THE PAGES (lost)

34/20/1112

Do you still think of that day at Hill road when we went to buy sandals for you? You haggled shamelessly and how embarrassed I was. Of course that was before we started arguing over the concept of haggling in the middle of the road and then we knew what embarrassment actually meant…

Remember the time we were getting a photograph clicked near the river and I fell over? And you, laughed out loud like there was no tomorrow. I remember telling you that I won't ever forgive you for it but then, I did soon after. Couldn't ever stay upset with you for long, could I? I of course remember that laughter as well. And you always knew how much I enjoyed hearing it…

Or for that matter the Christmas night when we talked all night on the phone about inconsequential things like our favorite colors, and our favorite food and religion and childhood? The significance of that conversation dawned on me only once you left..


When the recollections start throbbing
Let's play house once more
And pretend.
Conceited, ungrateful and ugly

I feel very human again
Don't we all, in tiny doses
Just love to revel in some pain?
I am waiting..

For insanity to return and save me.
Till then,
Take my hand…just this once,
And help me pretend
To be sane


42/22/1112

You know, I have never been able to have a conversation like that with Nal. It is somehow always regarding other things…like the house, what to buy, the bills and what to make for dinner…essential I know…but somehow, not complete. Not that we haven't tried. Or I haven't tried…but somehow…the meaning of those endless conversations and the comfortable silences was lost when I lost you.

Of course some would argue that I never had you, but that is a different matter altogether. I thought of telling Nalini about you a lot many times. I don't know what stopped me…may be it was all too fresh and close to my heart…or may be I considered it too personal …like I would betray you and what we had ( or didn't) by discussing it with anyone but myself.





40/14/1113

And come to think of it, what could have I told her? About your fascination with watching fishes at the aquarium? Your fondness for street food? Or those few months in which I got to know you? The silent conversations by the sea? Or may be about how you like your coffee sugary sweet and your tea totally bitter?Or about your much vaunted culinary skills?

Did you ever tell Abhay about me? About us? Did you ever want to? Or felt the need to?

I know you wouldn't answer any of my questions now, like you never did, then…but still…I am asking…because I did then, and I have to, now.



35/18/1113

Nalini is leaving. We both knew it would happen eventually and now that it is happening, I feel…nothing. At least nothing strong… She is a wonderful person…and I think, in another context, in another role we could have been friends…or at least understood each other…





40/18/1113

And somehow…now it feels ok to talk to her about you…strange, do you think? But I still wonder, what would I tell her? How can I describe any of it, and more importantly, can I even begin to describe it? But all I know is, I want to talk to her. I want her to know…

I have always mulled over what would I refer to you as if I ever speak about you to anyone? A friend…Stranger…Acquaintance…

Colleague…Soul mate…A lover?

What would you say?





45/18/1113

I could have imagined a hundred reactions from Nal but the one that I got starled me. Caught me completely by surprise. She smiled. She actually smiled. There was a hint of something else as well that passed through her face for a moment, but I can't really put my finger on it? Anger? Jealousy? No, I don't think so. Just something very personal that even I don't have access to…and probably never will…

It was by far our best conversation from our time together. Sitting by the window, over a cup of coffee. I could actually talk to her… like she is a friend…

She asked me about your smile…and your eyes…and about what you liked.



She asked me about all the things we've done. Can you believe it; it was all summed up in the first letter I wrote to you. Was there anything else that we did together that can be quantified or put down on paper?





33/13/1114

Did you watch movies?

Or go dancing?

Or get wet in the rain?

Yes. No. No.

Never felt the need to…the time that we had, somehow wasn't bound by the "usual" things to do, was it?

I think this bit confuses her a little as I struggle to explain what we actually did when we knew each other…

And then she asks me "Did you ever… you know, kiss her?"

No.

Why?



Just looking at her wanting to understand this bit about my life makes me want to take her in my arms.

I smile at her as I struggle to put it into words for her sake. And for mine.

Like most of our story,which is better understood in feelings than in words…I search my mind and my vocab for the right expression…any expression that would come close…

What can I tell her? Why didn't we? Why didn't I?

