For once.....

The invisible teardrops roll down the cheeks....
Do you see the pain I go through,
When I turn away from you.

The mist blinds and the cold numbs....
But the sorrow of staying away from you,
Thats what kills me each day.

I wish you could me mine....
For once I wanna believe that my life is a fairytale,
For once......it could be true....

FOUNTAINHEAD.......

Have you read the novel..."Fountainhead" ??? Well if you have not then I suggest you grab yourself a copy right away and start digging through it. It is one helluva eyeopener. The outrageous truths of the world thrown straight at one's face and one stares at it.....lighting struck......dumbfounded.
Its about a young aspiring architect and his struggle against the discriminations and injustice imposed on him for being what he was- an original. He was punished for being a true artist whose driving force was his unfaltering devotion for his work.
But the novel also centers around various other characters, each one more complicated than the other.... each one more despicable,more abominable than the other. As the story goes on one realizes the means and must I say, "obnoxious means" adopted by people to meet their ends. It exposes all the masks a man wears to strive in this world. All the masks that we live on....and all those we can't live on....
It is a long novel.....of about 700 pages....and there were times when reading it left me limp with disgust..... Disgust for my own kind. I know we all lie....and we all cheat....that there's a devil inside each of us. But to actually rip the skin off and to expose it to the world....it takes courage. It takes courage to even admit that man is capable of doing such vile things. And Ayn Rand has done just that. She has exposed the worst of man in the best possible way man can and I personally salute her for that.I have not read a novel like that in a long time. The abstruse human character and the intricate workings of the human mind have seldom been described with such eloquence. The novel is the creation of a genius who understands human nature impeccably....If you have not read it once in your lifetime......you have missed a great opportunity.....to know the world.....to know its people and most importantly to know yourself....
Take care....

Dedicated to Goldy and Flounder....

This is in memory of my two demised pets – Goldy and Flounder.



It was a warm summer afternoon when I was first introduced to the two puny creatures playfully swimming in the meager water held in a transparent packet. Trepidations ran through me as I held the bag and rested it on my lap.I was sanguine and happiness radiated from me like radiations from a radium. But soon apprehension and worry replaced them. My face contoured as scad of doubts flooded my mind.. I knew it wasn’t really a walk in the park to have a pet and to add fuel to the fire I had two!!! Having two pets in a room where there were three people already....I started doubting my decision. But thanks to my roommates they welcomed goldy and flounder with open arms.


I never had any water creatures as my pet and I didn’t have a scintilla of idea how to look after them. But I was assured that fishes were the most non-demanding pets of all who simply required one time feeding and once in a week cleansing.( changing the water). How difficult can it be.....I thought to myself...and it didn’t take me long to find out.


Feeding them once a day was an easy task. But cleaning what they excreted after being fed....that was a noisome task. In the beginning I hesitated a little to clean their shit but I knew I had to stop fretting about it sooner or later......so why not sooner. The bowl where I kept them was a small one...I wasn’t sure if it was spacious enough for the two of them. But they seemed fine with it....got a small pump to circulate oxygen in the water....


So goldy and flounder soon became a part of our lives......Abhi’s,Mani’s n my life....We used to feed them after coming back from our classes and they used to help me clean the water. Leaving a note if one of us had fed them already so that they don’t get overfed.(because I read in the net that it was detrimental for their health).


It was a late Sunday morning when I got up and as a daily ritual I peeked into the bowl to see if my gold fishes were ok. I was petrified to see that goldy and flounder had red patches all over their bodies, goldy being the more severely hit. I shrieked and woke Abhi and Mani up....The three of us poundered over what could have happened coming up with implausible theories. Without further dawdling the matter I started to search for vetenary doctors in the net....called friends if they knew of any doctor for animals themselves. Finally a friend called back and gave me the address and phone number of a doctor. I gave the doctor a call and arranged for an appointment.


The doctor after examining the two of them poured a few drops of a dark colored liquid into the water and advised me to frequently change the water in the bowl. Like the first spring sun lighting the world after a long and infernish winter,the words from the doctor lighted the somber winter in me . Somewhere in the corner of my heart I felt a taper of hope lite up.But as I entered the college premises I felt a jolt taking my breath away.....Goldy was listlessly floating on top of the water.


