The Sepulchral Voices

So why such sadness i ask
and also with such grace-
Have you ever been so happy and yet so bereaved?
A culmination of all your dreams in front of you,
and a certain numbness longs for your presence.
The eternal rest is not a dream
but the eternal dream is to rest.
You are obscure and so am i.

The old song brings back memoirs,
The old joys give you pain.
Time is an unwanted dear friend
for he shall stay the longest,
unmoved by apathy and without any gain.
Drink the ale and make merry 'ol friend
for thy genesis has only begun.
The fun gods shall soon be dancing with you
and yet ...the old song remains.

Jasmine

It was drizzling yet she had no plans of retiring under the mulberry tree. Jasmine was five and it was her first trip to the village fair. She looked like an angel dressed in pink polka dotted skirt with the golden long streaks dancing in the wind. Her blue eyes sparkled every time someone passed her by, never had she seen so many people together. She saw other kids with their parents and with a smile waved at them to attract their attention, some smiled back, some waved but hardly anyone stopped.

Jasmine knew soon it would be dark and before long she would have to tread her way back to the village but it was not the distance that was bothering her. The drizzle had stopped but the wind was still up at it, the juggler was bored and the clown looked bereaved...she wondered why. She was tired and sleepy now rubbing her eyes and yawning only to look more divine. In another few moments she would be on her way back and she was thinking on those lines when she saw a young couple gleefully heading her way. Their charm mesmerized the young girl but not enough to make her forget what she was there for..."Flowers for the Lady, Sir?"

Religion is...

Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. […] A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men.

– Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects

Birches

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-coloured
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground,
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm,
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows--
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground.He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

.......Robert Frost

Another One Bites The Dust

We are all in the gutter,but some of us are looking at the stars

....Oscar Wilde

You always believed that equality ,brotherhood, culture, religious ethics etc shall take us to the pinnacle, always had faith in the countrys ever increasing GDP,economic development,globalisation...blah blah, always the first to critise the invasions of foreign culture,americanisation of the Indian youth,your kids growing up to Hendrix n Floyd rather than pandit ravi shankar(all due respect to da gentle man).You are an indispensable part of the "Mera Barat Mahan"brigade and a true Indian to the core. I salute thou not for your patriotism but for thy foolishness.
Have you ever asked yourself as to why we have been ruled for over 1000 years by the turks, afgans ,mugals ,persians, portugese and finally britishers? Do you know the history of your country? Do you think freedom was fought for and won..and are you proud of it?....Maybe yes for you are yet to discern the pangs of hunger n yet to discover how it feels to make your kids walk for six kilometers to fetch water because you cant use the village wells for thou are classified as a "harijan" in the religious encyclopedias. People have been baptizing crime in the name of culture since ages and what’s surprising is somehow we still are very proud of the fact. Let me quote Woody allen here” culture is all but an illusion of permanence” Its been 59 years since we got the freedom tag yet we are so underdeveloped relatively when in comparisons with countries like Japan, China, Germany but still the false ego prevails. I would like to highlight the fact that these countries have had a more woeful situation than we can ever imagine but have significantly superseded us in every respect, so stop whining about how we have been exploited by the Britishers and how they looted us over the years. Infact if it were not for them we still would have prevailed in the neo-nendrethal era like Venezuela or Brazil (ofcourse with a sense of brotherhood and respect for elders). I aint any firang sympathizer but the point if that they gave us a lot more than we could ever bargain for like education, rails, telecommunication, constitution (Babasaheb only amended it) etc....which none before them had, and btw what brotherhood are we talking abt?..all it takes is decapitating some prehistoric statue and all we ever learnt in the moral science books goes for a toss.How many more chandraswami n ramdev baba shitholes are we gonna tolerate who claim to cure aids n cancer n suck on the poor n rich alike .These political buffoons have added an all new dimension to democracy with their “Hindutva”, “India shining” , “ a new world for the poor”…lol.. it’s now more like “for the lunatics of the lunatics and definitely by the lunatics”.
Why such feeling of abhorrence thou shalt ask, I guess its more the grief that something that could have been so beautiful has turned out to be so horribly wrong. I only hope(yea hope is better than despair) that u fellas realise that we aint "mahan" as yet n therz still a lot of bloodshed n gore before the final war of freedom is won.

Weakness or Strength????

Well kiran wanted 2 hv a smoke n we landed at anna's tapri at 3.30(night ofcourse). I had this mineral water bottle wid me( fk y me?) n was unaware of da surroundings when suddenly confronted by these two drunk ruffians,one of whom politely asked me for da bottle. Cudnt refuse after i saw another three guys join da binge. Those guys finished more than half da bottle n neva looked like giving it back to me,kiran was watching all this besides me when one asked if he had any problems,which ofcourse he politely declined.......Kiran was waiting for that spark while i was calculating that five on two woudn't do justice to the cause ,we walked away finally (& without the bottle).
Kiran says its was his strength that he refused to be drawn into a brawl wid the drunks. I think we were just not strong enough. I dunno if walking out that night was the right choice but i know one thing for sure....next time i wont calculate.