Such a difficult question. But then I answer it as simply as she asked me.



"Why? Because we weren't lovers like that"…






rain rain
come again
take a train and
stop the pain

summarily,i really,truly,madly,badly need a corejob! :((

She said, “I want you to compose something for me.”

I said, “Get out. This isn’t the Renaissance. The era of artistic patronage is over.”

She said, “I’ll pay you.”

“How much?”

“Five hundred dollars. For just a little piece. It won’t take you a day to write it.”

“And?”

“And nothing. I don’t care if it ever gets performed or not. If you like it, you can play it. Use it as an overture for something, I don’t care.”

“Okay...”

“Here’s the theme.” And she whistled a tune. It was a nice little melody. Short and sweet.

“Fine. Come back tomorrow,” I said. “I should have something by then.” And I sat down at the piano. That’s a hint: get out and let me work.

As if I ever did any real work any more.

Oh yes, the creative springs ran dry a long time ago. The wind used to whisper in my ears; now it just drones. The drums and trumpets in the surf have been reduced to mere disruptive, repulsive noise. Even the birds just chatter rather than singing.

Is it the world, or is it just me?I wonder. And deduce.

I keep trying to build up some momentum. Recycling bits of old, half-finished compositions. Delving into music theory-you don’t have to singing glorious songs in your soul to do that, although the drudgery of it becomes hard to bear if you don’t.

So now maybe you understand why I didn’t ask any questions. Like, what’s in it for you that’s worth five hundred dollars. Where did you get this tune and why’s it so important. How did you find me—I've been sorta underground for sometime, and nobody's quite got an idea about my whereabouts .

I sat there at the piano and played the theme. Then I played a couple of variations. Made some notes. Thought about other instruments that could go with it.

The music room looks out over the street, so I keep the windows closed when I’m working. It gets stuffy after a while. When I looked up, it was dark ouside; I’d been sitting at the piano messing around with that little piece all afternoon.

I got up and opened a window and leaned out to get a breath of air. A car went by with its stereo blaring, rattling the glass in the panes. I slammed the window and went back to the piano, but it was no use; I was out of the mood. The poor girl would have to settle for what I’d accomplished so far. Which frankly wasn't any good at all.

Unfathomable as it was,the tune kept me hooked,it was almost disturbing. She was whistling the same tune in my dreams all night. I got up at sunrise(I broke new ground actually) and sat down at the piano again, but something wasn’t quite right. After a while I went over and opened the window again.

The sun was touching the underside of the horizon. Just as it peeked over the edge of the world, I heard a voice: Look at me.

I knew it was the sun. I can’t. You’ll blind me.

Then listen.

Music came pouring up over the rim of the world like an invisible fountain. It was the same music my visitor of the day before had whistled, but so much more real, it was like it stood revealing it's true identity! It was what I’d struggled to find all afternoon. All night in my dreams. No, it was what I’d heard for years as a child, as a young composer.It was what I’d given up hope of ever hearing again.

It was the voice of the world, and who knows, maybe it was the voice of.. The voice I’d been struggling to recapture for more long, desperate years than I could dare to count.

There is a price.

I know. I leaned out of my window and looked straight into the rising sun. The last thing I ever saw was the face of my mysterious visitor, etched across the brightness that burned away my vision.

The darkness is alive with music.

SO SPAKE THE BUTTERFLY..

A silken splash of color
Black streaks on red
But a wing that is broken
Is of no use, they said

A whirring jumble of metal
Slicing through the air
Ran through my body
Smash, rent & tear

A creature of light I used to be
Flying far and near
But dark is my world now
Numbed with pain and fear

‘spring is upon the valley now’,
The flowers are telling me.
‘my spring is past’, I tell them,
‘I cannot drink from thee,now’

A cocoon opens on the mulberry tree
To reveal my sister, crumpled and weak
But before long she flies away
To a future I no longer seek

Cold is the touch of death on my brow
As fresh as the winter dew
I shall go now, into oblivion,
Not broken anymore, but new
perhaps.
love i might still,again!