I guess I didn’t want to accept the fact that it was too late as i scurried and placed it in a huge bucket of water . With trembling hands as I poured the rest of the medicine into the water I knew it was of no avail. With tears streaming down my cheeks I collapsed by the side of the bucket. After what seemed like eternity I felt warm and comforting arms around me.


It was twilight when the three of us carried goldy and buried it under a tree. Lachrymosed I said my parting words to goldy asking it to forgive me. The pain of losing goldy was palpable.....


Consoling myself that I atleast had flounder with me I started off again. This time more chary and vigilent. It was 31th of May ’10 when I took flounder back to my sister’s place....my vacations had just started and I was looking forward to it. Summer went well. Flounder got a little darker. I was told that goldfishes need to be kept in sunlight to have that shimmering golden coat. So I shifted its bowl to the living room....It seemed happy there....Its fins and scales started changing color....It started getting bright. But a few days before my vacations were over one fine morning I found flounder floating limplessly in the water. All my attempts to resusciate it went in vain. Flounder was dead.


It was then, I decided not to have any pets of my own any time soon. The pain of losing a pet( in my case two) was rueful enough to even bother of thinking of having one in the near future. All the consolations and sympathy seem hollow when you lose something or someone you love to death....It still sends a shiver down my spine....the woeful memories when I lost them.

Home...Holidays...Driving...or maybe not!!!!!!

This is a random post....I have nothing in my mind that I specifically wanna write about, but its been long since I wrote something and I am sure the phoenix was getting lonely by the hour !!! ;P

I've come home for a few days. Holidays......you see. Oh...I love summer....well the one here in guwahati.... Its always cloudy and raining .You don't need the fan running at full speed all time...just a moderate rotation of the wings is enough... It even feels like the beginning of spring here sometimes..you know what I mean.....pleasant mornings.. when you have to take a blanket or a sheet because the mercury drops...cloudy afternoons and absolutely fabulous evenings.You can feel the wind blowing through your hair and the moisture in the air....There's something in the air and water of this place that draws me back to itself each time I plan to go away. Some invisible magnetism I suppose......Even the silence here is filled with melody. The morning call of the roaster....the chirping of the birds..the whispering of the leaves....there's always music floating in the air.....well if you care to listen though...

Well I've been planning on getting started with my driving lessons this summer.....*sigh*(no I don't know how to drive yet). Well my dad tells me to get up at five in the morning for that!!! Holy cow!!! Who gets up at five even on holidays. Its a cardinal sin !!!! But each night before going to bed I ask my mom to wake me up at five and each day she unfailingly fails to do so because the moment she calls out my name, I make a face at her and turn around. And the irony of the situation...... instead of a staccato command to get up...mom kisses me and tells me to go back to sleep too!!! Well that's what happens when you stay away from home for so long...parents let you do anything you want!!!! But it's only been three days since I've been home...so I've still got some time to crash my car into something I suppose...lol....
Until my crash.......adieu.....

Spell you away......

When you said goodbye....

I never thought I heard it right.
Though now I see...
It was all a facade from the very start.
I flinched and twisted in pain to get over you...
And now that I've...you have started haunting me in my dreams.
I wish I could simply spell you away...
Like in some wizard tale they do everyday.


I wonder if you recall all the promises you made...
Or the sugar-coated lies you said.
I want to believe that you are the monster everybody claims you to be....
But when I look into your eyes that's not what I see.
I grasp to hold on to you....
But find that you are only slipping through.
Even in my thoughts...
I feel your stolidity towards me.


Sometimes I wonder if you were blind.....
Because you could never see my broken heart lying there by your side.
I wish there was a cure for broken hearts....
A cast or a plaster which might heal some parts.
But I guess you'll never know.....
And now I really wish I could spell you away...
Like in some wizard tale they do everyday.

Endings...

I was always apprehensive about endings.Be it the end of a movie....a novel....a bed-time story....and these days a new kind of end is haunting me. The end of this semester....The end of another academic year. The realisation that four years are coming to an end.....abruptly....It all seems surreal now. As if walking in a trance.Sometimes I wish we had a fast- forward button in our lives....a rewind button too....Avoid the unpleasanties.......enjoy the good times over and over again. It is chimerical......I know....But since when did logic and heart agree !!!!
And as the days are flying by, the realisation is hitting home.....each day a little harder that this is maybe the last time I'll ever see them. It makes my heart contract when I think of the end. I am still waiting for it to hit me harder...to knock my breath away, to finally make me realise that it's over and now I can't do anything about it but look back and smile.....and maybe even cry...

