Not a second passes by when me and my soul are not on knees thanking the omnipotent. Not a second. The light on the other side of the tunnel is limpid and bright. As if welcoming the forgotten. I am no longer skeptical about the strengths and walk tall as if I deserve every fragment of it.

The sojourn was gruesome – as I’ve inscribed before. Countless hours, Failing endeavors and a vanquished mind. They talk about not looking back once it’s over. I call them obtuse. I turn my head over my neck and see the blood stained walls I’ve lived. I simper a little, look in front and walk with even more courage and fortitude – to attain what I started for.

Its futile to elucidate the past. Its over. Not that I forget it – I extract every bit of meaning  and soak it in – i just dont brood over it.

I still sit beside the river, seeing the other side with hope. Yes, hope. Unconscious of what I should do now. Does my heart longs for the “other side”? I am not sure. Evolutions – as they say – heh – Evolutions. Situations, time, places, people, expectations and my own being – all have changed. The river has widened to augment the gap.

The skin on my bare feet recuperates. You are here. And no, I don’t inscribe a word more – some things are better left unspoken.

The white light clears a bit, insinuating what’s in store. I sense  it and take a deep breath to consume it in. Its beautiful.

Losers are those who think they’d tranquilize once the tunnel ends and the light clears. As I know its a beginning to yet another sojourn which I humbly accept, and if that’d bleed my veins out – so be it. True happiness comes from within,  and out of the endeavors you put into making yourself and everything around you wonderful.

Introspecting along the way, I take another step towards the daylight, towards sanguinity, towards a new beginning.

Its stagnant. The trees, the air, things around me, and my mortal self. I seem to drag my feet with the utmost strength I have within me, but in vain. As if being a part of an inanimate picture where everything has been brushed with black and white and the passers by don’t bother to look. I know this is a phase and will go away sooner than later.

The transition is detached. No bliss. No hopes. No bleakness. As the desires are far away and here I am beating about the bush. I touched heaven from the upper layers of my mind, body and soul. I sensed the inner ones when time was not on my side. I witnessed the paramount of debility in me this time when I was on my side of the river. Its useless. Its unimportant. Its inconsequential. What I think or want. And I now know it always was. I just never realized as I always was too engaged in bathing in the glory of being a part of it. And it went away just like that. Heh !!  With all the power God has vested in you, it just occurs to your mind that its all just fake as he is the one who takes it away without you even knowing it. I did not even beg this time to stall those moments as I knew my reservations.

Time passes. things happen and we just behold like a mute spectator from a distance. I do not believe in the genuineness of the fact that its us who inscribe our own fate. No I don’t. We just live it. Its all impressed on stone and all we do is follow the path. Taking turns when it calls and walking straight when it doesn’t. I’ve painfully endeavored to make a surrogate and trust me its been futile.

That’s life in real. Make the most of what’s written rather than wasting time in writing your own. As much as I can hate, I’ve accepted it completely after the sojourn. The “other side” peeps from the corners of my defeated mind but I silently subdue it. I know I will soon conquer my mind.

And with this self deception I yet again walk the line.

My wanderlust brings me yet again to my hiding. Or is it the desire to get inspired ? I am incognizant. The place no longer is the same as before. Fall has gone to give way to the chilly element which now sets. People have deserted it like some parched abandoned land. Thats what  humans are. We reap our fraction of ecstasy when its lush green and abandon it to oblivion when nothing’s left. I am not one of those reckless mortals. I feel life running through my veins when I come here. I feel the vehement chords striking from the entourage. I feel…. and can I not go on ?

I walk down to one of those paths which takes you in between the lake, to get surrounded by the Adam’s ale from all three sides. I do this to get close to where I have come from, to where I’ll go. I make a nexus. I know “it” listens to me. We talk in quiescence. I enter in temporal amnesia, forgetting everything which defines my existence. And its placidity which inculcates within.

Its a different time of the year now. Clouds play the hue game no more. They are all unified as a dark stretch of obsidian smoke, as if fighting the chill. There are still some red and saffron stripes which run from one end to eternity but they too tend to fade away. My contemplation of the firmament is blocked by the dead trees in the vicinity. They are much like the place itself, abandoned by the folioles, just those tiny twigs coming out of their branches finding life.

The lake is rampant. Listless & dissuaded. It still seeks the gold which is now black. The sun has lost its presence and is no longer to be seen. Deserted as the place is, makes me happy. The cars pass at a distance, but none make their way to the lake. They have their precedencies transformed now.