ASCENT

I’m climbing the face of a dune.
The sand is reddish-tan, pretty cold and almost powder-dry under my feet, my hands. The sun is almost level at my back. I know the other side of the dune will be dark.
I follow my shadow up the dune.

“I don’t know. It’s just a dream I’ve been having.”

Juno shrugs. She’s not particularly interested in dreams. “You think it means anything?”
I sip my coffee. It’s damn hot and tastes too bitter. Most of my co-workers like it much stronger than I do.

“I guess maybe it means some transition, some big change in my life...”

She sneers. “There could be more layoffs coming.” I glare at her. “Sorry, I know that’s not funny. You could talk to Cindy.”

I stifle a groan. Our receptionist is what they call a New Ager. Besides interpreting people’s dreams at staff meetings, she’s been known to palm-read customers. Sometimes without their consent.

Bitter dust coats my lips and flirts with my skin. My eyes itch, but I stifle somehow the urge to rub them. Small rivulets of sand trickle down around me. Each time I set my foot down, it sinks back almost to where it was before I lifted it.
I look up. A faint, very faint, veil of dust is lifting from the dune-crest; there must be wind up there, but I can’t feel it down here.

“So you’re all alone on this sand dune, right?”

“Yeah,” I say.

“So it’s about being isolated...” Cindy peeks at me from the corner of her eye; she, like some others in the office, was a spectator to my recent spat and ensuing break-up with my fiancee. I can’t really blame her—I wasn't entirely responsible, but I did make the spectacle. “And about feeling stuck, or trapped? You said you keep sinking back, like you’ll never get to the top.”

“No,” I say. I can’t tell why that feels wrong, but it does.

“But you have this dream over and over, and it never changes?”

I’m not sure how to answer that. I don’t remember noticing any changes, but there have to be some. There have to be.

Back in my cube, I flip my calendar over and stare, stunned. November was yellow flowers on some prickly-looking desert bush. December is a huge, towering dune of reddish sand, exactly the color of the dune in my dream. The caption says "The dreaming self is the shadow of the waking self. The waking self is the shadow of the dreaming self. In life, the dreaming self is tethered to the purposes of the waking self".

The slope is so steep, I’m on all fours. My hands burn with the dryness. How long have I been climbing? There’s a rustling, and suddenly the sand all round me is moving, sliding. I cry out in protest, but it’s no use; the whole face is in motion, and I’m scrambling not to get sucked under.
At last the sand comes to rest. The slip zone shows as a crescent of very slightly paler sand, above and to both sides. I know it’ll be unstable for a while. I need to move sideways, get to an unslipped area, start climbing again.

“... so I must have flipped through the calendar when I first bought it, and for some reason remembered that picture. And now I’m dreaming about it.”

“Huh.” Jean fiddles with her napkin, folding the corners into tiny pleats. The quilted paper rustles with a sound like sand. Sand sliding, slipping...

“Hello! Are you there?”

“Uh?” I focus. Jean looks a little worried. “Sorry. I wasn’t paying attention.”

“I said, you bought this calendar a year ago, right? I mean, this is December, right? And you haven’t looked at it since then?”

“I don’t like to look ahead at the pictures,” I say, defensive for no reason. “It’s like looking at the end of a book. It spoils the fun.”

“But you must at least have looked at the back, when you bought it, to see if you’d like it?”
I try to remember. “I don’t think so. It said ‘Desert Blooms’—I thought that sounded good.”
“So there’s flowers in this dune picture?”

“Uh—No.” Suddenly uneasy, I push back my chair and stand up. “Listen, Jean, I’ve got to get back to work. My lunch break’s over.”

Jean looks upset; I know I’m being rude, but I have to get back to my office and look at that calendar.

December’s picture. A round, striped cactus with vivid pink flowers around the top, like a kitschy beer barrel ornament. The caption says something about Arizona.
Am I going crazy?

I’m climbing again. My hands feel scraped and sore. My leg muscles ache. But the crest seems closer. I can feel a touch of breeze on the back of my sweaty neck. Even the sand feels firmer underfoot; real. (Why do I think that?) The sky looks bigger and bigger, above; an endless, serene blue streaked with a tinge of red, where dust is blowing from the dune-crest.
I’ll be there soon.

