Piano Man

That, which I could not see, deluged me with emotions I thought I could not feel.

That, which I only heard, calibrated my senses to utter these words.

Thy music is my complete joy for it connects all my faculties to make me realize that I am whole.

Negative Space

I held the sphere of this world and remodeled it into a block.

Where there were three perpendicular directions in space in the ball of the earth,

I made infinite radial dimensions that bundled into a rectangular planet.

What difference did these shapes make?

What difference did it make to where I stand, when where I stood was outside the plane of actuality?

None at all.

Except then, when the radius corresponding to the fourth dimension of time sprang back and forth and blew up the universe into fragmented points.

Then, when those points got scattered, arose a world of multiple perspectives wherein I was part of that plane, or volume, or multidimensional something.

At that point of radius, the shape did make a difference--

For it ceased to exist.

Mulholland Drive

You are caged within your head

Close your eyes and experience the words within you

Words that your mind does not conceive

Words that are realized by floating letters coming together in front of your eyes

Words that your eyelashes try to obviate

Words that you conceptualize from between them

Words that make up those lines when you read between those lines.

You are caged within your head, for you try to imagine.

Words are not the progeny of your imagination.

They are the only reality.

Remember this day

There is no such thing as keeping your options open. When you know what you want, there are no options. So don’t ever forget who you are, and you’ll never have to take a decision in your life.

Childhood

You know, sometimes when rummaging through old stuff, you find that little guitar or that teeny casio you used to play as a kid. You find a drawing you made with pastels that you remember loving to your heart’s core, because it was the first time you ‘drew’ reflections in the water and were satisfied with the end result. You find your old Enid Blytons and cards your friends gave you on birthdays, and you rediscover this show you used to watch that absolutely changed your perspective on life. And then you realize, you miss being that person. And the saddest part is, you don’t remember when you stopped being it. When did you stop loving every stroke you painted? When did you stop loving every note you played, every word you wrote, every equation you solved?

The answer is, never.

You had just forgotten.

Apocalypse

I want the world to end.

I want to die, but not alone.

I want no one left to feel sadness.

In a way, that is the only way happiness will persevere.

For Love

For love, I thought, will never be,

Love, for another being.

For love, I thought, was not for me

To give, I thought it mine to keep.

Love, like love for notes and words,

Love, like love for strokes and birds,

Love, like love for loneliness,

Love, like love is happiness.

Love, I thought I would not share,

For love, I thought, should not deplete.

Till I found him, who loved my loves,

As though to make my love complete.

The Hand

I walked along his hand, leaving a trail behind.

I started at his wrist, went across in a crescent.

There. I marked his life.

When I reached the edge of his palm, I decided to change direction and inscribe his head.

I’ll make him both creative and smart. Hop along.

There, I marked his mind too.

Then I treaded back to the middle, and decided to make his fate strong.

I showered him with love and luck, yes sir.

But I must carve it onto his thumbs too, just to be sure.

Go round and round and round and round to make sure he’s famous one day.

Round and round and round. I’m tired now.

So I’ll just rest on his thumb.

My eyes start to close,

But then I see myself being taken towards something shiny.

I’m on his thumb all right, but his hand is now on the ground, sir!

He killed himself, sir! He's dead!

But, but I had made his life long..

I had made his mind beautiful..

His head is his, says mine.

 I’m just the fucking hand.

My God

My temple is not thy temple.

It is not adorned by idols of stone.

The walls are not infused with thy God’s power.

It does not look beautiful, but to my mind.

My temple is not thy temple.

It does not concede to thy legacy.

The bells are not warding off evil spirits.

It does not sound beautiful, but to my mind.

My temple is not thy temple.

It does not pamper thy blind faith.

The books do not talk of men immortalized.

It does not read beautiful, but to my mind.

My temple is not thy temple,

For my God is not thy God.

My God is my Lust for Knowledge.

It is beautiful.

Don't be inhibited by who you think you are, because who you wish to be makes who you are, You.