As the chill augments and I plan to bid adieu, I slowly look up…. close my eyes ……and take a deep long breath. As if gathering all the energy I can for the week to follow. As after that I return yet again… to my hiding. With the same chill. The same clouds. The same lake. And the same me giving in to the nature when it calls.

We humans are wired within to seek shelter, solace and sympathy. Like those epiphites which need support and help to germinate, on any seedling and shrub which grows in the proximity.  People seek togetherness and companionship. Within places, within things we love and within people, irrespective whether it’s theirs or not.  The very human nature is subservient upon so many things which are imponderable. And I was no different than the race.

The irony of the matter which startles me is whatever we find and whatever we seek is void and futile. Because true happiness is immanent right there inside of us. In a latent cave waiting to get a glimpse and to be unearthed. Its the mind games we play with ourselves contemplating that we are happy when we are dependent, when we are empathized, when we are loved. Even if this is false I now inscribe, how big a thing it is really? Being dependent. Being loved. The desire is all over us at all times and we do all we possibly can to attain it.

The grit comes when you learn to remain complacent when you’re abandoned, aloof, and desolate. When you loose all those social shackles and wires which have bogged you down, when you rise above all and find yourself desolate. It’s then when the catechism incohates, freezing the nerves within.  Caressed and unsustainable as we have been, we’ve given little thought to a different angle of life. Being alone. No one gives. We are receptive to it but loath to give it credence. But life makes you see things which you’ve never dreamed of.

We have dissolved the very meaning of our existence by sharing. Not that sharing bliss and affliction is a bad thing, but exploiting it to an extent where we forget our own meaning and rationale of existence, and consign to oblivion the very idea of being alone would bend us more towards being provisional.

I have learnt to be self-contained in my own small little cave. I have my confidants, my progenitors, and her all the time. And I have learnt not to be that epiphite which bends on every passer to grow. I have a life, my people and my world. And I am the happiest alive.

I relish in the glory of walking tall.

The sun sets at a distance… throwing the feeble remains on the lake infront of me. The lake is black except for the halcyon patch which the sun gives. I see the lake flowing from one end to another. It seems to me like thousands of  small individual tides all exuberant in joy and vying to reach that gold as they flow. Each tide gets blessed and then goes on vanishing away in the dark for the next one to follow. It makes this tranquilizing sound. Enchanting the senses and pulling you in. Into the calmness it resides.

The cold wind strikes the nerves. Chilly as they are, they cool the mind within. The shrubs and tiny little trees get tawny and saffron as the fall sets in. They bend for the lake to assuage like sunflowers. But its little the lake could do.

I behold the path wandering away in the woods. Covered with the red oak. Covered with mother nature. Welcoming to a whole new world of reconciliation. Giving me urges to get absorbed and never come back.

I behold the red clouds scattered all above me. Making their way out of the blue ones. As if distinctively making their own individuality. They make shapes and sizes. Some are rectangular and others hollow. Some merge with the blues. And others are just clouds.

I behold you lady. Walking beside the lake with arms tightly folded. Your hair playing with the wind. Your eyes waiting.  And you seeing the setting sun yet again, just like yesterday. The tears make no mistake and drop like pearls. I stretch my arms but god I am far.

The sun has set at a distance and no longer throws the gold. The tides are all black. All I hear is the captivating sound still pulling me in. The wind serves the purpose and I am at peace. The clouds all give in to the darkness which sets and only a pale redness remains which seems to be the east. My lady has gone… to return tomorrow. I hope I am close this time.

Nature is what gives me realizations. The lake the clouds the wind and every living and subsistive creature around me. A supreme power resembling a black hole pulling everything into it. And I am no different. I no longer behold and close my eyes to slowly give in.

Time is one apathetic bitch. You keep ogling at the ticking phenomenon and it seems to be stagnated. You sit with her for a while and it flows as if being the most impalpable creature on this living cosmopolitan. And that’s the ironical beauty of it.

I’ve beseeched, like a mendicant on his knees, to get a glimpse of the days when it was green. And I still beseech. I don’t feel like relying on words when the human himself is inconsequential. It ticks away, just like that. Shattering hopes to tiny little pieces which eventually turn into nothing but dust.

My congenital sensation leans me toward yet another semblance of Time. Death.

Death is omnipresent. With you when you drive, when you walk, when you eat, when youre alive and even when youre dead. Petrified and timid as we humans are, we squint to disaffirm its very existence. But this doesn’t sways away the mightier.

Life goes on. We indulge in things we know not of. Every second of every hour. Restraining the gravity it merits. Heedless. Untaught. Reckless. We follow patterns, rules and walk the herd. And then the mighty strikes. Like a cloud storm descending from the “above” to inundate us in all “white”. And we just look above. Defenseless. Incompetent. All which was “there” becomes void in a blip. All the cherished times, the cherished memories and the time you were with her. All abducted for the dark ages which follow.

