life in my years

While going through one of the tons of forwards, some people have made it a habit to send and fewer some like me, a habit to read, I came across tucked in the corner of an other wise unrelated email containing photographs of dogs (literally), a line that read ' its not the years in your life, but the life in your years that counts'. Though to be honest I have kind of heard/read this one many times before in passing, but never before did it get me thinking.

Into the thirtieth year of my existence, I have often wondered if the shameless pilfering of days into nights and nights into day, over and over again, leaving behind nothing more than only a number, number of years, in its wake, was a reflection on the moribund meaninglessness of human existense and if the almighty ever wanted us to live the way we have chosen to.

But this time, I found myself asking if it was true, actually true, that life is actually meant to be just this, this routine of being born, being pampered, playing around, learning to walk, speak, learning to cohabitate with humans in a society, conforming to the norms of life as we see around us and then finally passing on to another world of oblivion. If this was what life was supposed to be and if this was the objective of human existense, then what have I done in my thirty? Hand to heart, crossing sixty might turn out to be pipe dream for my body what with the lifestyle, so having gone through half of my probable existence already, what has been the 'life in my years'?

The strange vacousness with which my mind and heart stared back at this question reflects the singular lack of anything that could be pointed out as life in my years. Not convinced however, I sat back to gently waft through the dump of my almost thirty, to find out some traces of life in those years.

A certain few moments of life flashed through my eyes, the one hour spent on a rainy sunday sitting on the road side parapet at that deserted serpentine hill road, observing and contemplating the vast green expanse of the valley below. Being lost in a foreign land at night, deserted darkened streets and signages in a language I could'nt read, almost sure of not being able to make it to my room, but feeling liberated, calm and at peace all at once.

And a few more came to mind, but the moot point of having led a life, which when looked back upon hardly seems to have had any life in it really makes me poignant, though I can't claim to be surprised either, 'cause I have always been acutely aware of my lust and ambition for material growth, but did I somewhere along these roads, chasing the self set goals of being something or someone, forgot to stand back, to reflect and wonder if down these roads I was running blind,  tucked somewhere at the end would be my soul's contentment.

I keep encountering this question every now and then, what really is this contentment I seek, am I living a life that will eventually lead to it? While I know that my pursuance and need for material things has subsided slowly over the years, but what next? Where is that road to contentment, in this maze like life, so many roads diverge from every corner, is there amongst these the one I seek? I want to understand and listen to my soul, has it still got something to say or are its voices smothered forever?

Someday I need to figure that road out, a way out of this maze, a way to my soul's contentment, a way on which, when I see somewhere ' its not the years in my life, but the life in it', I would peek inside and find myself smiling.

Part I: Blue nights of the stranger kind

apr'10: no time to post these days

Walking around the garden of eden, I fell straight into a deep dark hole promising to be a window to the ether filled eternities of the sky, in a strange display of coquetishness my heart brimmed over with the thrill of the other side, the unseen possibilities of youthful escapades under golden yellow skies.

Like many transformational experiences where our surroundings happen to dampen, sudden and without warning, the hormone driven gallavanting of our infantile hearts, the coquetishness gave way to cynicism as I emerged from the hole into a seriously color challenged surrounding. The blackish blue dark sky, connived to turn the otherwise green of leaves into a pastal hue somewhere around the greenish grey black of an underwater moss.

A look at my hand revealed that my skin too had turned into that brackish blue shade, though strangely the dull yellow of the teeth was now like the stark and shining silver.

As I stood wondering on the sudden transmorgification of my physical and emotional faculties, a distant silhoute of a breying horse, only just visible, even though stalking quite close to where I stood, came into my view. The horse looked deep into my eyes and was able to convey sarcasm and remorse intersperded with a cynical pleasure, all in one look of the eye. Being a man who almost always struggles to convey any one single expression through eyes, the horses ability to convey so many conflicting emotions in a glance was intriguing. So as I stood intrigued and kind of piqued at this strange creature there came a flash of lightning from the skies. Distracted momentarily from my horse staring I saw that the horse was wearing boxer shorts but the chap dint have enough dough to manage a tee shirt and there he stood with a bowl for alms in his left hand, trying to paw me out of my reverie with his right.

