Afterall, the stories have been told before...

Stories. They are of all kinds. Some finish with a ‘The End’, some others with a ‘happily ever after’. Some others, fade away, some into oblivion, even. While some others, have peaks, of extremes. And at one such extreme, where you never expected them to, they suddenly, abruptly, come to a close. Some others, stare at you, in your face, while you’re too busy turning pages, and then, one bright morning, are over, just like that; just when you started noticing the crisp beginnings. Some others you thought wouldn’t make a good read at all; yet they turned out to be some of the most captivating chapters you came across. 

Yet some others, never ended... because you never gave them a closure. You, particularly, did not give them a closure, or a beginning, for that matter.  As you watched them bloom from a birds eye view, you knew, all the while that they wouldn't have one. Yet, you, silly you, wanted it, all of it; a beginning , a body, a closure even, if it came to that;  wanted it with all your heart, sometimes, so clandestinely that you did not open it upto anyone but to the most imperceptible recesses of yourself. There, where you affectionately stored all those silly anecdotes, those that you did not tell, only smiled at, like a mother does at her naughty kid, when no one is looking. And all the  while, you acted wise. To you, and to everyone around you.  Perhaps, because that was the only way to preserve the charm. Perhaps, because that was the charm about them. Pristine, yet so decrepit. White, yet so grey!

PS: Eccentricities! Once! 

Later, disappear.

Essentials. Bare essentials

You, me.

A lill scattered here,

A lill brimming there...

Captured,

Escaped still!

A  twinkle of a star

Far away,

Momentary. Tempestous.

Uncanny still.

Unreliable, at best!

Omnipresent.

Spark. A fire.

Light a lamp,

Shadows, the sign of life.

Ever flickering!

Keep still. 

Later, disappear.

...

De-toxing

One of those times, when the duality of the necessity and the simultaneous futility of your own existentialism weighs down upon your heart...the kinds that wrenches your heart...Yes, so this is yet another one of those posts from the lower rungs of levelheadedness...

So yet again i've some questions, that i need to throw up into the void, not particularly in the hope of attracting an answer...but because they become toxic if they stay inside for too long. 

Hence yet again, I wonder why it is always elusive concepts that we want to, and hence try to capture. Tch! The very basic follies of human nature! What you cant have is always what you want, inspite of your better judgement and better knowledge.Happiness for instance - sometime the whole conscious effort to look for happiness defeats the whole purpose.

What makes me happy? The rain does, i know...so does the sound of the sea...and the soundlessness of the hills..

A dear friend and me, have had this discussion often...'dukhobilashita' she calls it..i love how the word sounds...the sound of melancholy...:) At those times, we are left questioning yet again, the meaning and implications of several intricacies of life, and the drama they inherently unfold in each of our lives, differently, yet so alike. That is when we play old songs, rummage through memories and end up talking about the futility of the reminiscing... yet the indulgence, is very endearing.

These are times when i have specifically selected a set of songs to be on the loop, and each of those makes my shoulders droop and my eyes brim.. the necessity and the inherent futility, making so much more sense then! 

But at these times, at these strange hours, as shadows cast their shadows in my mind, creating an indistinct shape here, another familiar one there, i cant help but wonder. What is it that we are actually looking for...love, money, peace, satisfaction, God-likeness? What is it? What do each of them really even mean? One who has been there, will hardly be able to explain and one who hasn't will hardly be able to comprehend. So the point is lost in trying to make it altogether. I often wonder that perhaps in seeking happiness we drive her further away, shirking away in the corner, where she stays put, till suddenly at a very opportune moment, she catches you unawares and lights up your heart. And sadly, then in the blink of an eye she disappears, leaving a sweet-bitter taste in your mouth..

I see some among us, play along, play along with life... and how it gladdens my heart to see the ease and the warmth with with they accept and embrace life.Whatever it brings, without questioning. How i sometimes wish i were one of them. One story has to end, for another to begin and then that too will end to make way for yet another. Yet again, you will go through an upheveal of emotions and yet again tides will rise and ebb, till they move on to another coast... then, you too will move on to yet another coast for yet another capsule of time..lap up the warmth of experience and yet again wander off..