Death is capricious. Death is as conclusive as the human being. Death is visible yet inconspicuous. Death is uncertain, yet the most certain. I have witnessed the pain and agony it brings upon. Not just to the defunct, but everything and anything which is bridged. Just takes a blink for the cataclysmic era to follow.

How do we reverberate then ? It’s artless. Enjoy life. It’s meant for it. Every breathing second. Every living hour. Time and Death are for people who are blind.

Open your eyes and you behold the bliss within and eveywhere around you.

You...

Everytime I talk to you I feel mirthful. Senses have given up the reminiscence of the feel and touch. They literally have. But my mind still remembers. Each and every time our hands touched and talked.

Who are you ? Where are you ? These are no longer questions I now seek. Its all carved within. And will linger there even after this mortal flesh perishes.

I now seek us in one breath. I seek you sitting beside the red oak & letting me behold the very goddess inside you. I seek togetherness. Walking down the memory lane, I die a little inside, seeing the day I left your hand. I seek the day when I hold it again. With the last bit of virility that’s left within me. So that I don’t loose it again.

Don’t contemplate. I tread the path which brings me to what I seek, what we seek. Its hard. The conflagrant sun peels away the skin from my bare feet. I take one step at a time. Sometimes your tears mitigate the burn. But that’s not what I want. As you are no better than what I am. There are things I wanna say. But words are not the best thing Ive got now.

You are the soul. You are the destiny. You are what I am. You are the light. In everything and anything which surrounds me. You are the euphoria. You are the strength. In me, of my hopes and my tread. And You make me complete. Its you everywhere. In the dark, in the light, near me, and far away too.

Nothing seems consequential. Drab is the room where I write these words. But then, the light enters and it enlightens. It finds meaning. It finds life. I close my eyes.

Its you…

It all started with that night…

The rain was intense. God showed no mercy on the one beneath. I was standing in front of one of those typical dimly lit beer shops( where you normally see the owner passed out) with a bottle of beer in my hands. Don’t know how many I already had before that. I tried having a shelter below the broken tin roof and gaped at the dark street in front of me. I was vacuous. Just this one thought shrouding my dark psyche like an intransigent cloak. It was ghastly, melancholy, and in some way good for what happened a few minutes ago. I do not delve. They, whoever and wherever they are, know what I say here.

My “stuck” eyes wandered. I had one of my intimate friend standing beside me. The narrow shelter made him drip. But he wasn’t a crab. He had never been one. He didn’t verbalize while he stood there. I just called him once when I came out of the phone booth to come for a booze when he had no reason to. And there he stood. Not even knowing why he was even there. But he WAS…. and thats what mattered. A few moments ago I was blown away with that shrewd simper which often tells you what big fat sack of shit you are. But here I was not alone. As the shop closed, he held me by my shoulder, as I was unable to walk by then, and took me to a small “dhaba”. I was starving since morning. (Dunno how did he know that) We ate in silence. And then….. I figured the pregnant acceptation. He was “the” comrade. The one… who conceived the unfathomable stillness.

Elucidation has not always been a weapon. Not for confidants. Silence has. And he had this virtue.

I realized that what I lost, was inutile and worthless to what I was blessed with. I went to bed in peace.

And it all ended with that night..

How does that feeling of being the world’s greatest painter makes you feel inside? Even though you know that all you have drawn is a bunch of random lines and probably what would best be called as “Scribbled” with different colors on the crumbled page.

How does that feeling of being the most talented student in your class makes you feel even when you stand at “some” point in class where your teacher would probably not even know your name.

I know it feels great. And you might be thinking how useful these false thoughts and fantasies could be. I am talking about those days when we used to be in our Kindergarten or probably above. When we had a world of our own. Our own desires, our own dreams. And just one ray of hope which helped us accomplish those wildest of fantasies. It was our parents. Be it having a vanilla ice cream with an orange bar or even having questions whose answer even God did not know. Every moment in our life was a discovery and our parents were the one who helped us discover things around us. That urge of curiosity which triggered every second never made them irritated or made them give the wrong answer to shut us up.

I still remember the days when we used to play cricket and I always used to hit a six whenever my Dad bowled and got out on duck when I played with my friends. I understand it now…. Oh yes I do. And now I smile when I think of it. I used to come back home with a dull face and my Dad used to take me to the lawn to have me bat so that I can regain my so called confidence. That is the kind of patience and diligence and love and what not… I talk about here. Even now when I get a job offer from some crappy company, or get a B- instead of an A I never hear a word of discouragement from them. I dunno how they say or what they say, but it always makes me feel better, makes me feel confident.