Nostalgia befriends......

Its been three years since I first stepped into this place and it seems like yesterday. I vividly remember it was drizzling the day I came to the college. A thin film of rain enveloping the entire span of my vision making the sight profoundly mesmerising.



With the weeks rolling by and the end of another academic year creeping closer I shiver with the haunting feeling of emptiness fighting the nostalgia off as I realise my days here are counted. Four years seem ephemeral now.


Despite the fact that we whimper about every single thing of this place I’ll miss it. I will miss the horrible food of the mess which we always grumble about and the people in it. I will miss the ice-tea and maggi of nescafe!!! I will miss loitering outside jaggi after each class only to be late for the next one..... The somnolent lectures where we use every ounce of our energy to keep our eyelids open. The scribblings on the desks whose eruditeness appeals to us more than lending an ear to what the teacher is saying.


I’ll miss the baking heat and the freezing cold. Getting up at 7:30 in the morning and rushing for class with breakfast in hand...only to be thrown out of it. The last minute assignment completion and congregating notes before the examination day....Bunking class without any rhyme or reason.


I’ll immensely miss the hostel life...the petty rules and fines!!! Waiting in queue for my turn in the shower.The birthday celebrations and the late night snack parties. Watching movies during examinations. Waiting for the weekend since Monday only to be online all night long. Ordering home delivery because the dinner refused to go down the throat. I’ll miss my loving erractic roommates and their constant fussing!!! I’ll even miss the cacophony of the peococks late at night which keeps me awake.


And momentously I’ll miss all my friends. The ones I made and the ones I lost. The ones with whom I laughed and fought. The ones I shared my exuberance with and my doldrums too. The ones who always stood by me and the ones who went away.The treachery and the fidelity....


With each arduous moment in college life i learnt how to face the decadence of the world. It taught me what no text book in the world could...to live life. College din’t just mould an engineer out of me......It moulded me....

Birthdays....

I was the kind of person who loved birthdays. Be it mine or somebody else’s .Birthdays always excited me. For me it was not merely a day but rather a week and sometimes even a month!!! Buying dresses....shopping for shoes.......deciding the right cake... the perfect guest list....well the planning goes on like forever. But as the years piled on the craze waned off. Birthdays in my life lost their sparks. I vividly recall my 15th birthday when my house was overflowing with people and there was no space even to set a foot. Ours is a huge family and few of my friends paid me surprise visits too. So it was an unexpectedly big party and almost everybody in our apartment was invited as it was kinda my last birthday home though bless my college people I’ve been home every summer since I got into it. So it has been a bliss!!!!! Well as the people mobbed in, greeting everyone, sitting and chatting with every guest for a few minutes became a reiteration. My study table started creaking under the weight of the gifts piling up on it and I started feeling as if the welcome smile was plastered on my face. It was 11:30 by the time the last guests went and as my mother waved them goodnight and turned to me I saw in her eyes profound exhaustion. Maudlinly but blithely I hugged my mother and thanked her for throwing me such a sumptuous party.
Unwrapping all my gifts before going to bed was a birthday ritual I never procrastinated but that day as I headed for my room I could feel the enthusiasm draining out. I didn’t realise for how long I sat on the bed before my parents came,tugged me into bed and kissed me goodnight. A lot had changed that night, a lot had happened.
Now every year on my birthday I plead to my parents not to invite any guests. I plead to them not to plan for it weeks ago, I plead to them not to get me unwanted gifts. Now I just want to spend it with the people who brought me into this world, who made my life beautiful and who made me who I am today.

Republic Day Special......

It was nine in the morning when my cell beeped. I squinted my eyes against the innocuous thin bar of light slipping through the folds of the curtain. Messages wishing me a happy republic day were flowing in from different corners of the country where my friends were scattered. It wasn’t until I boarded the bus and was on my way back to college that a very afflicting sight caught my eyes and made my insides churn. Two kids sitting in the middle of a field with a “lota” by their side. Earlier that morning I heard my sister talking on the phone with one of her clients about installing a jacuzzi in their new bathroom!!!! I was vexed and now there was no anchor to my disarrayed thoughts. The images flashed back into my mind. The things which I often ignore to avoid the dismaying thoughts like these which challenge my sanity are yet again hovering over. Lol....