Instinctively my hand plunged into the pocket of my pant, dished out a piece of metal and deposited it into the begging horse's bowl. As I began to ask myself if a penny would be any bit worthwhile for the horse and also why I could'nt keep some grass in my pocket for meeting the unforeseen eventuality of meeting beggar herbivores, the horse cut short my reasoning by grinning at me. The grin seemed to communicate a wry sense of humor, bordering on the derisive, again leaving me suitably impressed with the expressive faculty of the myriad small parts of this horse's face.

It was then that I heard the horse say, 'you are but not the first and you shall not be the last', and then it galloped off at the speed of sound. Needless to say,the subtelty of his speech and the miserliness of his words, convinced me of the obstruse criticality of the utterance.Being a verbose albiet ineffective conversationalist this skill of the horse somehow made the small heart sulking below the left pocket of my shirt grow even more smaller.

Lost and watching the wrestling grey cells in my head, desperate to interpret the horse's whisper, With trepidation I walked a few steps, perhaps still hoping unconciously to encounter the promised sun, even as a sudden lethargy swept upwards through my legs and I began to sense sleep like an injected drug slowly flowing through my viens. I dropped my hindsight onto a small brackish damp rock and cuddled into the laps of deep slumber.

a journey of dreams

its six o clock and i am dreaming

this lonesome ride in an empty coach and i am dreaming

 flying trees under greying skies and i am dreaming

the sullen rattle of the train on stones and i am dreaming

the last yawn of the fading sun and i am dreaming

dreaming beyond the vast empty spaces of life

 of crystal blue skies over the endless greens

dreaming of some unseen honey love eyes

of a mystic touch under the open skies

flocks of birds heading for a faraway home and i am dreaming

a vagabond stream in this middle of nowhere and i am dreaming

a few slivers of shine and i am dreaming

dreaming of some destinations overshot

places all I chose not to stop

dreaming of the tracks that diverged

dreaming of  places they could have led

this subtle chill in the gushing wind and  i am dreaming

holding myself a little tighter, i am dreaming

this barren stare of empty lands and i am dreaming

far & few sprouts of green, i am dreaming

dreaming of the promised land,  the reason at the end of it all

dreaming of a satiated soul , rising phoenix past this long night of coal

some new eyes across the aisle, a little glance and i am dreaming

this journey, this track, destination nowhere in my sight and i am dreaming

this scorching relentless must lead to somewhere, i am dreaming

where this journey shall end, i am dreaming

will there be the days of spring, of sun and green, i am dreaming
or will there be only cold claws of wind, i am dreaming

will the train be empty and destination deserted, i am dreaming
or will I find the twinkle of an eye, i am dreaming

the magic mirror

Once upon a time I was sitting on a chair in front of a mirror, trying to analyse how much and how bad did my paunch look to others observing me from a distance of around ten feet. Being a student of physics I positioned the said chair exactly five feet in front of the mirror, the thing about mirrors, I notice, is that sometimes they tend to paint rosy pictures of our countenance, especially so when I look into it without wearing my optical correction glasses.

So generally, as a habit, I have been trying to always view the mirror without wearing my glasses.

Another interesting observation has been that a mirror while letting you know how you appear to other people, remains absolutely silent and non judgemental about that appearance, this again is fortutious since it allows me to pass any favorable judgement that suits my needs.

Mirrors in my opinion are basically god's creations meant to assuage the feelings of depravity in his children, for giving them a canvas to paint whatever bright and beautiful image they wish to paint of themselves, without any botherations from a contrarian truth.