This is my world-

The equator is a mirror.

The South Pole is my past.

The North Pole, my goal.

I am in the Northern Hemisphere, and my reflection in the Southern.

I am walking along the equator.

My Northern fingertips run along my Southern,

And I know that if I keep walking in this direction, I’ll go round and round in circles, and never get to the North Pole.

So I let go off my fingers and tilt 30 degrees towards the Prime Meridian.

But I’m still stuck in this infinite loop.

And this will continue to be,

Unless I lose energy, and spiral outwards,

Or break free, and walk perpendicularly.

Break free.

Time in my head

Here, I think time is stretching.

Here and now.

For if you ask me, time is a wave.

If you ask me, time is going faster and slower and faster and slower,

But you and I feel it as regular, because we can’t perceive it at that level.

To perceive it at that level, we need to move to a city where milliseconds are giants.

To perceive it at that level, we need to feel it exist.

And exist it does, for each cell in my brain signals the other cell in my brain through it.

Those cells know it to be real.

My head knows it to be real.

I’m going to move into my head now.

Lansdowne

A shadow can capture motion. It can feed off of light, and engulf entire hills to leave their traces on the ground.
It moves. It eats. It excretes.

He lives.

A conversation with Priya

“Anyway, it makes no difference to your present. In a sense, that will last a lifetime.”

1.     Why do some people not have ‘best friends’? Is it luck, or is it that individual’s nature, or is it about both parties, ie. the connection?     

      2. Does the soul exist? If it does, is it permanent? Is conscience an aspect of the soul? For conscience does change with outlook and societal impact. If not permanent, does the soul mature with experience? Do people who do what may be considered ‘evil’ have an immature, young soul that will grow with multiple bodies?

        3.  (This is my favourite part) Why do we exist if we have to die?

      Life is like a dynamic chemical equilibrium. If nothing existed, the world would be in a constant steady state. Right now however, we live and we die. We appear to be stationary because we come back to the same point, but we’re not. We are the dynamic equilibrium. Like chemical equilibrium which appears to be steady by virtue of the fact that the forward and reverse reaction rates are similar, we just appear to be steady, when in fact, our life is about what happens in the middle: it is still happening.

      

Infinity

The walls that surrounded me were pitch black, and I could only see a bridge strewn across it, in a nonchalant flow of brick and concrete. Behind the wall was a city full of 24-storey buildings. They appeared to arise from the bridge, stolid from digging their roots into the steel dock. In that brief moment of observation, I felt like I was underground, in a non-existent reality. However, unlike the Ghost of Christmas that observed the world from the skies, I was the Halloween Devil, entrapped in the Earth’s basement, craning my neck to catch a breath of life.

I wanted to get onto that bridge, but I didn’t know how to. Its ends were obscured by the blackness of the wall. How do I find them?

How do I escape to my horizon?

In a frenzy, I began walking towards the bridge. It was easy to lose sight of it, because the nearer I got to the wall, larger seemed the blackness. At a point, I could see my bridge directly above me. Even though that made me feel close to the life above, it concealed the only glimpse of existence I had. It made me think of basic human instincts: of how, when the goal is more visible, the will is stronger.

The most overpowering reality is that which is tangible.

How I wished I could stretch my hands and run my fingers along the glass windows of those buildings! If only I could stroke them with my fingertips, I’m sure I could have garnered enough power to grow a pair of wings and fly into the city of my dreams.

Instead, it was hope I had to hold onto.

The bridge was directly overhead, so I started walking beneath it, in parallel, assuming that that way, I would see when its level starts coming down, and I know I’m nearing my entry into the world above.

But it just didn’t.

The bridge continued to remain parallel to my head, even though I was sure I had walked miles! This struck me as very odd, because from afar, it did not seem that lengthy. Then why did it seem to stretch so?

I concluded that it was probably an illusion. Maybe from a distance, it just seemed shorter. With that in mind, I continued to walk.

And walk. And walk.

And walk.

To no avail.

