani", "Parvati", "Tulsi", "Thakurji" are to be
apologetically incorporated into The Oxford's repertoire of dictionaries. The officials
are shamefaced about the whole affair which gushes oafishness and sectarianism"

“The women in my serials are strong, with minds of their own”

"I create familial cliches to break them"

-Ekta Kapoor

"Such is the rarefied genius of Ekta Kapoor. A simple indicator of that is, on application of her dogmatic principle. The Boltzmann Constant, 'k' or rather the Koltzmann Konstant... only one word out of the first line makes sense, however only to an Indian, only if Kekta kould, I'm sorry, could be a name."

"It’s cloak-and-dagger stuff. A real-life war of supremacy that can put any television soap to shame. And the script is simple — money, money, money."

* * *

In my house, like many of those tormented and addicted ones peppered across this landscape, evenings are anniversaries of the lifelong romance of women, and some disoriented men too, for this 'phenomenon' to have swept this industry. I shall refrain from taking those names, because, it would be matter of life and death for me to immolate this blog's honor or whatever remains of it with those unspeakable names of her creations, stomping across airtime on Star Plus. Each day, from as soon as seven in the evening to as late as twelve in the night, its all a show of delusional emotions and heightened melodrama.



The one which imperils your senses at 2200hrs, shows the female protagonist on a come back stint, ingratiating for the umpteenth time with the perishing good in her family, the brutalized old and the illusioned young, under the able guidance of the vamp of the family, again played for the umpteenth time by someone who has a name for all this. Now Ms. Kapoor's talent surfaces just now. Even to the unknown eye, in this case me, you dont take more than a minute to understand what happened in the previous hundred episodes. You observe the expressions, the copious out of the body experiences, the ego, counter-ego and the person herself talking in a protracted affair, lasting two minutes, and even if the person happens to be in the middle of a busy street, stacked with people, nobody even dares to brush her physical form.



Here it is simple, like it has been for the previous some thousand episodes, there are the good guys and there are the bad guys. Bad guys win and good guys finish last, often bad guys take control of their homes, drive them out, take away their property, innumerable factories and crores of rupees. Often when the bad guys commit crimes and the vigilante-cum-protagonist gather evidences after fifty episodes of breathless hard work, somehow for some odd reason, the bad guys always find a way, buy out witnesses, whatever happened to the crores of rupees with the good guys, what is that for? To be lost in some court case to the bad guy over some counterfeit but unproven will? Also, inevitably across all the sons and daughters of Tatas and Birlas, their offsprings always betroth with the offspring of the long lost foe, which again does a reappearance after hundred episodes. Misled children against the darling of the audience, A quandary laid out to defame the darling with such a crafty maverick of the current villain(for fifty episodes again), the sly and opportunistic villain pitted against such species of lambs, the odd combinations of old couples portrayed with such benevolence that it makes you wonder, what families do they come from?



It is in our conscience, that middle aged women contrite with their disability to help the on-screen legends, have a soft corner for people who have any of these family names: Virani, Agarwal, Bajaj, Garewal, Wadhwa, Basu etc. Just look at the lambs they have made out of the women in all their escapades. A female character is a happy-go-lucky, rooted to her adarsh figure of trust and philanthropy until she transforms into a vengeful machine in the clutches of the director and of the well known script writer-cum- obscure Hindi novelist. It speaks out that, come what may, women with names of Pallavi and Mohini are never trustworthy! After a merry go round of five marriages and divorces, where the darling loses her memory thrice in between after being cradled to hospitals with a different gonna-be hubby running beside the stretcher every time and after two miscarriages and two illegitimate sons plus one from the first and now-deceased/forgotten husband makes her a mother of whopping eight children each having grand children of their own, and still, she is as fresh and as nubile as a morning bird! Whoa! Thats one life, many of us haven't evolved to live!


More than ten minutes of exposure results in a bombination in your head, a resounding sharp screech, every time the camera zooms or pans, every time the seeds of conspiracy are sown, every time the cry of defiance is raised. Welcome Ekta Kapoor, the celebrator of human emotions. Has Time forgotten her? She is perhaps the only individual alive after that monk who re-sketched the map of India to have the most number of lives influenced per square kilometer on this earth, not forgetting that we are the second most populous country on this earth, and that China does not have such an aggressive school of television direction! Jingles, custom made according to the face cut, height and weight of the actor playing a particular character, are repeated from one soap to the other. This Kapoor penetration has so far only been limited to Star Plus, yet to vanquish the aspirations and successes of other film makers in other channels. But are their aliters any better?