This makes me wonder what are WE doing to make them happy, make them free of all the worries, and make them feel that ” We are there….with them.” It feels so bad from inside when my Dad calls me with a problem that he has been getting this Virus Definition alert from the computer time and again, or he getting tired standing all day outside in the sun having our house white-washed. The solution might be as small as clicking on that stupid balloon near the task bar and click OK to download the virus definitions or having him sit inside the room and me having the house painted standing outside. But its just that I am not there to help him out with these tiny little situations. When I find myself so far far away from them, it hurts a little inside. I know I am doing this to have a better life ahead, earn lots of money and eventually be “able” to live with them, and be a part of all the troubles all the worries they might possibly have in their life. But what about now? What about this present moment? Am I not able?

The most essential thing which I feel we can give our parents is to be with them…. be with them when they need us the most. This is what I think. This is what my Mom always tells me whenever we chat online. That all she wants now is to be with the family. Such a low key affair in return to what they have given us all through their lives. This is the kind of love I talk about here which never asks you for anything, just keeps telling you to be safe, happy and sound.

They’ve always been there when we’ve needed them. And I am determined to repay( though I can never in my life… or in my seven lives ahead.. if there are) each and every single bit of it with all the happiness I can, all the fun I can by just “being there” now when “They” need us.

How free are we really today. How often do we do things WE really want. I dont think its too frequent.

While walking down the vista near the design building at my university, I just wondered. How is that feeling of doing something amazing, something which your heart always wants to do. Be it just running across the street and shouting on the top of your lungs after getting your first job offer, flunking school to sit and relax some day, or even trying out for an exam even though you know you would fail, but giving it just because you always wanted to. This might sound a bit stupid but just peep into yourself and see if that urge exists. I am sure it does. It is just that we don’t follow it. Why ? No one knows.

For me the most important thing a person does in life are things what he really wants( and i talk about the positive things ). I cant explain it more. Maybe having a bit extra spice in your food someday even though your doc forbids you, partying late that one time even if your parents dont allow, studying overnight even though you know you might get a migraine attack the next day or even trying for something unachievable. I don’t know. I guess I can go on and on. It really doesn’t matter. Cuz its you who has to decide what you really want to do. And its not at all related to your career, your prospects, your exams and all those bullshit. Its just “something”. Its just that one time, that one time, when you should allow that feeling to sink in that you followed what your heart wanted. No one understands. Really, no one would ever do. No use elucidating. Its your eccentricity which defines it.

Life is short. And I’m not being pessimistic. It really is for people who enjoy it. And what do we do with it? We end up following not what WE want, but what others around us want. We keep ourselves busy to pacify others rather than soothing our own spirit. And please, that is nothing philanthropic I am talking about. Instead I find it stupid. Because you never realize your deeds. You just keep doing it, just following what others say to you, just being that one sheep in a gigantic herd. I know its not always black and white. But sometimes you gotto make it, just to at the least know what you as a person want.

Last week I did something which my heart desired. I ended up hurting a couple of people whom I did not even care about, but still, I am not one of those. My friend helped me take that decision. He made me realize how important it is to follow your own dreams which you have in life. I was afraid that I am not being considerate. This is not how I have been. No Absolutely not. But then what followed was something inexplicable. Something which only I in this whole world experienced. That sense of pride. That sense of confidence of being “able”. That sense of happiness and control. I know that this was something important for my life ahead. But this post is not only about “those big things”. Its also about those small and tiny little situations where you get stuck almost daily and end up letting go of what you wanted to with them. Either being idealistic, being so called philanthropic, or even being foolish. What I realized before writing this post was that these type of circumstances keep occurring in our diurnal life. Every day, every moment. When there is something which just binds you in its own. That very thing which you want. But you do not follow it because of some or the other reason.

This not something we should be doing, is what I think. I don’t aspire to be selfish. I wish to always help people and to always do good things in life. But I also want not to forget that dormant urge which resides within me. And asks me for a couple of seconds from my own life. Cuz instead of doing any harm, it brings a feeling of pride, makes me happy. I have experienced it and that is what makes me write all that I have.

While walking down the vista near the design building at my university, it just occurred to me that I was there to have an SLR camera checked out from my IT services department. I know I don’t do photography. I know I don’t have that ‘eye’ in me to click those scenic snaps which you find on those yearly calendars. But still………… I am there……….cuz I realized that I wanted to.