VICEROY of the 21st Century

As they say, HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF!! Yes it really does. This time it is with the Modi Sarkaar.
After 67 years of Independence, we stand at the same foot of the ladder, barefoot without moving up the trail a bit. About 200 years back, it was British who sat that bait of delusive and cheesy promises. They sat bait of progress and development for us 'Gullible Indians'. And we got deceived by them. Merely one move of theirs and we got laid by their troops. It takes real clever master minds to fool a cradle of varying races with different spectrum of parables and mindsets. And history has witnessed we suffered real horrendous acts for a long stretch of time.
Corruption is like a termite, it penetrates deep into the layers, thereby hollowing it from inside and since Independence till date we Indians have been fighting for white collared leaders who free us from such termites.
Our longing for a corruption free government was quivering the nerves since past many decades. A party of a COMMON MAN. When our minds were terrorized by sheer stark darkness of corrupted society, a light of hope was lit up by the Jan LokPal Bill.
The government we always talked of , we have been aching for, that savior was for us to serve. But it has left our doors seeing them wide shut.  Alas, we Indians are imbecile people. We chose a tyrant over it. That tyrant who over shadowed it by his cheesy talks and few lofty promises and then sufficed it with some million dollars.
Hitler, Zia ul Haq, Mussolini, they all infected the mob with the Messiah syndrome and had won with wide margins and so is our Modi Bhai. They all were charged for genocide and humans rights violations and so did our New Bhai.
We jeopardized the entire nation in a hope that this time Lion may give up its natural instinct.
I feel pity for the largest democracy of the world.
This is certainly not a victory of their truth and veracity; rather how successfully they had brain washed the masses, how talented they are at gambling the cards. Modi is their triumph card, they played it nicely.
Celebrate your Black day India!
Welcome the Viceroy of 21^st Century!
Celebrate India! 

Blood on the Tracks

‘Coming down..coming down.. coming down..

Spinning round..spinning round.. spinning round..

Looking for myself..sober..’

Darkness accompanies still with its own abdicating bitterness. An enigmatic lullaby seems to threaten that apprehensive shadow, seems to besiege me with its yearning. Happiness seems to have blacklisted me forever, bag packed n left for an everlasting holiday..!Even if u take d back seat in the game of accentuating your presence in this satirical funny lil advent called life, solitude will beat u down with its compelling voidness, it wont let you breathe, emptiness feels like thousand blades slaughtering u all over, solitude rips your flesh apart..It asks for d last whiff of life alive in u….

Walking down the lane, in d cold streets thinking bout where i may have gone wrong..why mahn why have i lost my bloody heart strings..?

I could feel its serene scorn behind as i passed d dim lanes of d winter night, nostalgic memories playing round in my blood stream blinding me with its bleakness. In some terrible stupid reflex, rather rashness i would suddenly try to break free, try to set fire to everything that still was mine, or attempt to hide away from all eye-sights in hampering awkwardness. It feels like i have no existence, i’m invisible, disappearing into d fine mist, with d progress of days becoming more unheard n unseen than ever..Perhaps i do need to seek for some stupid mental help, someone who’ll exasperate me saying i’m not doing good in terms of a normal functioning human being, but that i will be soon, as soon as the pills start hitting..!

I know i’m in touch with reality, my life is a dusky well highlighted with cimmerian darkness, and i’m falling deep down into dis devouring well, i’m falling forever..Love blows past you gently keeping up with the rhapsody of the windy night, whispers profound odes of narcissism, killing me softly with its malice..

You stay awake for hours wanting to see no one, to keep absolutely alone, to turn off all the lights in your room, n to take shelter under the covers, all blinds drawn.. occasionally maybe u break down in exhilaration, the maddening confinement making yu laugh to craziness, till u break down crying like u did as a child...

I would store up all sorrow n remorse for d weekends, it would jostle up inside, i’d take refuge in a smoke maybe n i’d feel like i’m fading away too with the smokiness capturing me from all sides..I’d shut down my world or try to do so, i’d crawl up to d stairs n hide in its gloominess, sometimes pop in some sleeping pills dry trying to sleep off till i felt better..its swallowing me up with its hunger n voracity in and out, circumscribing my life with its dim n dusky eclipsic flickers, a damnable perplexity..I found companionship in my black  revlon kohl, i would put more n more the more depression gripped me with its harshness n the more i got abashed of myself n of my presence, of being forsaken n outcast’d.. I started doing my stone black eyes dark and more darker like those of lifeless n cold all the way. I was determined to hide all imperfections, to hide all those exhausting mental maladies n pain that thoz eyes easily showed when undone, almost to deny those benumbed, sardonic tears of nostalgia and of suppressed guilt that was otherwise cynical..!!