Glamor is an irresistible paradigm for all of these creators. Perhaps it is one of the means to keep their effeminate crew occupied, pronouncing that pout of fitfulness and that tone of eyeshadow, welcome Ekta Kapoor, the trend setter. Jwellers and Boutiques industries are experiencing a never before high, a seemingly bumper figure of sales, after all the porcine aunties of the block go to the boutique-wallah of the block to get that embroidery and to the jweller for that necklace she saw yesterday. Nevertheless, for such impromptu beseeching from their wives, its endless concern for the menfolk, in what should be read as the side effects of the rule of the K. Women in this wonderland, are goldmines! They eat, sleep and feel at least ten kilos overweight with that that two kilo sari and eight kilos of fresh American diamonds and polished German Brass, and after the regular party at eight for some self-congratulatory award, they come back to have either a convivial session where the darling goes to each room, kissing goodnight or an epic battle of words about some inconsistency twenty years ago. We swear we never have enough.



In today's social hinterland, people swear by this media tycoon. Some swear by her antics, some swear by the immense success and monopoly of her work, some even swear by the immaculate and holier than thou characters, which have sky rocketed all their portrayers into those Lists-of-most-influential-people-in-the-world, and then there are the Pharmaceutical firms, glycerin manufacturers, its to her credit that fake ornament makers, finding its bearings as a cottage industry, all beaconing and hallowing her. The rise and rise of Ekta Kapoor. Or. The Demise and Demise of the Audience; and then comes the ignored, diseased lot, deprived of mention and concern, these hapless beings roam around hopeless, about watching something at prime time, courtesy this madame. A damned comrade to this clan - me. I am trapped between a visual and aural onslaught of two of the most profound forces in AV media. News Channels(its another story...) and Mademoiselle Kapoor. The two televisions have been possessed by them, having hardly any rights over the remote, all the young and the hopeless of the house either go out or sit and lament, and some take it to writing, like me. In a CRT awash with screens of putrid human existence and an even more filthy human malice, we have no option but to lose faith in the current runners and wait, wait till there is an uptide, a mutiny, an ordained change of regime, and I wait until I get my own TV set....and remote!

Somebody, get that costume designer... He/She/(s)He is a understated, indubitable, undiluted, eccentric Genius! A blotched stroke of genius!



*This is a presentist's post. A general reflection of the current engagements of the Indian television, the shows that enjoy focus and their translations, directly and indirectly in our daily lives. Please, otherwise, I adore her....well, guile!

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The Perceptionist's Pebble

Recently, while on an intra-explanatory, inter-critical and introspective streak which generally involves many in my convoluted and erratic socio-cyber circle, there were all sorts of nonsensical arguments doing the rounds in the numbness of this head we all so proudly share! And, as such silent and galvanic environments allow, we were all on each other, rather than about each other. "You're a despo, frustoo, aint-got-my-due gonna-be homicidal maniac". This was a universal tippani that surfaced out of that hour long exchange that revolved around each of our lives, naturally females and the ghosts that kept this world alive <nudge-nudge-wink-wink>. So, the toll that had been taken sometime a year ago inevitably has a psychological impact strong enough to reflect even on my social psyche... Not that these tippanis did not find their ways towards me before, it is almost an opinion now, as far the my topic is considered. "What a miser!", "Arse!", "Get something to live please..." and other suggestions, but is it just sarcastic, a jovial arse-kicking contest, where of course, winning is against the rules? I found out, or hope to substantiate, myself at least, about this glaring impasse, that my graduation stint has come to be!



Constant bickering, like a bug in a cobweb, like a guy who hasn't been fed sense for an eternity! It was a distinctive and often contentious side of human perspective. Perception. It gets you all sorts of trouble and accidental rewards. You never know you are right. Its a realm of absolution, where you often say m-words to criticism. Ethical definition may differ, and there is every chance that someone comes after me for so conveniently contorting facts and giving my wretched theory, but m** ch*****! Anyhow, and the subject of damnation is Introspection. My attempts, about which I am profoundly apologetic, to write about what exactly stirs me up, or has been stirring me up has been met with sympathy and not empathy. Its a grievous error, a conflict of rationale, a miscommunication of all things, but there's that. Introspection makes you look weak. One of them, with whom the conversation was separate (you know who you are, sir!) even suggested in a prophet-like trance, "Make it a life worth living!". I was almost demented. WTF!?! No on the spot clarification on my part because, just look at the crap I have written. Abstruse and Irrelevant. Isn't there enough muck to clear up in lives of people, and hardly anybody wants more muck raking, when surfing is supposed to soothe you, invigorate you? Though, its beyond thanking, it feels like a blessing to have such enlightening souls around me, who are ready to spank me when I am not myself.