Yet, the effort seems so much...

Sometimes i give a thought to how much i indulge myself..my wants have always taken precedence over my needs, sometimes even over my common sense. If you dont crave something, you will hardy ever enjoy it when you have it..and hence I've never been someone who has denied herself access to her wants...if it has been anywhere within my reach, i have usually reached out to it..sometimes, even inspite my better knowledge. At these times the feeble voice of the sensible woman trying to make herself heard has mostly been ignored. For an idealist, romantic, practicality has hardly ever held any attractions. Unfortunately, but, the ease of non-attachment has always eluded me. I've always had a favourite book, that i've carried with me, wherever i've gone. I've always had a best friend. I've always had that nightsuit i cant do without. This however seems foolish when you know that someday your nightsuit will become unuseable, a different book will become your favourite, leaving behind the faint fragrance of memories.

Distractions help. Bum-bay in that respect is a blessing. There'll be a dearth of the lack of distractions if you choose wisely, and hardly the other way around. I've been back here almost a month now and i've been breaking habits. I've always had the knack for things at their face value. They say, that even the foolish-est of us, learn with time and experience..

Nevertheless, this time the city has been far kinder to me..maybe its just the lull before the storm, maybe its compensating for the last time..who knows..i'm sure the answers will come to me...with time and experience...One thing though that has not much changed about this city is that it still is a very lonely city..i miss a particular warmth in the air that Calcutta always wore as a shawl. Inspite of being the most populated city in the country, with people and hence illegit constructions popping up their innocent heads from every corner, the city leaves you feeling very alone ...Then too people help, unless you have already found home. Home, again, has always eluded me, though i've never lacked a place to rest my head. I've been looking for those niches here that you need to have in every place, those where contentment is inevitable...some i've found, some i still am to... time and experience yet again..

These are times when you know the airbubbles will burst. Yet you put so much effort into making each..you want them to be beautiful till such time they pop and nothing remains. And all the while you have known they would. Afterall amidst pine trees, they never would have lasted. Made a pretty picture..absolutely, but of course you knew, they would burst. Some of them even before they were fully formed. Why then inspite of the wisdom, does the heart look for that something that your mind already has some ten very good reasons not to have? Then why the craving for chocolate, when its only gonna make u fat! At these times, this blog is my dearest friend; this and the other. Usually then, i try and disappear far far away from all the persons i know. I resort to all the 'people' in my life instead... Ambivalence and the people who stand for it. De-toxing! Some among them, again, if you have chosen wisely, become persons too. Rarely though.

Not that i do not reach out to those closest to me, but those are mostly the need for attention and validation. And more often than not, a phase that leads upto this one. Attachment, and the expectations that follow are of desire that grew out of one of the solemn, hardly noticed nodes. Its time i gave the whole tree a proper pruning! Somethings are just not meant to be, and they wont. Some others, even if they were meant to be, wont. Because you live in a world that is as real as it gets. There are accidents, heartbreaks, heartaches, losses, failures...n then u get up and run again. In midst of the rat race, if you see another fragile image somewhere, you strain to keep your eyes off.. Your cozy cover of the land of happiness, where in the midst of Neverland you actually hold the dreams of forever still breathing in the fragrance of freshness, will remain, just that. Your Cozy Cover!..the one you could slip into at your own will, however it is also the one that never made any promises of reality. You just played along, in search of the land of the hills, while the mirage kept shifting further and further away...

And yet again my music player chooses to play 'Annie's song'...well, i think i'll put this on the loop now..

Have you ever wished you lived the song? 

One of those afternoons

Its one of those afternoons..one of those rare ones, when the implications of the passage of time, hardly mean anything. You could lie in your skin, fuelling scattered thoughts in your mind, and smile for no reason. You are a content you.

I've missed these afternoons for a while, where you're smug and satisfied...you romanticize the songs, sit and soak in the serenity of this peasant afternoon, from the recesses of your dark house. Write a word here, another one somewhere there! Hog on some pizza in a way that would make a pig look like it had cultivated refined table manners.