Perhaps my firm belief in fairy tales that I've grown up with had something to do with this muddle i was trapped in..I've always fallen for the wrong people,  they were doz who’d not wear black all the time nor would they reveal their flaws or would they have black hats on their bloody heads that could indicate me of their devilish potency, but well. .they r indeed the ones who’d have shiny, glamorous hair and an enchanting voice n sharp eyes who cud manipulate you and lead you away to swerving pathways….

Cold fell my solitary tears piercing through within, undying, washing away my face, eye-sight reduced to vagueness, hallucinations blurring up before my bizarre eyes, and in the scorching, twitching rays of d first sun i cud see the devil come riding to my door, the sound of his horse whips sounded like a pack of hound dogs lurking at me, and i stood electrified in shock and awe amidst the wide vast meadow in the April sun..! Along with his arrival, darkness seemed to follow his shadow, i had to run away from this pain of salvation, i couldn't afford to give in to savageness and hostility again..!I wanted to die, dying seemed a better alternative to giving in to his devilish aversions..

I know i’ll die, my eyes will entwine and close like the last kindle of the dusk, it will hinder me from this present pain and slowly i’ll perish away from all minds and my presence will be lost in the wind, and the stars in d night sky accompanied by an enigmatic melancholic aura and an intoxicating smile of nocturnal mystery shall remind no soul of me any more.. In the hide-n-seek of life, i’d sneak away from all souls and can never be found again..!I’d hideaway in the mist, amidst anarchy and perplexity, my love too dying a natural n replenish death.. because......

You’d give your life

You’d sell your soul

But here it comes again

Too much love it’ll make your life a lie..

And it’l kill you in the end..

THE MIRROR CRACKED FROM SIDE TO SIDE

PROLOGUE: She had thought the studio would keep itself;

No dust upon the furniture of love. 

Half-heresy, to wish the taps less vocal,

The panes relieved of grime.      (Adrienne Rich: Living in Sin)

Slash!

The mirror shattered to a thousand pieces. And with it her ‘Mon’.

She folded the purse and slipped it away in her jacket pocket and swept away the pieces of crystal glass with her feet to one side of the winding road she was on. She wore converse shoes since she was out for her midday walk, lil’ Nero in his blue two-wheeled baby carrier exclaiming now and then, the sun never failed to amaze him. It had a hypnotizing effect on both_ mother and son. With a sweep of her left foot, she cleared the remaining pieces of glass away from the road. To the weeds and shrubs that grew carelessly beside the road, to the greens no one cared to take care of or even look at when they passed. Mon flew back to the greens and dirt of the side-way unwilling to let the eyes off from the crystals glittering in the light of the strong afternoon Sun. She dragged the two-wheeler to the footpath and stopped to rest. Nero couldn’t be happier. He talked to the Sun and to the inanimate objects all around, unhesitant.  It didn’t seem to matter whether they responded or not. He had to talk and that was all. Mon closed her eyes. Nero when he talked with that lopsided smile of his on his face he looked very much like his daddy, Querida.

Walls painted bright yellow. Posters and portraits all around. Four-poster bed. Three-legged ragged leaning table used for meals. Bathroom colored stalking red.

And, THAT mirror.

That mirror at the sink with the cracks left unattended to.

Perfect.

The perfect contented marital life but with a few cracks that had started appearing between the two left unattended to like the cracks on the mirror for long.

The unshaved drooling face in the first light of the dawn.

Didn’t Nero look so much like him during his first feed of the day?  

The listening to cries of birds from the distant sky, fingers in fingers.

Nero loves the birds too. Lying down in his Mum’s chest, together they would listen to the birds sing in delight in the early light of the dawn after his first feed.

Eyes to the ceiling painted chrome yellow. Yellow: the color craved by both.

The distant ringing of the telephone in the background of a perfectly satisfying time in bed.

The woes and fears of the Mum’s (Mon) Maa crashing down in the empty apartment once he leaves. Followed by guilt, a moment of thoughtfulness, then indecision and then—the framed photograph of the twinkling eyed Querida by the telephone letting the receiver fall from her hand back to its stand after ringing not more than thrice.  And then the cloud clears.

The sudden unexpected buzz of the bell startles all souls in the empty apartment, living and dead. Querida has returned home early to give company to the melancholic ‘Mon’.

Dinner of noodles and beer. Strawberry ice-cream. Gold flake. Late night movie.

Fulfillment of insatiable desires. Promises made. (kept..?) And broken.