I also blame it, in which I am developing a proficiency of late, on the type of fiction I am consuming. Vikram Seth. Gawd! He kicks ass. Of course, he is a bisexual. The Key-Word here is bisexual. Not a homosexual, as he is famed, after signing on petitions, and being vocal about the euphoria he portrays in each of his works. This guy is hallucinating. His descriptions are vivid, ethereal and deeply emotional. As Khushwant Singh says, "Material Nobel Laureates are made of..." Now, as I help focusing myself back on the din that Delhi is and the din that my dwellings are, I find that utopic, but what a utopia! No social engagements, my social presence in my insti (NIT Rourkela, or whatever!) is hardly countable, and neck deep into musing, Seth, writing for a mag of my own, and cheating on purposes I swore by ten minutes before I sat down to fill my roll number on that AIEEE question booklet, I had little to hold on to. Occasional phone calls from my folks and rarely from my cash-stripped friends all over this country was all the distraction I had from the mundane life there. Even events like, the warden, dubbed as the Shepherd of the First Years beaten by a drunk-passout of our insti, hardly aroused anything more pronounced that a sleepy "Wow" from me. I really, really missed that aimless wandering at any place around and in Delhi. Nostalgia, romanticism etcetera.



Of recent, when I have been back, I have quarreled more times with guards than with any of my folks. The occassional visit to any public hangout rises more doubts than belief on the average conscience of the common man. What does Delhi have for breakfast???

Doomed Twice!

I am nobody there. Nobody to think. But since I pay, I do. To watch movies is Indian. Nor does this exemplify Indianness, neither have ever been tangentially past Mumbai. But the ballets they dole out every week makes you wonder, how much does it take to mint a bill? And how much of their guts does it take for them to spill them out in 75mm of space every week, pushing the bar for illegitimate freedom of speech higher and higher every time? They will make even Late Mr. Ambedkar wonder, what was I thinking while I was framing the right to freedom of speech? Now this gamut has not been delimited to our national borders. Pakistanis suffering highs and lows every Friday due to these barefaced terrorists of human will, and we still talk of revenge? Bollywood, a kitschy name for The Great Indian Film Industry, is fraught with discontent... What does it take to make the perfect script, and to choose just the right amount of glamor to do justice to those barrels of glycerin and those Camlin Water Color(TM) bottles, primarily red and yellow, just to add that hint of master artistry, just to make the perfect Hindi movie? The term Hindi is what substantiates the entire quest, discerning it from any other filmi quest, from any boring novel published by some NY school of acting and getting-the-act-together returned junkie.


I have been a distant appreciator, some can say a benefactor of the Indian Cinema. This song-and-dance, the pomp-and-vigor, the drama-and-emotion, this whole camaraderie. These guys have even got Clooney on their sides, who thinks it would be a whole fun thing if ever these guys manage to get more than fifteen theaters in his land. But these maniacs have let me again strain my braincells, or what has remained of it through this incessant pounding of dialogues over the years. If relevant statistics are consulted, Bollywood causes more natural deaths than mineral water and paani-puri vendors throughout this land put together. But of course there is always the chance that you'll trip over the stairs of "the cinema near you" every time you are startled by that shrieking YashRaj films jingle. YashRaj Films and Ventriloquists limited, another booming enterprise, basking under the aegis of brand equity.


I stood witness to one of the latest stallions from their stylized stables, the one synonymous with the advent of biking in India and with numerous guys performing nose-wheeling with their 100cc trinkets each time they stop at a crossing or to pay their toll. It sounds like a gunshot, and leaves you fumbling for answers till the end. What a masterpiece, what a masterpiece (chorus) Bravo YashUncle, the avuncular voice of Bollywood, whatever he and his sons talk over sweets after dinner, we all love to watch and some conscientious critics love to appreciate. He has touched rare chords that resound philosophy to me. It seems he has taken to sensible reading, rather than senile works of senile people read and appreciated by even more senile people. This one has action. This one has drama. This one has three star sons! The fruits of years of shooting and earning underworld contacts. If not the others, Hrithik Roshan stands a fair chance than anybody out there, of warding off any underworld threats. If a sleuth's senses were to be aroused, each one of us is familiar by that overplayed news of his father getting threats, and pat comes the consequence, his marriage. Coming back to his latest fanzine stuff, this flick also has the eternally intellectual sides of human nature, to pardon. And like its prequel, this one also has a cliff, the warring parties reach these cliffs on bikes, there is a fall, there is a slow motion, frame by frame portrayal of the demise of the infallible thief, but he comes back, to be a changed man. And Captain Courageous pardons Sergent Sodomy of all his previous crimes against his budding romance and of course society.