I don’t know whether I should be proud to be an Indian, overlook what I just saw and celebrate our Republic Day as I had planned earlier today...Go out with friends in the evening, listen to some patriotic songs or......well I don't know anymore ??? Earlier this morning the messages urged me to celebrate our Republic Day glorifying India as the nation “united in its diversity.” Then why do I still find people fighting to create their own states? Why are there bomb blasts and threats all around? Why do people of different communities thirst of each other’s bloodshed when there are riots?

Should I be proud that half of my country’s population doesn’t even have a loo to attend to their nature’s call leave aside a bathroom!!!! Whereas when I turn around the scenario takes a 360 degree turn. There are people who not only have bathrooms the size of my bedroom or that poor kid’s entire house but they also have shower cubicles, bathtubs, Jacuzzis, TV and fridges!!!! Who keeps a fridge in a bathroom!!!! Some glutton he must be!!!!! I turn around again and see a small child leaning and rummaging through the garbage bin in hope of finding a morsel of food to pacify the growls of his hungered stomach. And there again I find people partying hard all night long on booze and shishas.

I know many of you would disagree and may even excoriate me for being so skeptical but how can I be proud when we still introduce ourselves as Punjabis, Marathis, Bengalis first and as an Indian later. How can I be proud when every other community demands for a country of their own and are trying to cut apart my country’s arms and limbs??? How can I be proud when I see that in this era of technological advancement we still marry off frogs in hope of rain? How can I be proud when I find that women are burnt alive by their in-laws because of dowry? How can I be proud when I find that the people whom we had chosen to represent and serve us are fighting like cats and dogs defaming the thousand years old culture of ours?

Like a mother who loves her children and forgives their misdemeanours no matter how it breaks her heart, I love my country too. Because despite its short-comings............it is MINE.

It's cold out here.......

I could not feel my hands. I didn’t know if I still had my feet. I couldn’t feel them either. As I inched my way through the thick fog enveloping the entire span of my vision I let out an audible sigh wondering when was it coming to an end. Surreptitiously I peeked through the Eskimo hood of my super Eskimo jacket to catch a glimpse of the clouds hovering over our heads promising another gloomy and sun shunned day. I am not a winter person. The cold spreads through my outer shell like slow venom, paralysing my movements and  ability of rational thinking. If brain dead due to extreme cold was possible I would’ve been its first victim!!!!! It is the coldest year since I first came to this place. Nothing about this place is moderate. Extremity is its speciality. Be it winter or summer. The summers are intolerable with almost 20 hours of power failure and winters were a curse for people like me. As I reached the classroom I could see the tip of my nose.....red nose. My cheeks felt pinned by thousands of invisible needles. I was breathing out smoke. Wow I don’t need to smoke for that now!!!!!! Not that I do.....but it felt wonderful to find smoke coming out of your nostrils like a Dragon!!!!!!I I am a Dragon according to Chinese horoscope, so I presume it suits me well and besides my smouldering personality compliments it. With the days dragging by each breath seems like a conscious effort now. The frigidness of the weather and the people around seep in surreptitiously numbing my senses. I wish to be sensible again. I crave for sensitivity like never before. Let it be warm again. Your frigidness is murderous........

What would I ask???????

Its mocking when GOD plays dice with your life. When you know that he's deliberately messing your life and laughing out there somewhere only to watch if you can make out of the pitfalls he has laid out for you. I sometimes feel like screaming my lungs out at him...throw tantrums for what he was doing with me? Or would I???Well....what if I really faced GOD someday? I often imagine and daydream about it. If I met GOD and was allowed to ask only one question....what would it be? Would I ask him why was he messing with my life??? No......wait...."What is my future like?''.....well that seems like a relevant question. Isn't it? No,that would be a little selfish on my part!!!! Ok.....what about....."When is the judgement day....the Armageddon? When will the earth end and how?" But don't I already know the answer to this....2012!!!! What would I ask ????
Well if you were to face God someday and were allowed to ask only "ONE" question.......the most important question for you in your life.......What would it be??????