One of those afternoons that you had forgotten to catch upon while walking.
Every now and then you should get off the road, stop at the side-walk and have a smoke. And enjoy it. Catch up with yourself before you yet again, take the road and keep walking!
One of those afternoons..

Habits and the likes of them!

Most things that you have grown a sense of familiarity with, eventually change, be it for the better or worse. Along the way they expect you to get accustomed to it. If not, simply accept it. Eventually you will get comfortable with the change and wham! before you know it, you are faced with yet another paradigm shift, yet again! However, as is the irony of existence, there are certain things you do want to change. And they are the ones that seem to stick with you. For the sake of making it sound better we call them 'habits'.. and for the sake of those of us, who make excessive use (read misuse) of the habit of habit, we add an adjective and call them bad habits. And pledge to get rid of them. At least try to. Or to the very least we want to. Or so we say!

Most 'bad habits' however, seem to give 'change' a tough time. The only adversary perhaps that has actually challenged change and more often than not, won! For once its mighty manoeuvres fail to imperceptibly spread its shrouded wings and catch your now-almost-second-nature unawares. This is the other end of the spectrum infact, where you  actually have to strive, to even bring about a minute change. And once you are caught offguard, wham! ur habit-friend stares right back at you, even smiles...the impish, crooked one. 'I told u, all that effort was futile'!

We usually find it so difficult to embrace change, as we know it, precisely for that reason. Because we don't know what we will chance upon. After all, no one likes being thrown out of their comfort zones, to be faced with a new idea of survival altogether. Even if you don't like what you have now, at least you know. And knowing can be a very very cozy feeling. And i say that inspite of myself. Inspite of my almost uncanny knack for newness. Familiarity can still be very comforting.

Hence we keep reverting to our habits. Good, bad, ugly...all of them. I've seen a lot of relationships hold through for a few years longer, before they actually crumpled to dust, simply because two people had become a habit to each other. Now that's not a bad thing as long as there are more reasons. However, when the habit is the only reason, that's when the alarm bells start sounding...and i have witnessed them wreck havoc in many a people's lives. Its mostly because you know what you are coming home to. Most not-so-happy marriages have stuck through because of the same warm-cozy familiarity. Even if you came home to the most insinuating fight, you still came back home as you had known it, when you left. People have stayed on with the same job, in the same city, in the same house for the very same reason, inspite of all odds! As much as i like newness and the thrills of not knowing that it brings as perks, i still can relate and somewhere perhaps crave that familiarity too. And have mostly held on to it, till it has gotten the better of me! And it mostly has...

Like a friend says, those of us who have chosen the open roads over the comforts of homemade waffles, hardly have the luxury of settling in.

Sometimes, when i sit back and think, i'm amazed at how much we put up with because its simply simpler that way. Than to acknowledge change; and worse still embrace it. As a child i remember i'd be surprised how my parents would complain about the potholes, yet take the same road to work everyday. The road not taken' was afterall, just that! We complain and yet grudgingly go back to what we know we will complain about. A bad job, a sour relationship, a leaking house, unkind friends, pot-holed roads, shitty governments, all of it. It took 35 years for India's once-upon-a-time most intelligent and politically active state to figure out that authority needed to change hands. Not that it did much good, but that's another story altogether! And with all the hullabo that we do about wanting a better life you'd have thought we'd know better. We are  perhaps the only of God's creations that resist change so badly. All other creatures of Nature, are far more in tune with the idea, that God's most intelligent creation inevitably strives to shove into the attic, behind closed doors, and then put heavier boulders against it...lest it come out!
Afterall, denial, has always been an intelligent concept!

I've put up with bitten-unshaped nails for as long as i can remember. Its only today that i put nail-paint back on again. Just so that i stop!

The post that i want to come back to...

25th March 2012
As yet another journey began...