Tired of this seeming paradox, and fatigued physically as well, I decided to walk perpendicular to my current direction the, away from the wall, in order to view the bridge from a distance and console myself of its finiteness. After walking what seemed like a mile without looking back, I closed my eyes and turned around. When I opened them, I saw the bridge similarly terminable as before! A very eclectic feeling overpowered me, and I did not know whether I wanted to cry or to laugh. Nevertheless, the confirmation enhanced my hope, and I decided to walk at this distance from the bridge, so as to get a continuous view.

When I finally saw the level of the bridge receding, I was overjoyed! I felt like this in itself was an achievement. I started hopping towards the wall again, with a permanent smile on my face, a mark of pride and relief. The joyous stride however slowly translated into a tired stroll. The journey seemed endless. And what was more, I hardly seemed to be getting nearer to the wall!

How could this be?!

I had walked this path two times over, and managed to go to and fro the bridge. What was so different this time? Somewhere inside me, I knew the answer, but my logic defied it. Physical distances were permanent. They could not change with the emotions of the person trying to transcend them!

Rationality is the only constant.

Constant not in this world of three-dimensional infinities, unfortunately, where infinity itself was eccentric. I suddenly realized that that was probably where logic was failing me. When talking about infinities, we are trumping all reason, all definition, and all constancy. And in what is transient, there is no eccentricity. There is only unpredictability.

I sat down. Strangely, this was not because I had accepted defeat. No, my will was still strong. On the contrary, it was because I felt wiser. One must not be oblivious to the truth, I told myself. One must accept it, and then search for a greater truth that encompasses that truth.

Ever-increasing degrees of truth? Everything is infinite, I realized. Especially in a world where infinity is the only truth.

So all I really needed to do was to stretch my hands...

The Binding Problem

I stared into the glass beads.

I watched my million eyes as eyeballs placed on my palm.

I watched as I controlled my vision with an arm’s movement, now to see millions of consummate mes, entrapped within crystal cells,

Fossilized only till I live to see.

I could watch myselves watching myself.

It felt strange to be able to hold my multiplicities in my hand,

To be able to hear my personalities clash unto the next,

and experience all this from a third person’s point of view.

It felt strange to be able to feel myself as inanimate existences,

solidified in a tangible consciousness that I imparted.

I, as a unity, into myselves.

While all they could do was to engender the rays that intersected at a virtual point of their reality.

Me.

Inject

She held the needle on my arm, creating a depression that concentrated my fear to that one spot where the tip was ready to dig into my flesh.

She held the needle of power, the power that glistened in the circumference of the steel.

She held my life, not because that needle was supplied with poison.

No, fear of death is merely fear.

It is fear that is death itself.

And the only fear one must live in is the fear of fear.

Paradox?

Inject.

Of Hope

I cried and gathered my tears in my palm.

I stared at them and wondered what to make of them.

I just sat. And stared.

And stared. And stared.

Till that one day, when they crystallized into shiny little objects of hope.

Perfection

I took a sheet of rubber and painted the world on it.

The perfect trees with streamlined leaves,

The perfect hills, with daffodils,

A perfect view with an orange hue,

Just the perfect life with a comely wife.

And then I stretched the rubber from either side.

What seemed perfect dissipated into elongated nonsense.

The leaves became branches,

The orange got jaundiced,

And my wife grew fat.

And yet, I was happier.

Because I had stretched it to the limit.

This is perfection for me.

The woman in the saree

She looked so beautiful in her blue and gold saree.

Her face radiated like the reflection of the sun in the waves of her pallu.

Her stomach glanced from behind the cloth like a shy bride.

Her curls grazed her shoulders like the fingers of a maestro on his instrument.

Her feet slithered on the ground like naked children on a rainy road.

And her hands stroked her knees to ignite the first sparks of life-

That life that I saw in her eyes,

as she slowly looked up..

Towards me.

How long had I been in love with her?

How long had I been?

Home

I’m home now, and all I want is silence.