I even performed Coke's mantra of viewing this one with their crisp dispensed drink. But, it did not work. Bravo Coke, Bravo! The way you fooled me. And I knew it all along. All I'll recollect is the designer and plasticized Police dressed and the geometrical patterns that they make in the shooting range on the dummies. And of course the more real chicks all around.

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The Yellow Brick Road

I paced along the dusty street. It had not changed in the past ten years, except for a little hospitality, a derelict group of shops which were probably bought by some contractor and converted into cemented structures, there was little which could distinguish this parched piece of earth from what impressions I lived with. Patches of asphalt was all that would convince a surveyor of the presence of any heedful authority. It is early December, in the misty mornings of winter, that due to some odd chance I have to take this apprehended route. There are few people on the street, some villagers, some stray dogs barking at anything fast that goes past them. For the past ten years, that life has drawn me away to further destinations, nothing about this connection has seemed to change. Even the villagers look the same to me. They stare at me as I wade uncomfortably beside them. The chill has stiffened my legs. I don't dare to look back, what is it that holds me still? Their incriminating eyes or the cold?



This street is the one that connects my home to my school. The one I will proudly reflect upon for the rest of my life as my alma mater, my shepherd. Somerville School opened in this then-sleepy town of Noida in the beginning of the Eighties. Nevertheless, its roots appeared to me a century older. It was its matronly and benevolent attitude, a tepid yet intense connection that has always borne in me. The shy, shifty and careless school kid comes back, and will continue to do so. Its one shrine where I am without myself, where what I have done, or undone is immaterial. Even with curses on my back, culminating into agonies and surfacing frailties , pains or no pains, bliss or no bliss, finding this oasis finds me. Each detail; the kid I bashed up in ninth grade, resulting into my suspension, my horrendous and humiliating quandary, the first social mishap, with a girl also some time around ninth grade, those climbing of the stairs to collect certificates and awards... I heard they have reworked the stage up, now it has one entrance instead of two. As this district attracted more inhabitants, hordes of shoppers catalyzed its industrialization, or typically, the mall-ification and arcade-isation. Somerville advantageously built upon it, and stands a reasonable chance to be declamated for as a fairly prestigious and illustrious enterprise for education. I might never be able to judge impartially though, as I muse upon my almost fastidious compulsion. The structure has changed a bit, the main gallery looks more plush, adding a rather staid disposition to the establishment. They brought up an auditorium, boasted about by many students, including my siblings. The main garden, a verdant quadrangle of grass, bordered by chrysanthemums and magnolias, is the first feature that restores the old image, the way its always been. Even the gardener hasn't changed. His fruits of sweaty labor have developed a bond for each sapling grown in this earth, since it began to be tilled; even to the cursory observer. Where am I now? Fugacious about my bearings. Searching for a platform to stand on, so that for once, my limbs are not flailing for support.



Its getting brighter now, and the birds chirp incredulously to the rising sun, as if in resentment. A maudlin aura surrounds my immediate space, part because of this inclement climate, part as a reminiscence of those foolhardy and unruly blokes who trudged along this way, ten years ago... Bags on their backs, straps broken for some, but unfettered by this handicap, their light banter used to infuse an euphoria which took twelve years to cease. Heads thrown back, in handsome abandon, disagreements and tiffs were taken into strides, an ass was made out of anyone, without compunction or malice. It was the purest time of their lives. The dirt they kicked, on each other, or by the inconsistent frustration, the hooliganism, the embarrassment because of some fitful event in the class; the dust has settled now and has been carried to another place, another time. Now, only a handful of us eye each other in the same nostalgic hues. In fact, only a handful of us eye each other at all, probably a couple of times in the entire year. I am even hesitant to go back and dust off the old records, redeem lost contacts and invigorate collapsing relationships. So easy it is; remarkably, to turn our backs to what was the mainstay of our lives, in its most crucial phase.



