Another Mortal Life

I'm the poem dumped.

How it all started haunts me like a mystery.
Look! Compare! He was so ordinary.
He claimed he made me! Oh shit!
We evolved together is all I can admit.

I remember the time when the first of my words was born
He stared at it for hours on and on
Unsatisfied, he decided to strike it off
Like it was the infected seed of his paddy crop.

And then there were more like the first.
Some were fortunate to make it to paper,
While others were aborted right at inception.
He called them children of lesser thoughts.

My incomplete existence wanted him to be kinder to them.
But he told me I had no right, I had no choice.
I was only a voice, said he, I was 'his' voice.
And it was immoral for voices to speak for themselves.



(I didn't have this thing in mind when I started it, but by the fourth paragraph it occurred to me that it can be written as an expression of the helplessness that women of the older times, and sometimes even in present times, must've felt against a forced abortion/infanticide. I could not continue the poem further, mainly because I thought that while talking of a sensitive issue, unclear statements should be avoided- which is something my poems fail miserably at. I was also not able to think along the lines of the original idea I started the poem with.

I will remember this incomplete, dumped poem; which, when started, wasn't really meant to be dropped midway.)

Even before I start, you can already guess the problem with my BTP- it is yet to get the priority it deserves. Memories of the only day I spent some time on it consist more of lavish(?) visuals from Lodhi Garden than any academic work. And then, not before the day of presentations did I start working on the report. I had to borrow time from almost every other activity. While a bath was out of question, I even dumped the idea of a shave on seeing a friend who had a beard at least 2 mm longer than mine and who was going as such for his presentation.

[The recent experiments of letting the beard grow upto 1 mm, 1.5 mm, 2 mm, etc has lead me to conclude that one mm of beard can have the same effect on you as one bottle of beer. I would argue that this effect rises exponentially with the length of the beard, but as the rate of growth of the beard itself decreases exponentially with time, one can assume a straight line graph between the alcoholic effect of the beard and the time you keep it.]

I don't remember where I read this: the idea of attending a viva session after having a few drinks in the morning- so as to appear confident. But really, the beard Had That effect before and during the presentation. The possibility of getting reprimanded for not having done much in BTP, didn't ring alarms in my mind. And then the things went fairly smooth too. Whatever they said about the virtually zero work, was in a very mild tone. Though, I'd like to mention here that I was sleepy, and the possibility of this fact interfering in this otherwise conclusive beard experiment can't be ruled out.

The next evening, we enjoyed a friend's birthday bash. The beard stayed on. (That now it didn't account for whole of The Effect is another thing). The 100 odd photos proved one thing about the beard: It doesn't look as bad as I used to think of it. With this realization, the idea of a shave didn't occur to me for one more day. But a bearded look can indeed be perceived as arrogance, and so in no case I'd have attended my very first lecture of a course with it. Bunked. The shave took me more time than usual, which means- postponing a shave for 5 days doesn't save you time. (The same can't be said about a 40-day old beard though. This friend of mine mentioned above would know.)

Why do such posts go on and on and on? Anyway, writing anything more would be an excessive digression. Still, I can't stop myself from questioning the validity of this saying that goes like- "What you sow, so shall you reap." Ok. Ok. I stop.

I feel like a Vish Sainik sometimes.

I feel venom running through my veins
And I want blood to flood the earthly drains.
Blood, yours. And theirs.

I would like to watch the bloody drains meet.
And I would see to it that the poison concentrates.
Poison, yours. And theirs.

Human blood, for you, is but a waste.
But I have found in it an addicting taste.
I'll stab you for them. And them for you.

I am sure neither you nor them, would object.
Your minds are blocked, and you all are hypocrites.
And I, your mob mentality.

I feel like a parasite sometimes.

(No, VHP, Bajrang Dal etc didn't contact me to write an anthem for them. I just volunteered.)

Addiction. Eccentricity. Inertia. Oblivion. Uncertainty.

Vowels continue to ruin my life.

I didn't mean to talk to you in those terms
Of the leg-cutters, and the rarest off-break.
I'm the one who would prefer a straight talk,
And googly, in any case, is not my make.

Have your cake and let me have my ice-cream,
And don't try to fool me with an icing on the cake.
You've been a good imagination; but not a reality.
Hope you got the catch, it's really not that vague.

I love minors. They offer the best time to kill. If you love killing time you also know you must kill it when it's most valuable. That way you get to satiate your need to kill it, in much lesser time (I presume the said satiation has very much to do with value you associate with your time), and thereby get some time for other constructive works too! More on that some other time. Today, let me just complete this tag that passed itself on to me from Phoenix's blog...

A book that made you laugh: High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby.

A book that made you cry: The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini.

A book that scared you: Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka was one long single scary thought. Scary, not in the sense of frightening, but in making one wish to not be in a Kafkaesque plight ever. (Apparently, the translation was not quite smooth- some rotation and disfigurement occurred in the process.)

A book that disgusted you: None so far; thankfully.

A book you loved in elementary school: Premchand’s short stories: Nasha, Eidgaah, Do Bail ki katha etc. Still love them for the use of common man’s language (i.e. a Hindi not laden with sanskrit).

A book you loved in middle/junior high school: Love Story by Erich Segal. What was that line..“ To know her is to love her.”

A book you loved in high School: The Old Man and the Sea by Hemingway. I don't talk of symbolisms in the book which, anyhow, I came to know of only later; I love it as a tale of the spirit of a man.

A book you loved in college: The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy.

A book that challenged your identity: Shantaram by G. D. Roberts, Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, Animal Farm by George Orwell.

A series you love: Numbers put me off in advance :(. But now I’ve made up my mind to give Potter a shot soon.

Horror: Read none.

Science fiction: Read none.

Your favourite fantasy: Fountainhead. The first 100 pages of it had me almost wishing I were in Roark’s shoes and behaved like that.

Your favourite mystery: None. Found myself too dumb to understand Sherlock Homes. Honestly. So couldn’t continue tAoSH beyond 20-25 pages.

Your favourite biography: Half read Gandhi's. Read none else.

Your favourite “Coming of age” book: Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. Every observation the author makes, made me feel- ‘yeah, yeah! That’s the way life/people is/are. How come I never noticed?’

Your favourite classic: The Godfather by Mario Puzo.

Your favourite romance book: Love story by Erich Segal.

Too many 'read none's :(... Somebody please write something- Who knows, I might just get to fill one of the above empty slots! :P

[Sorry, dear Tag, you get a dead end here. May you live longer in other routes you were directed on to. :) ]