Infact if you wade even a little further into the matter, it is not hard to be confronted with the worlds heaviest spiritual non-discovery; that mirrors have been and continue to be the savior of mankind, they and their above elaborated unique skills have helped preserve life on this planet.

Your incredulity at this deduction, to me once again underlines the effectiveness of mirrors, since you have utilized the special non judgemental nature of mirrors to furtively skim over the fact that ever since you were born you have been an imbecile with very limited powers of deduction.

Mirrors have singlehandedly managed to counterbalance the inherent human trait of destroying or wanting to destroy all thats more beautiful than itself. Now if the mirrors had not provided this immense countervaling to this inherent human trait, we all would have looked into a mirror and tried to destroy by some means everything around us. Now if you did'nt get 'why destroy', you are such an imbecile that you owe your existence only to the healing powers of mirrors.

Without digressing further the whole point remains, save for the mirrors, the human race would have been on such a destruction spree that I doubt very much if world would have lasted this long for adam or manu's, whichever system of myth you follow, progeny to keep procreating generation on generation.

The same old question

I stumbled, crazed and desperate for years, seeking solace for a strangely disquiet heart. Soaked in the belief that someone, something or someplace is what it will take for these tides within to transmogrify into a serene, quiet and joyous lake in a perpetual spring.

Then as most things in life, that is without any credit to an evolved sense of understanding, infact purely by the virtue of ticking time, piling on of years and a lot of stick on the backside, did it dawn through the dense fogs of my dumbness; a simple, honest, yet profound realization that the happiness, peace & contentment I have been thirsting for, is only deep within my heart, I need to search for it & pursue it there 'cause only I can help myself be happy,only I can make myself feel treasured. Rest all is a lie.

Still, quite often I find myself cornered all over again and needing to remind myself of the hard learnt wisdom, to extricate myself from these corners.
The moot question that emerges and begs answering is of course, why?  Why do I find myself in these corners time and again? Why do I forget the lessons of life? Why do I stand transfixed , amazed and stupefied by my own naivety? How many whips on the arse will be too many, finally?

What more will I take to internalize life's learnings.

embark, voyage, afresh

Scent of spring in the air

a sunny heart without a care

dopey eyes brimming with dreams

a shining face full of sheen

hope eternal in this heart afresh

wizened mind set on the road ahead

searching for my faraway land

a little serendipity &  a little slog

will see us through this eternal quest

unto the place, where the restless too shall finally rest

fool me once..period!

Our memory has this habit of fading over time. Surely, ' time heals' an oft stated and factually correct phenomenon,  has its genesis in the ability of human mind & heart to gradually fade memories with the passage of time.

But sometimes it makes me wonder if its always such a boon of nature? Evidence would suggest that one tends to make similar mistakes time and again, fall into similar traps time and again, it seems internalizing your learnings from life is a separate task , 'cause 'memories' they will just keep fading.


Sometimes, rather often I catch myself conveniently and surreptitiously trying to overlook or forget these lessons that life keeps teaching; in the freshness of their advent I tend to believe that a said event shall forever be engraved on my psyche as a red flag, a sign of where not to venture. 
But over time, I find myself strolling on the edge of the very precipice, I believed the damn red flag will keep me away from. 


Quite like a cur, who gets whacked each time it's tail curls, then whimpers and sulks for a while, then  nevertheless curls and whack again!

I wonder if this is an affliction of human kind or just one of the many follies and shortcomings of self, I seem to have an abundance of?

How do you experience, learn and then not forget? How do you will yourself to not make the same mistakes, fall into the same pits you managed to scrape out of?

fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice..shame on me; how do I ensure not falling into that second category, ever!

about myron and the chromo politics

Have been reading this author for the past few weeks, harlan coban, well no literary or abstruse pregnancy of ideas or great postulations of any kind in his work, just pure and simple dramatic thriller setting, I simply have been loving it. Infact so much so that I finished two books from the guy already and plan to buy a new one today.