Silence that reminds me of all that I felt yesterday, when I looked at that waterfall. The water rushed into narrow crevices, and the bubbles seemed to coalesce right before it was sucked into the vast expanse of the lake. They were lovely bubbles because they reminded me of how people are: how they come from different places and garner just for that brief moment before they are thrown into an unending void of the Future. And as they collide with that edge, they change colour from blue or red or whatever they fancy reflecting, into a pure white enragement that is froth.

Even such simple things in nature connive such paradoxes. It is these intricacies that entangle my coherence. It is the gushing sound of the water, playing in my head over and over, that shushes me and reminds me of the beauty of the unspoken.

I felt like I was home then.

And in the silence of this instant, I am home even now.

Clown

The leaves brushed against the sky,

Perception, no, you never lie.

Flowers bloomed to diffuse the scent,

Reality, I know what you meant.

And then the world went upside down,

Imagination, thoust think I’m a clown.

I am a clown.

The Rain and the Sitar

Follow her as she leads you with her music,

Into her music.

Follow her as the little drops fall onto the neck of her sitar,

Strumming each string with their buoyancy,

Splitting into two by virtue of their feat.

Follow her as they slither along her cheek,

Ending with the crescent of her smile.

Follow her as she quivers in delight,

As they quiver on the gourd.

Follow them as they lead you with their music, into their music.

Fear

It came forth from within me, the light,

Emanating as a wave to the beats of my heart.

Corroding the area between my breasts with its intensity.

It came forth from me, and split into seven,

Diffracted by my imaginary sphere of existence:

The red curved in fury of the severance,

Twisting and writhing around my stomach,

Whilst the violet travelled in search of my savior,

Merging with the skies and calling out to Faith.

I plea to thee.

Don’t let me destroy myself.

Life, the Universe and Everything

Clasp my hand, it did,

With its bony long fingers.

And looked at me with a humanoid sadness.

I didn’t know what to do,

I knew I’d miss it too.

I knew I loved it with more love than I had for anything I’d refer to as ‘it’.

It waved its golden eyeball-things at me,

Vibrating with a sort of pandemonium, as if to hypnotize me.

“You wish to take me along?” I asked.

Its golden eyeball-things did a little dance.

“That won’t work on me, you know.”

It moved its body, sinusoid-style.

“Very impressive, but not enough.”

It groaned a groan for it, a burp for me.

I smiled.

It smiled.

Apparently, those are universal.

And slowly, it released its grasp on my hand.

Leaving red lines charging across my wrist--

With a hint of golden.

Apparently, so is love.

Music

They said I sang well. I used to love feeling the vibrations of my voice against the insides of my throat. More than that, I loved how they were strong enough to thwart the barrier of my skin and palpitate against my palm. That very palm sensed my heart-beat as well, but my sound usurped that sign of life.

It was my life.

I would rather breathe in music.

Flash

I breathed in as he flashed his torch on me.

I could feel my pupil contract at the speed of light, to a dot that drilled through my brain.

I thought it would disappear. I thought the world would.

He turned it off.

I felt my pupil bombard, growing as a web to entangle the remnants of my being.

It spiraled to the boundary of my eye, to seize light from the dark.

I breathed out.

Was I blind?

Or was I dead?

Black with Envy

Tell me, oh White!

Why does the world hate me so?

That when I leave a mark on you, they say I have tainted your purity,

When in fact, I suck into my indelible void, all that attempts to obscure you.

I guard you.

Tell me why the world hates me so, oh White!

That they chose you as the herald of light, the merger of rainbows,

When in fact, I am but your complement, the template of your existence.

I encode you.

Tell me! Make me understand!

Why they adorn me in death, when it is you they saw last, before they closed their eyes to life?

Why they revere you as the backdrop when it is I who outlines their subsistence?

Why I am smoke whilst you are fog.

And then you accuse me of being Black?

How dare you, when it was you who stole the colours from my being.

An Ode to Water

Oh, Water!

You are tasteless, and yet I salivate in your longing.