Garden Chinese(The Place)

Imagine discussing the "Theory of Evolution",The age old questions of life n its intricacies,Vipasna,Night-Falls n karma under a shed of a tin covered Dhaba, where the only people present are the ones who want to forget all about life and its existence and enjoy a drink. Ganti thinks man is not the superior race in this world(he thinks its cockroach cos they have longiveity and can surive a nuclear holocaust)..lol frankly not surprising looking at da intake levels of alcohol. Rahul wants me to do a 11-day course in Vipasana so that i cud understand this world better. Thou are yet to discern that it is not about understanding but LIVINGGGGGG.
Man has stopped living n started existing.You exist by making compromises but you live by making choices. You dont need any Guru,God or God-Damn baba to tell you how to live a happy life, you dont need any 11-day course to understand the path to cosmic enlightment. You are all confused souls in want of a good system and a better listener,its unfortunate that both are a rarity and hence allow thyself to be pounded by the billion dollar industry called as God.


The Bottom Line(by floyd)...."And all you touch and all you see Is all your life will ever be. "

No Mans Land

I went through the names in the cell phone for the last time reminiscing at every pause. My entire life was flashing before me, my childhood, my music, and the girls I loved. Yes I knew I would never see them again and yes I knew I would never hear that ballad again and yet there was this certain numbness which overcame my paranoia. They say you see light when you die, I only hoped there would be some good music too. I was going to be torn from this mortal world and thrown into the …unknown. A journey was to end for certain, but what enamored me was this childhood free-spiritedness to begin another one. I guess one lifetime isn’t enough to love and definitely not big enough to live. Time was effervescing fast but I was unhurried, perhaps caught between the avidity of this world and the alacrity of the one that awaited me.

God

N thats da classic or perhaps shld i say shameful end of da greatest glamdolls( or english mongrels..whatever u prefer) u shall ever see...da world today saw that figo n zidane can still kick some royal butt. Never invoke the gods unless you really want them to appear.It annoys them very much...hala portugal..hala madrid!!!
some vinci dudz once said "ignorance is misleading..O wretched mortals..open ur eyes"

The Wind And The Wave

There exists a story behind each of nature's creations…. a poem in every mortal…. an anecdote behind every Jehovah's genesis. I don't know what it takes to discover these masterpieces but ill find it out someday and when I do please be there to harken.
So here I was without any popcorns or the conventional coke to watch what was to be the greatest movie of my life. Tragic love stories never appealed to me, but then this one was different. This was about the two people who had the audaciousness to change the destiny of every living being; yet enervated and incapable of changing their own. This was the story of the wind and the wave…
Every morning she would wake up knowing he was there…right there overlooking her shoulders to see if she was all right. He would pamper her and caress her all the way to the shore. She knew about his ardency and wanted to turn back and tell him that she loved him too, but that was not meant to be for though they both were always together, they never could be one. They fought like young lovers yet their silence at times imitated the Greek philosophers at work. Her gait was that of a princess marching towards the shore, she was happy for she had found her love yet grieved cause she knew she never could be with him. The wind knew this yet the gentle man that he was never gave up her side for he loved her and wanted to keep her happy till the very end of their journey. The shore is where their journey ends...he moves on while she breaths her last.
. Tragic love stories never appealed to me, but then this one was different.

Jim Morrison

Whenever a hero has been born or passed back into the void, the place is marked and sanctified. A temple is erected there to signify and inspire the miracle of perfect centeredness; for this is the place of the breakthrough. Someone at this point discovered eternity. The site can serve, therefore, as a support for fruitful meditation. . . the shrine or alter at the center being symbolical of the Inexhaustible Point. The one who enters the temple and proceeds to the sanctuary is imitating the deeds of the original hero.