The central character of one Myron Bolitar runs through as the protagonist in all his books, the tremendous layers he is able to bring out in this characterization is simply phenomenal. A multidimensional real, human character who at the same time is in the 0.01 top percentile in worldly rat race.

The best part is the unabashed moral ambivalence Myron possesses and the ease with which the author creates sequences where time and again this ambivalence gets highlighted, underlined whatever. The almost superhuman ability of Myron to digest emotional poison and remain normal is such a welcome break, what with everyone in general specializing in conflicted characterizations, scarred by experiences leaving deep psychological dents in personality.

Myron simply drives his car real fast and furious to get issues(moral/emotional/logical whatever) out of his mind, while I am sure most authors would have had him running around to repeated sessions with a flummoxed shrink, to crease out the resulting deep behavioral imbalances and psychological conflicts.

This I believe is the singular charm of myron bolitar series to me; the apparent old fashioned masculinity of character, which off late is so out of vogue that we all are supposed to be(and expected to comply) heavily conflicted, emotionally lost, confused and obfuscated in our decision making. The exceeding supersede 'nce to emotional quotient and feminism in the past few decades, to me seem to be the culprits behind this trend.
The X chromosome has been wishing and subvertly working on, dominating the sensitivities of this world, hence a fad or should I say an avalanche everywhere; of being confused, conflicted, scheming, easily hurt, emotionally unstable; all these traits have become so fashionable, that to be able to be called an 'evolved' 'contemporary' 'in sync' 'metro-sexual' male, it is already mandatory to imbibe and brandish these traits in abundance, at every minutest drop of the proverbial hat.
In the process the XY has already become XY-Y/2. Wonder how long before the remnants of the Y are devoured and the world is simply a sea of absolutely similar humans, the fine distinction in characters the almighty must have so painstakingly built and would have felt tempted to aggrandize about,each time he looked down upon the earth, is slowly and surely under threat of obliteration.

quixotian mooring's

On the oceans of aloofness sometimes you encounter maudlin moments of togetherness.

A land where the lie of life won't hurt you


Craving for starlit nights under open skies, will mend the broken heart aglow.

Walking down those quiet streets, I’m always dreaming.

The great wall of disbelief straddling the divide of factual realism and the quixotic visions of grandeur.

endless spasms of restless wander deep within my head

modern love

 leisure reading at its best.. 'modern love' series on new york times

a list of the one's I liked (click the no. to follow)
1.
2.
3.

Doldrums

For sometime now, I have been vegetating, a kind of clueless wait for an impetus to restart living.

Unexcited and stoned, I castigate myself continuously for being lazy, for being slow, for dwelling under makeshift roofs across the ruins; no efforts to build new castles afresh.

But the truth of the matter is that somewhere in these mysterious labyrinths of life, these endless maze of routes on the apparently direction less sea of life; I have lost my bearings.

Lost them completely.

I don't really know where I am going from here on. My heart, my mind both seem too reluctant to chart courses for the future, to push me into a direction, any direction. I have stagnated on a dull, repetitive, anchor-less drifting, watching the sun rise and set kind of existence.

Where do I get back that energy into my soul from, how do I enthuse my mind about something/anything, how do I send those thousand armada's of hope sailing across the sea of my life again?

Unshackling of spirit is the need of the hour, but how, by what means? Wonder, wonder, wonder.

Got to kick start somehow.

mind travel

Have been wondering of late, if the chance of sighting a falling star is higher than the chance of seeing a droplet of water vroom past my ear, as a big drunken wave crashes on the rocks beneath.

Lately there is this gentleman who has been accusing me of craziness, each time I do even simple things like catching a word in the air, while it was on its way from my mouth to someone's ear or seeing a dolphin cavorting unabashed in its playful joy inside my bucket, as I prepare to bathe.

Solitude and the accompanying inventiveness of imagination cannot be equated to craziness, can it? If while lazing around on a couch, I find myself perched on the top of a green tall hill, verdant acres all around, ready to take flight and idly glide in the chilly fresh air, it sure is an extremely exciting escape from the drudgery of the painted four walls and the hapless remote, but, I am sure it doesn't fall in the realm of crazy.