You are colourless, and yet you deluge my life with vibrancy.

You are odourless, and yet you dissolve my senses.

Your beauty lies in my eyes.

My eyes, they shed you, as an ode to you.

My Line

Inspired by the debate in French art between the 'line' of Ingres and the 'colour' of Delecroix, here goes:

An ivory sheet, and a pencil.

That pencil tempts me, and so I caress it and let it flow between my fingers.

I let it flow on this ivory sheet, hovering at an exact distance.

Contemplating on what figment of my imagination, I will realize today.

I make it stop in an upright position, as does a fearless soldier who is ready to drop a bomb on my command.

It drops a dot.

I let it seek refuge on my index finger, and drag it across the ivory sheet.

Proud of its sacrifice, it leaves a mark on its motherland.

You deserve it.

But alas, the pastels attack!

They extend from one boundary to another, parallel and harmonized in their invasion.

Their vibrancy dissipates laterally, as they appear to move against The Light.

Nevertheless, they smear their power across my ivory sheet.

They overshadow my line.

You did not deserve this.

You are still the Maker of my world.

Disguise

I stand on the surface of water,

Bent.

For if I straighten myself, I might just sink.

My back hurts under the strain of expectation.

I am crying.

With every tear I shed, I hope to lose a morsel of my mass, and hence, afford a degree to the top.

I can see myself in the water.

I can see the blood in my veins getting diluted to tears.

I can see the warm liquid that my eyelid cradles in the guise of a smile.

I am in the guise of a smile.

Freeze and Thaw

I thought I’ll preserve the cell,

So I kept it in cold storage.

I froze life, I stopped time.

It deceived death. I made it.

And then I thawed and thawed.

I tried to revive it,

But it had lost its integrity.

You can’t cheat fate.

As the piano music played, I thought of him

The boundary of the water, slowly receding,

To the rhythm,

Exposing the ground that it had never hidden.

My feet tapping, splashing the little there was,

Drops flying to territories unknown.

A little window on the top,

Radiating a darkness, distraught,

Wind blurring the light, the little there was.

As the piano music plays, I think of him.

A little smile on my face,

A gleam in my eye, an eye I could not see,

An eye I wish he could,

Although, it was as much his, how could he?

The music getting faster,

My feet a haze, their sound, a drone,

A tear in my eye,

Usurping the gleam with a gleam.

As the piano music played, I thought of him.

I miss his face, his voice, his hair,

His eyes.

His lips when he looks at me,

His scent.

His hands on me; on the black and white keys,

Flowing as water, caressing,

He absorbs their effect: clockwork, counter-clockwork.

He absorbs me.

As does music. His music. Him.

He is music to me.

Circle

I stared at the circle that refused to end.

It was deceivingly straight at every bend.

Every point tried to maintain its distance from the arrogance of the centre,

Stringing with the ally at an angle of balanced evasion and synchrony.

Protecting in curved disarray, the beauty of negative space.

And unwittingly,

The Nemesis.

I stared at the circle that refused to end.

It embodied infinity in mere juxtaposition.

Every point experienced an outward force that threatened to appropriate,

Making the circumference vibrate and confuse my stolid vision.

Protecting in unity, the enigma of endlessness.

And unwittingly,

The Truth.

Raindrop

I love the rain. And I love the raindrop.

It swallows the sunlight into its little bubble of oblivion,

And plays around with it as if it were a little ball of gold,

A ball that strikes different spots of the bubble from the inside,

Making it glisten.

But its heat is almost scared of the coldness of the water,

And so it rebounds as soon as it hits,

Repulsed by the thought of striking something so cold,

Yet choosing to stay within, out of respect for the purity.

And so these little drops of gold have a constant upheaval within them,

And yet they stay together because they trust each other.

And when they strike the ground, they grow apart:

The water dissipates into the water,

And the light floats around in it.

And although, they seem to be separated, the truth of it is,

The light is relishing a rediscovered freedom.

And instead of depending, as it were,

It is sharing.