The numbers on the elevator tick down steadily. I’m afraid to look too closely at them, in case they turn into falling grains of sand. I’ve been hallucinating on and off since lunch with Jean. No, before, counting the calendar.

I need to see a doctor. Obviously. Work-related stress. Unresolved issues with julia,my fiancee. Easy answers, and they ring as false as the tinny Christmas music the elevator’s played since forever. The music which threatens to dissolve into the sound of wind over sand.
Maybe a brain tumor? I’ve heard they can cause hallucinations. But I can’t believe any of these things. I can’t reduce the taste of dust, the smell of sand dampened with my own sweat, to anything so prosaic. Maybe I’m just not prepared to admit my life is that boring. Maybe I’m tempted by the magic of an exotic place, even if it’s an imaginary place—no, a delusional place.

I push out of the elevator on the ground floor, out to the street, stumbling briefly as the industrial carpet in the lobby gives way to powdery sand. I can’t give in to this. I’ve got to get help before they come and take me away in a straitjacket.
I’ve got to get home. I’m at the crest.


Before me, the sand falls away into a fathomless darkness. To left and right, the crest stretches away, undulating gently, sharp as the edge of a knife. The breeze is strong up here, cooling the sweat sticking my shirt to my back, soothing the raw patches on my hands. My shadow falls down into the gloom and disappears. Strange, I thought it was attached to my feet, but it just slipped loose.
I could step forwards and follow it, down and down into the dark.
Or I could turn around and slide down the lighted face, back the way I came. Without my shadow.
Or I could walk along the crest for a while. I might lose my balance, or get caught in another slip, of course.
Or I could sit here and listen to the wind...

image courtesy:deviantart.com

PARADISE LOST

Through the tattered sunshine and patched warmth;
Numb fingers working at the cold fire;
Preserving the wet coal and caked oil;
The dry eyes looking through,
The broken glasses;
And across the scattered images
a resigned shrivelled up flower looks up;
The fragrance that lies trapped in words,
carefully merged into blank endless smiles;
The barter between body and soul,
on the red carpet of dreams,
dilligently,patiently sifting through the grains of time,
to reach out for crumbs,
That might fill the empty stomach;
and life shimmers;
on the lost tears,and the empty wait;
Where the moments turn into eternity,
and eternity withdraws into,
An Acceptance; an empty Fate...

WORDS

Well past midnight I close my eyes,
and old terrors come to call,
An angel whispers in my ear
as it flies past on ancient wings,
A melody echoes in my heart,
or drops of dew descend from
the dense, enveloping air
splashing me with inspiration:
a single word, a turn of phrase,
some piece of spirit that
calls out to be heard.

The words fit nicely
into notches of my imagination
where meaning lays itself bare.
I search with a musician’s ear
for the one and only word
that fits there,
The feng shui of the written word.

A few months back,
poems were spilled out
full of hormones and angst,
suffering and loss...

but now they move slowly,

they kick and yawn their way out.
They laze in the back of my mind
in an imaginary hammock
among tall pines in blue shaded mountains
and enjoy themselves,
each poem contented, well-honed;
like warm chocolate covered cherries
just waiting to be savored..


Statutory Warning: (It's now exactly a year since I discobhered..) NEVER laugh out aloud if somebody (jokingly)accuses your "best friend" of being a paedophile!!!
trusht me-he might cease to be then...F I means :( :D n you'll feel strange,sometimes :|

image courtesy: deviantart.com
put it just cuz I liked it verry much.hihi

AND DEATH BECOMES HIS.

"What, according to you Mr. Pandev, is the worst way to end life...physical death or the fear of it?"

Goran Pandev furrowed his brows. The aftertaste of the last sip of Bloody Mary was still lingering in his mouth. The party around him was in full swing. The usual boring gentlemen, high-ranking officials and pompous dastards flanked on every side. When asked aside by this certain toothbrush-moustached someone, Pandev expected a political debate of some sort, an unequivocal monologue really, where he was expected to nod and agree every view pressed upon him, owing to his young age. But this question was unusual, in fact, particularly interesting.