Mind travel and virtual realization of thoughts, I hope is the next big idea folks somewhere are working upon.

9.9.9

eddi vedder says it better....

"Take Leave
the conscious mind
Found myself
to be so inclined

Why sleep
in discontent?
Oh the price
of companionship

My shadow runs with me
underneath the Big Wide Sun
My shadow comes with me
as we leave it all
we leave it all Far Behind

Empty pockets will
Allow a greater
Sense of wealth

Why contain yourself
Like any other
Book on the shelf

My shadow lays with me
underneath the Big Wide Sun
My shadow stays with me
as we leave it all
we leave it all Far Behind

Subtle voices in the wind,
Hear the truth they're telling
A world begins where the road ends
Watch me leave it all behind

Far Behind"

raising a toast

Cheers to another year!

saying without words:4

(using a poor 2 megapix cam on my cell)

a bend in the road

awkwardly alone

blowing in the wind

a brook in a valley gorgeous

mind that existentialism

The futility of any idea lies in the sacred belief of its executionability. Also the futility of a mind lies in its endless churning of such ideas. Come to think of it, every day or perhaps every waking hour in our life, we ideate (i abhor this word though). The subconcious like an OS keeps running these ideas as processes in the background. Like I am typing on the key board but alongside my mind is churning ideas at rate rivalling the reproduction rate of mosquitoes.

An existential veiw of life would suggest, that by extension ideas are basically a measure as well as a reflection upon the human existence and the conditions of its existence, rather than having a more obfuscated genesis in an undefinable essence of humans.

However, a closer look reveals that even though the existential principle is applicable to most of the ideas getting germinated in the mind, but there is a certain set of ideas popping up which do not really seem to have been derived from any direct or indirect condition of our existence. For example, what do we call the sudden idea of jumping into the sky while looking into the reflection of it in a small shaving mirror. Suddenly, that small non descript mirror is like a secret doorway to a mystical escape, a window to a free fall into the great blue abyss, i recall feeling queasy in the stomach, peeking into that mirror and seeing the sky deep down below, almost a thrill as if of descent on a giant wheel. An idea so strong that it generated a reflex response of anxious thrill from the body.

I got another such idea earlier, the fecund mind overworking when it should instead have been in hibernate mode like the body. The far fetched quixotian nature of the said idea made me wonder from where does the mind come up with this stuff. Then

I cornered Kafka, Dostovyesky and so many more who have expounded an approach to life driven only by what we are and what our experiences as a human have been, people called that existentialism over the years, but the whole premise is challenged by the existence of these out of the world ideas in the mind, if life is only about what we are and what we learn, then how does the mind generate ideas, one never experienced, saw or heard about before.

What is the basic tenet? Is life only about experiences and knowledge gained through human existence? Or is there an obscure, unexplainable something which influences our existence, our thoughts and sometimes our actions.

hand in the cookie jar : 1

Lets talk about that day in life

deserts waded by sudden winds from north

lets talk about the levitation of heart

body entrenched firmly on the ground

the wondrous scene within the gaze

the overflowing soul in the fizz of joy

lets relapse tonite to the flights of fancy

gliding across all the great divides

lets relapse into those verdant green fields

overflowing with golden wild flower dreams

the endless sea of gold and green

conquerer alone and the envious mean

the shot of vigour and elation straight into the soul

the underdog joyous from a long dreamt triumph

lets walk down the deserted boulevard of joy

exulting within on all conquests bygone

lets walk along that starlit parapet

holding within the bursting river of joy

those waves of silk flaming through halo's of light

those slihouttes of stairways straight up to the skies

evanescent joys along the road of life

disappearing fast as I burn the miles

a promise to cherish this journey of life ,

the small gifts of joy, scattered & hidden along the road

Some gone by and some waiting for me way up ahead

a four to that '99

It was in the days of the crazed sun, when I could fly on the wings of my soul

It was in the days of the wondering nights, that I could fly on the wings of my soul