Then some of John Mayer. Curtains drawn. The eyes close and with it the world dies.

Blankness. No parallel world. No dreams. Dreams they’re light years away. No way.

And then, a new Sun.

“Whispers and small laughter

Between leaves and hurrying feet

Under sleep,

Where all the waters meet...” (T.S. Eliot: Marina)

The world is born. Eyes open and look for Querida’s blatant face, stare at it for 5 long minutes and she ran for the bathroom.

There. This was the end of yet another child. This: her second miscarriage. 

Then, life would go on after few weeks of disbelief and despair.

It didn’t matter he’d said.

Life went on smoothly until one day the cracks could be seen way too distinctly in the bathroom mirror_ and looking at the faces of the weary Mon and her dissatisfied Querida seemed such a disgrace.

Querida was in love. Again.

And this time with a lady who could satisfy him to the fullest and better still get pregnant within 2 years of their living together.

“A miscarriage is a natural and common event. All told, probably more women have lost a child from this world than haven't. Most don't mention it, and they go on from day to day as if it hadn't happened, so people imagine a woman in this situation never really knew or loved what she had.

But ask her sometime: how old would your child be now? And she'll know.”  ― (Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams)

And she knew too. Though she was pregnant for the third time. She knew by then, one would be two and the other one and a half years old. If only, they survived.

Mon returned to Central Avenue once more. The divorce papers felt heavy in her duffel bag. She could tear it to pieces and watch them burn out one by one and cry over it sitting on her knees till she felt better. She could run back to the bathroom and look for once at the forbidden looking glass, staring straight in her eyes. Try to figure out what exactly in that glass made it look so cruel like it did at that moment. She knew.

The glass it had her life written all over it. It had 8 years of her life in it. It held Querida’s face so close to hers that her ‘Mon’ couldn’t sneak away from it. It had the queer eyes of his looking right into her. Right under her clothes.

The glass had its own way of reminding her of the bits of her he’s left with him. And the pieces of her he’d left scattered in filthy grains of roadside dirt in Park-Street, in the empty shampoo bottle in the bathroom stack, in the stark silence of the room at night, in the absence of the creaking noises of the bed in the ringing of the telephone now reduced to just 2 rings.

It was her. It was her all along.

The wedding. The wedding against Maa’s wishes. The bus to the 64/1 Ballygunge place residence they’d bought together. Ticket to Gangtok for the honeymoon. And then, the baby. All the babies’ infact. It was her all along and still is. She carried him in her everywhere. He was a part of her she would never deny. She would break the glass into pieces; let the shattering noise it made madden her to insanity. Break down on the bathroom floor and cry over the broken pieces letting the mascara laden tears make a trail on the slippery floor cry over Querida of some other time.

Then she would feel him inside her, a soft kick. She would get up. Put on the kohl. Then the mascara. Get a new mirror. Put it up again and then. Get a life.

This was the start of a new beginning.

“I imagine this midnight moment’s forest.

 Something else is alive, beside the clock’s loneliness...

 And this blank page where my fingers move…”   (Ted Hughes: The Thought-fox)

The wails and cries of midnight. The nocturnal noises.

She sat up. Fed little Nero. Rocked him back to sleep. And sighed.

Sitting up on the pillows she stared at her boy all night with kohl-lined eyes, a ray of hope twinkling in the iris as they watched.

The world never died. The mirror never cracked. And the ‘Mon’ was alive.

And so was the world.

The little boy who lied on his back sucking his left thumb in his sleep could make his Mum proud of everything she’d ever done in her life. Proud of the life she’s lived. And prouder still of the life she was living. Thank the Almighty, the Mother of all mothers, for the mighty heart she was born with_ for being able to bring a child to the light of the world and believe in children in spite of her many failures.

A child whose every inch of porcelain skin and whose letting in and out of breath breathed the strength of a woman of all women. And the cowardice in men.

In some men unfortunately in all men that she’d seen in a lifetime.

EPILOGUE: Its like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always.     All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.  (Patrick Roth fuss)

Understand Me

You do not understand me and dare not try.
I confuse you a bit but you don't know why.

I seem so happy..."How can that be?"
my image is shown as oppressed on t.v.

All you've been taught was so real to you;
I am proving different..."Now what to do?"

Do you keep believing in that image you "knew"..
or try to understand this from my view?..

I am sane, I have a mind and please do not call me weak...
I live and love, laugh and cry and i am allowed to speak...

I think for myself, reason and rhyme and am far from being oppressed..
But you're so quick to think that of me simply by how I'm dressed..

This is my choice, my own free will that's why I dress as you see;
so before you judge by what you "knew", come and talk to me.!!