"Oh I don't know, Mr. Voronin. The notion of Death has seldom entered my mind or conversation. It's nonsensical to discuss it as a concept although I do respect the sobriety of.."

Andriy smiled lopsidedly.

"That exactly is the flaw in this generation. They live as though they would never die and die as though they had never lived..." he proclaimed in impressive, ringing tones at the same time smoothing the front of his frock-coat, which crinkled crisply. "You people claim to live life on the edge don't you?But just imagine Mr. Pandev- you are traveling in a trekker at breakneck speed at the height of a cliff; a sudden rush of blood and you loose control..your vehicle takes a tumble and off you go down the cliff...well,just for the sake of assumption; the point is then- when would you die? The instant the jeep is in the air...or a few seconds later, when it crashes into the ocean? Think about it."

"I definitely will. But I think it all comes down to the...err... situation. It's almost impossible to know for sure , not in the least while sipping wine in a gathering." The latter replied, his eyes distracted by something Andriy's act had momentarily revealed from the folds of his coat.

"I-I must be leaving." Andriy said eventually, his eyes following Pandev's, whose pair, for a moment seemed to flicker with something he dreaded.





Goran Pandev was racing against time. In swift strokes of his square-toed boots, his lanky,jittery figure bowled across the garage, across the heavy elevator and the many cars, fearing his quarry might be out of reach. His victim had left the party too early to not be a suspect. A few meters away from him, Andriy Voronin was almost getting into his car, when in a blur of steel and muscle, his car door was yanked shut and the old man's neck struggled in a half-nelson. His engorging pupils gave him away.

"I knew it." Pandev muttered through gritted teeth.

But Andriy wasn't to give up so soon. State security was in his hands. He either had to save the documents or die trying. With a well-practised kick, he nearly freed himself from the latter's grip. But this was momentary triumph. A scuffle ensued and Pandev's brawn got the better of him. He unearthed from the depths of his trousers, a length of heavy manacle like chains and knocked his victim straight in the head. Andriy felt himself falling down an endless dark tunnel which unfortunately didn't have light at it's end..




He opened his eyes and stared straight ahead. A gangling man's frame loomed into view, every line on his face malignant. With plunging horror he realized that he had been tied in a standing spread-eagled position by his wrists and ankles, his feet levitating a feet from the ground, in a small place which resembled a cupboard. In a swift, fluid movement, Pandev plunged into his frock coat and dug out the documents. The papers, that were more important than his job or family, that had taken entire sleepless nights to construct and then safeguard, that had needed months of planning to sneak across three continents..were now in the possession of a person he was sure would do no good to them.

"Thank you, Mr. Voronin." Was his glib retort, the smirk hanging shamelessly on the face which had so often being inexplicably passive. "You see it was entirely unnecessary to degrade you to such a demeaning position...tut tut..." he tilted his head slightly, "but you see, I really couldn't consummate something so unceremoniously...with a knockout."

Andriy was at loss of words, perspiring heavily.

"Now you decide," Pandev said, his eyes flickering upwards for a moment, "what way you would want to die..."

He then punched his fist hard at the wall next to him, at a part which Andriy couldn't see. The ceiling shuddered to life. Trembling in anticipation, Andriy tried to fathom what he was being subjected to...moments later, realization finally dawned on him- he had actually been tied to the cave-in beneath the elevator. The monster in question was three stories above, descending slowly, immaculately, almost in a bored,routine,insignificant manner; not aware of the act it would be committing in seconds.

"Release me...please!!" Malcolm shrieked,frightened nearly to death; spitting vomit out of the way.

With a sadistic leer, Pandev pocketed the papers safely into his breast pocket and stalked into the shadows.




back to my favored arena,this be my modest tribute to one Mr.AC :) this is a damacha on the face of one of my friends who claimed that basu ain't be able to go beyond romantic bullshit.hihi
n yes,bullshit is not correct too :D have a real long holiday up ahead..looking forward to some wonderful time with friends n...n yeah, if you people are absolutely flabbergasted in this heat, I'll recommend you to go see Shaurya or Khuda ke liye...excellent movies,both of them-would surely be a refreshing break.