I reached the main gate, and instead of turning my back again, like I have been doing since in the past, I stand and try to assimilate as much as I can in my peripheral vision. The guard comes over and asks me my purpose, I tell him, "Nothing." Something here and there, an oddity, a similarity, a nook here, a corner there, that in a frame makes it an altogether different building, housing another generation, grooming another future. But in another din, a portion of it seems still, bearing prints, our footprints; awaited by the relevant sights to be deciphered. I can see some of the old swings. I can see the surprisingly neglected shortcut from behind the waterhouse, I can see myself crossing that shortcut. I can see everything, in the front, behind the building, underneath in the basement; everywhere. I always had a feeling that some pedagogic entity, some higher authority was watching over my back, whenever I crossed from here.



Perhaps that explains the apprehension. The pillory returns. The tangibility of unconsciousness is inexorable and it outweighs whatever reasons I conjure up. It makes them diffuse to putative and kitschy excuses. I realize that, I am getting late. Like I always have been for the past ten years. I don't know whether work allows my residence here anymore. I may never get to trudge along this strip of asphalt for a long time, or even if I do return, my excursions may be decimated by the haste, which will ensconce me for years to come. I walk till I come to edge of the boundary fencing of Somerville, then after a last glance, strangely barring the rest, limited only till the fence, I think about the attention that they finally have paid to this shrub. It used to be a wilderness in "our times". Now, as a consolation, that pragmatism has surmised for me, are my commitments to myself, and promises and expectations from others.



An undercurrent of relief passes and I think about my destination. It is an old friend's house. A friend from Somerville. I cant return to it, but I can keep it alive in my own implicitly trivial and spoony ways, like a phantom of eternal delight, in thought and belief, in actions and memory, in the present and the past, within and beyond myself... As I walk an empty street, in the boulevard of broken dreams.






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All That Remains...

All this time, when I was there, in an obscure territory, contrary to the zeitgeist, the nostalgia, the homesickness and the forlornness never found a reliable mention in my mind. Perhaps, because I was having both the opposite worlds in such inadequate quantities that I was stranded in terms of my experiences. I couldn't actually draw a parallel between the two. My brevity of stay at any single location took away what should have been a well documented paradox by now. A regular itinerant life, flocking home for holidays, returning in a fortnight, awashed me of any hue, sallow, crimson, ashen; it was a drudgery without a meaning, or even without a realization of its existence. This time however, when I went through the gauntlet, by the end I was swooning within by the same schmaltz like all the other homesick.

Technically escapable, creatively exemplifying, self-glorifying, socially ulcerated, an overall macabre din, that took away more than it could have given to me. But at least I came out with something, something perhaps that might change the way things shine for me, or my presumption, that will make them shine for me.

A malaise crept in, towards the end, which spilled, arbitrarily in the last seconds. I still stand as a loser, as I always have been, but the loss was accounted to my wrongdoings. At least I did something, however wrong, is another concern. Previously, this loser was anointed with the status for passive remarks at the active life that he meekly let past him. My ladle has always been dirty, I knew it. A perfunctory ignorance was a cheap but relevant escape. The escape restored my sanity. It salvaged what I could not, had I given into contemplation. A reckless mental activity, digging over graves and graves, piling over skeletons, heaps of bones, a febrile excavation, and I go until I am tired but still there is no end of the abyss. I had to divide on more plausible and inexorable commitments which had come my way due to my efforts or simply because fate couldn't find a befitting individual at the moment.


I had begun to recuperate. I began to experience a utopia. It seemed, I did not need anybody. I was possessed. Taken away by fascination of the fascination itself probably. There was this secluded yet affluent stigma of knowledge and the will of its pursuit that my nibblings went in never before treaded ways. My speech was broken, my ideas ahead of my thoughts, my speech only voiced Me, Myself and My mind. The 'm' word came across so often, I did not realize. I was adrift from mundanity. Mundanity, an irrevocable qualification that makes one eligible for playing this trite game of the life that awaits my obfuscation.

Solace. Exposure. Solace in exposure and Exposure of Solace. These two paradigms let me forget the harrowing sense of vapidness, a swaying balance that was intermittently telling a sorry tale of dying and letting other die with me. This din began with the first day itself, and I recovered. The aliter was no less insidious, but at least it allowed my activity, my metal movements in directions.
Its over, I don't know whether to be glad or feel demented. I brought back something that started as a fever, and continues as a flu. All I hope is to replace the metaphors.