Everyone has a story, however long or short or simple or twisted it is each of us has a story. And the story changes with each moment we live, with each new life we embrace, with each decision we make. And while the road not taken is as alluring as you can imagine it, you would never know. Yes, given a chance, I would come back and take all of those roads not taken, alleys shied away from, narrow, devious yet enticing paths abandoned at the last minute for cleared, broader motorways, but not just as yet.  In the last 24 hours I’ve completed a book, watched a movie, all of which talk about the same thing...am I done yet? You would think so!

I’ve deliberately kept away for the last few weeks. I’ve had so much to say that I have not known how to prioritize. Choices have figured prominently throughout. Some made consciously, some others just seeped in. In another few hours from now, I shall be in a different land, a city that left me lost the last time around. This time hence, I am a little more prepared. I know that I’d hardly chance upon an acquaintance each time I stepped out, that my closest friends are not only a phone call away, I can’t run back to the comforts of home each time I feel like hiding. But this time I know this too that the city is more than the romantic mirage of rain on the Marine Drive. So much more…but having said that, I’m not admonishing it as a bad thing! We all need to know how to hold your head up and smile, while your tear glands are swelling, how to brave the lack of familiarity and make your own, how to live amidst the chaos and still not become a part of it, and also become a part of it and yet not lose yourself amidst it. It does another thing, this whole hauling yourself to unfamiliar territory…gives you courage and faith in yourself like nothing else does. When you know you are on your own to get your shit together, there is nothing else you do better!

I have lots to look forward to. A relatively new city...not familiar grounds any longer, with new challenges, with a new rhythm, and the ever so elusive ‘Bumbay Spirit’…I hope to catch a wheeze of it this time around, if nothing else at least a brief glimpse. If not, this time I know I will have tried J

Kolkata yet again, continues to have that thread of attachment, each time in its own charming ways. Sometimes it sends a chill down my spine to see the way she smiles each time I leave, as though she knows better! I don’t know, if she does, I can only speculate. But one thing that I know, at this point, is that I needed to do this. For the sake of finding the me, as I knew her.  The quirky, happy traveler, who was not so caught up. And while a friend claimed that inspite of being quirky I’ve always wanted a home to base my quirk from, I guess I still am looking for that home, one that did not have so many tangled cobwebs…In trying to settle her own dilemmas, I unfortunately was almost on the verge of giving her up somewhere. I remember just days ago two very close friends were engaged in a friendly travel-anecdote-sharing-repartee, at one point I remember congratulating one of them with ‘I’ll give that to you’, but somehow suddenly while watching Julia Roberts glide through landscapes and people in distant unknown lands in search of the uncomprehended, the memory just came back to me. And strangely I could not remember what I wanted to give it to my friend for; what he had said and done that I had then found so applaudable. That is possibly when I realized that I’d been too caught up, with everything around me that while I still advised some closest to me to stop and breathe, I myself was hardly doing that anymore. Complications happen, to each one of us, some of us are just left caught up in them and complaining about them, while at some better times, we decide to do something about them. It was one of those moments when I decided to come back to this city that never sleeps. And as the rhythm of the train sank in, I got my share of the peaceful sleep...till before I step into the chaos.

This long train journey helps me realize, how much of me I had been missing. I’m the one who smiles for no reason, not the one who is cranky for no reason. I’m quirky not scared. I have always embraced the roads, inspite of the knots in my stomach; why then was I so afraid?

Braving myself and knotting my shoelaces firm…till such time again, like a dear friend recommends I too shall keep walking...

Momentous!

Entangled the vines rose
Etched within each other
Guarded by the shadows of the day
Embracing their warmth
When the world looked the other way

Every yearning, each crave,
Every little sigh
Every game lost and all those played
Some walk, some fleet by
Only unseemingly fueling
each yearning, every crave, all those games played!

The decrepit remains
The nondescript essence
And then the momentous intense glint...
Of the secrets unkempt
And stories aplenty
That built them, killed them;
Harmed, but was yet endearing
Here a moment, and then not
Like the wrinkled skin
That stood witness to the ravages of sand and time...

maybe in another lifetime,
maybe, yet again, in another lifetime!