- from The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell

Goa-II

We reached Goa on the 31st afternoon and the joys of reaching a paradise were quickly superseded by the agony of reaching hell. Someone had changed the locks to the resort-flat we were supposed to stay in. Moiz went to sleep in the staircase n within minutes he was snoring, Shetty wouldn’t stop saying f*** and Kiran was too astonished to say anything. They say devils rejoice in agony so it was up to me to go n find a key maker. Kiran like a good comrade (yes it takes guts after a 14 hr non-stop journey) tugged along, we were halfway when Shetty called n said he had broken the lock.
Shetty refused to go to the rave so New Year’s Eve was spent on Vagator beach (later on Baga) were we saw some amazing fire works and then had some scrumptious food. For how long we slept I do not remember but the innervations of waking up to a breathtaking voluptuous beach (n not a bitch) smoothened all our pains. What followed next defines the very purpose of this blog "Joie De Vivre-The excitement of life ". The shack on the beach, Mark knofler in the air, calamari (squid) n some assorted seafood on the platter; honestly I couldn’t have wanted a better afternoon. Evenings were spent in an ambiguous manner discs, hunting for culinary delights, checking out the beaches, babes etc.
I guess its beyond my scope or that of anybody to completely define Goa in all its grandeur, there are so many little incidents, so many people that I don't think I will have enough space to mention it all. Those Rockcotes (sea-fish), chicken in melted cheese thawed in tomato sauce (ummmmmm), Shetty burning the Jesus Christ frame (accident fellas),Moiz breaking the bed,Kirans helplessness,playing soccer with those spanish n goan folks,those waves, Russian babes (nothing naughty), live band playing "hotel california" on the beach,John...

I don't think I can write about all that and so much more - let me be selfish and preserve those memories in my mind, after all, that is all i have left.

P.S - The flipside.... couldn’t meet Renuka.... Damn!

Goa (pre-31st)

It all started with "would u like to meet Renuka on 31st". I was a bit surprised cos i was sure that he knew she was in Goa. The msg was discarded in mirth only to be followed by another one which said "serious". I gotta admit I was a bit appalled cos if this guy was to be believed it would mean we wer heading for oh-my-sweet-lord Goaaaaaaaa.
Soon kiran confirmed my wildest dream n after a few phone calls (Moiz n Shetty joined in) we decided that Goa was "ON”. It is important to note that by the time we were sure of this odyssey 31st was just a couple of days away so Buses/train/my-dad-cant-afford-flights were out of question. So after much arbitration and on unanimous verdict Bike was chosen as the preferred mode of transportation.
So on 30th dec 8.00 PM we set forth with this innocent faith that our world shall never go wrong and our perseverance shall payoff. I soon realized perseverance when stretched too far (read 626 Kms) gets you in a deep malaise and faith is just like chewing bubble gum over an arithmetic problem and waiting for an answer, .We stopped at every 60-70 kms n changed places (plz don’t ask y). At this juncture i would like to thank my friends for not allowing me to drive infact if my memory serves me right these were the exact words "I rather drive the whole distance than sit behind you n pray for our survival". Moiz..u cut me deep man..real deeeep:-)
Our pre departure planning of making a halt at Kirans company in chiplun(around 250 kms from Mumbai) was cancelled cos we were damn too excited n wanted to drive through the night. It still makes me proud that we did but the credit goes to these brave men whom history shall always regard as the epitome of wild adventure and intestinal fortitude.

Jhil-pi

With da exams getting over pressure was mounting for a good getaway plan. Nagpur was decided cos it was cheap (well for engineers that’s the golden word) n of course we wer promised a forest trip which kinda looked or rather sounded adventurous. So here I was wearing 2 sweaters n a jacket n a blanket at 6 degrees and on two pegs of rum (well i was told either have that or die in da forest b'cos of da cold..not much of a choice eh.).The forest is called Jhil-pi (read pee),we reached there at arnd 1 in da night after everyone thought that were on an inhuman quantity of grass(if u don’t know what’s that probably u shldnt be reading this).The cold was stingy n even though i protested against visiting da hyenas den they wouldn’t listen. I love animals too but only when they r served on a platter so visiting da hyenas at that time would have served no social cause..try explaining that to a bunch of giggling-nuthing-2-fear-doppers.So there we were facing da den n giggling laughing at the thoughts that whatever we do is right n that nuthing cud go wrong(still glad nuthing did).I think d hyenas didnt turn up cos they realised that there exists smellier creatures.Finally after the explorer in us died due to da exhaustion we gathered some wood n made a neat bonfire thinking that wud last until da early hrs of morning but that ass bose put enough petrol to ensure that the fire died out pretty early..Stoooopid.
25 kms deep inside the forest...only da moonlight guiding you..d only people u can trust r drunk n doped beyond hope.....ur surival instincts have already freezed to death..but then u smile,smile cos u know that it was all .....worth it.

Shine On You Crazy Diamond

The more I think I know you, d more u make me realise that there's so much more to you...whosoever it was...was damn right wid his "Women r to be loved not understood".where art thou sir?

Lucifer speaks

Just read "Its more important to be happy than successful"...............kekekeke(trademark evil laughter) words of a loser..kekekeke....eeeyaow!!!

A Tribute

"Wudn't It be exciting if i die at 24 dhruv?" he said..not knowing death was just around the corner snickering at him..... God made death so we'd know when to stop but m sure ur gonna prove him wrong cos i think ur still out there rocking with cobain n gang n feeling bad at what we r missing out on..U take care bro n just make sure the music neva dies......Au Revoir