A Mid Winter Night's Dream

The light bulb flickers, inscrutably so, since it was implanted in its socket. Its impaling glow, rendered an apparitional stupor to all immovable objects in the room, except one. It didn't seem lifeless, but the incessant breathing, rather heaving in whoops of air didn't make it look any ruddy either. As the world knew her, was the perfect teenager around. Bright, performing respectably in academics, a lucrative sportsperson, a livewire in the spendthrift and ebullient community in which she was popularly designated by a nickname. All boys desired her, but were hesitant, even the most gallant ones. She was what many men and women fantasized their kids to be. All her teachers and friends believed, it was almost an obligation for her to make it into the the top tier institutions. Day or night, from the dawn to dusk, she was always occupied. Whether it was her friends, to whom, she could only helplessly justify herself, if she wasn't into a position to answer their calls, or was it for her infinite engaging assignments, mere betrothing to which was a matter of adulation, a dementia was almost unimaginable for her.



It was like two different worlds, and she was on the top of this ever moving, transient and a highly prospective one. Risible, lively, prudent, sagacious. Silence, schmaltz, diffidence and Roxenne were like antonyms. Then what could have brought about such a catastrophic turn to a potential life, a promising prospect, which outshone its peers, shows those inimitable sparks of brilliance, but now only to be decimated by self doubt and myopia.

She basked under the aegis of her conscience, her incisive imaginations which brought about an evolution in her creative persona acclaiming her in spheres of creative scrutiny.

A hiatus. A period of ennui, where she groped seamlessly, one cliff after another towards what she could scrape today. It was a gap, where she was no more a dweller, but felt like an intrusion, an upsetter of conventions. Was she being a blowhard, a crummudgeon? Who did not want to submit to circumstances, and being a slave of destiny? How could the world do this to her? Taking away from her, in which she so firmly believed in, in the gravels of which were her very seeds of existence were sown? People said, she was getting too impersonal with her personality, that was what she was reviled with, that it was all a glitzy translation of her weird and often wicked thought. But of course, there was her, who was still unfettered by this laceration on her very core of intellect, that these people around denoted by arrogance! Shallow? Probably, but who started caring about the people? Was it one of the olden days, when there was a sunshine that greeted her each day, and shone on her distinguished way?

Today in this pall of darkness, she recalculates, but challenged by her own self. To futile, too squeamish and spoony did these reflections seem. Taking this course was tantamount to mocking her life, where she was desperate, where she was the stranger in her own story. "How could they?" She begins to perorate, to herself, but her words hang in the air, looking for a culmination, and the paucity of words hamper her even more. "Is this it?" she babbles in another gasp. Her throat choking, garroted by guilt.

But in all this mental upheaval lies a sense of loss, a remorse. Of losing out to time, to world and to those cardinal wheels of truth, axles clicking each moment towards a definition. "No!" This cant be the definition. This is not me. This is an illusion, "How can I poison myself? But are they wrong? For how long am I losing out on people. Its been a while, sure. And all this while, I was lost in translations, connotations, debauchery... could it?" Her hair flow down in black streams onto her shoulders, a generous flock of them entangled in her palm. Her head is in her hands. Through her constricted peripheral vision, between strands of hair falling onto her face, she sees the light bulb. Her folks wont be back by tomorrow, and behind them this house which inhabited a convivial gathering, also was home to a secret. The fall of Roxenne...

The light bulb. Was it in its hands to provide a sustained glow? What was faulty, itself or its socket? How long could it carry on like that before fusing into an unquiet stillness. Such a state, made her go crazy. On her face was a tight snicker, lips pursed back in fatigue, of memory...

This defiance, was characteristic of her, or at least she thought that it was. She credited this to many of her achievements, albeit in the context of a din, where she was much below par of her previous self. A resplendant future, now perilously lies in the hands of a few opinions and rejections, the same ones which made it look prolific and fecund. How could such self-righteous bastards have their ways in people's lives, and in it, my life? Such revelations, she felt, made her a fugitive in her own life cycle. A scavenger, looking for inspiration. To look in her own self, she cant, for she is deterred, that she could only spiral down into doom since inside its a cohesion of senselessness and bigotry.

Now what? What could she do? A deafening silence now moored her lips, that felt the heaviest when she wanted to speak something. Now that chance feeling subsumed benevolence. Philanthropy? Did she deserve the title? The gnawing sense of refusal preempted that flair of speech that once illuminated her persona, or the lack of it right now.

Ignorance is what led her thus far. Now it'll be the same, but the subjects would change, and ignorance will be the one that will lead her forward. Her future in her own eyes, ensnared in ambiguity, she minces her words, under her breath, "I ignored, therefore I was. I'll ignore, and I hope will be..."