It was in the lost days to dreams, that I could see the present so real

It was in the long nights of toil, that I could feel the present so real

It was in the haze of those dusks, that sometimes shows the orange of the sun so clear

It was in the solitude of my own soul, that sometimes showed the orange of the sun so clear

Remember, sitting on those stairs so lost, watching the distant sun so near

Remember, still those dreams in this heart, watching the distant sun so near

Remember, the days and the times of wander, feeling this heart & head as one

Remember, the youth and the illuminated thoughts, felt this heart & head as one

Remember, still the looney longings, of a heart so entrenched within my soul

Remember, the moistness in the eyes springing, for a heart so entrenched within my soul

Longing, days full and nights long, eyes strained to seek the end of the dark

Longing, but lost forever now, those clear lights at the end of the dark

Calling, oh those tolls of the future bells, the brimming heart was so full of hope

Calling, now the closing bells, each day I leave behind an empty till

Longing, enchantment and magic in my thoughts, those long lost nights under the darkened skies

Longing, still , oh all these long lost nights under the darkened skies

Faith, entrenched so deep within the psyche, I seeked my gods with an open heart

Faith, caught in quick sands of time, I seek my gods as the last clutch of hope

Toasting the four to that ninety nine,
reminisce the endless summers of the youth so fine.

Angel & the haunting unsaid

Forever tied in knots of pain,
conscience burdened by many a stain;
undone by a restive heart,
many a road, but never a start;

Crazy sharp winds in my head,
this strange voyage just doesn't end;
to many head winds and against the tide,
still I spread my net endless wide;

A silhouette in the darkened grey air,
the ethereal the real the flaming hair;
a halo and the shine of diamonds in those eyes,
an angel, at last heard these silent cries;

See through my porcelain soul,
for everything that's in there foul;
hear this strain of melancholy for once,
played  with loves one last ounce;

lips utter the blasphemous unsaid,
hearts blood in my eyes unshed;

Alas the words come out without a sound;

This long hard road I traverse alone,
unbeknown that prayers too need to be said;

Angel will I ever know,
that light did shine once upon my soul;
oh how I seek redemption now,
tell me in your crazy world;
if the crazed ever understood the unsaid?

Naivete of dreams revisited

Frog being kissed into a prince is a story often heard, but pushing thirty if one see's such a thematic dream, a vibrant and unobfuscated one at that, an evidence of the subjects latent utopian subconcious ,it starts to push credulity to the wrong side of tolerance.

This morning I was subjected to one such, I guess like a bollywood vaudeville, a full two hour technicolor mix of emotions and villains. The clarity of thoughts, the actuality of characters and their lives and the beauty of some, made it feel life like. Infact, I suspect, just before the waking up kicked in the reality, I must have had an angelic smile pasted on my lips.

the vision of walking with the angel of lore,

the world sparkling seen through those eyes,

as if a magic wand of joy in that smile;

Life's path rekindled with light,

and that promise to traverse it to the end, by my side;

Dejavu, as if I had ever actually walked with angel's in some distant past.All those disparate old hopes suddenly gelled into a living canvas of an immaculate hitherto unrequited bliss.

Bewildered by this sudden evidence of infallibility of the dreams seen with open eyes, this sudden insight into the depths of my own subconcious, this challenge to the norms & sagacity of this world. This pertinacious will of dreams to survive, even though crushed & buried deep under the ever altering realities of life.

An impossible fabrication of peace and contentment painted with colors springing from the ingenuity of this mind, a testimony to the the exuberance of human heart, the eternal sanguineness of our soul.

Guess just another reminder of the faraway never ending horizons of hope?

A reminder to hang on, maybe life's got sunny surprises past the cold cloudy roads?

Ah the poignant reality? it was just a dream neverthless.