Sunday, September 6, 2009

Moving Away

Sometimes people move away, maybe to another city, maybe just because they're bored of where they're living. Moving is a normal part of life, and for people like me, it is an integral part of life. I have been moving from one place to another, from one house to another, just about all my life. I haven't lived in a house for more than three years.
Sometimes I feel I have become incapable of settling down in one house/place, and I soon start to get bored. Three years and I'm so utterly bored that I want to leave. Luckily, this only holds good for houses, and not for people. I don't get bored of people...not even if they try to bore me!
Anyways this time I'm not moving house (I recently did, my parents shifted from old house to the one we're currently living in, and I shifted from my hostel in Allahabad to this place in Hyderabad...how I miss living in the hostel...*sigh*...I miss hostel). I am moving my blog...
A friend of mine inspired me to shift to http://www.wordpress.com/ and I have done so. See, my blog is still the same, only the platform and look and feel have changed. The new blog is a continuation of this one (note I've given it the same title), thus it's still the same.
So for all further posts, please refer to:
And don't forget to LEAVE COMMENTS on my new blog!! :P (also a word of thanks to all you people who read my blog...really, you've kept me going...)

Friday, August 21, 2009

The Way it Makes Me Feel

It's been a while...

Was going through a strange phase, and had decided to give up writing for an indefinitely long time, but somewhere along the way the experiment failed, and I'm back here to bug all of you to death... :P

I guess there are somethings that matter too much to actually give up, and I realized that the hard way.

Anyways this blog is not about me, so I'll stop ranting about myself (though of course I would love to bore all of you to death about how great I am...:P)

I still remember that last day in Allahabad, I woke up at around 4:30 as I had to meet a friend as soon as my hostel gates opened up (actually I was too sad about leaving to sleep, and at the same time too excited). It felt good being awake to watch the sky lighten, and see birds flying overhead. It is a morning I'll never forget...

Missed the sunrise that morning, all because of my hostel guards who have always felt important as they had the keys to the hostel, were extra difficult to deal with that day about letting me out. Still it was beautiful, sitting there staring at the sun's reflection on the water. There is a tranquility in such things that stays with you for life...

I had a very strange feeling those last few days I was there in Allahabad, especially that morning. Do you ever get a feeling that all you want to do is dissolve into that moment and become one with it? Like nothing in the world matters, but what you feel at that precise moment, and you would give up everything in the world to freeze time for a little while. I hadn't felt that way before, but whatever it was, it felt beautiful.

And sometimes you listen to a song, and you land up closing your eyes, and literally feel the music flowing through your veins, and when the music ends, that moment of silence leaves you dumbstruck. Sometimes it is the music alone, other times it is the lyrics, but it's best when the lyrics and the music both touch something inside of you.

When reading a book, or a poem, sometimes a line or a paragraph/stanza sends shivers down your spine, and you just stop for a moment, as if time came to a standstill, while your mind properly digests the real gist of what you just read. One book I recently read that made me feel this way was Lord of the Flies, just some lines here or there were enough to make me think...whoa...(another such book was To Kill a Mockingbird).

Yet nothing in the world beats writing a single line that leaves you in awe of yourself. After writing for so long, I still do not think I have written that line, but someday I hope to. Someday on this ride called life, I want to be able to write one meaningful sentence, for I feel it would be enough to...

I just want to take the fall, and see where I land...even if it leaves me utterly broken.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Magic

Sitting at home I have started losing my mind (not that I had any to start with), in a bad way. This post is not about that (even though I know that I need to get it out of my system).

A long time ago, in a land far away, there lived a girl. She was an ordinary girl, from a not so ordinary family. She had a childhood of constant conflict, a childhood divided in two. Often in later years she would wish she could unlive the childhood she had, she would wish she could erase all memories of it. Sadly, she had a terribly good memory, a memory most considered a great virtue, but only she knew it was nothing but a vice, a burden. Sometimes it's better to forget, to feel true bliss.

As this girl grew older, and her awkwardness seeped underneath her skin and corrupted her mind, she thought more and more often of hiding, of disappearing into nothingness. Slowly she withdrew into the shadows of her broken world, and shut out all the light. It was there that she realized she had a gift, she knew magic. The petty mortals of the world knew not of such a thing, and she knew they would not understand, she knew that they would shun her away as if she were an alien being. So this gift of her's she hid from all.

The magic she knew, my friends, was not your ordinary stuff of love potions and flying sky high, it involved no wand, nor did it have much to do with spells and magic words. No, her magical powers were beyond it all. She had the ability to go to any place she liked, change her surroundings into anything that pleased her, provided she would go back to the world in which she was born once the magic of the moment wore out. She had the ability to change the world.

At first she only used her gift like a drug, to drift herself away from the pains of everyday life. She would take herself to watch beautiful sunsets, and see majestic waterfalls. She would take herself to mountainsides and riverbeds, she would even take herself to space and roam galaxies never even dreamed of. She created lands of bliss all around her, she created a perfect world, where no pain could be found, no pain could be caused, nothing negative existed. Alas the ecstasy of drugs must soon turn into dark paranoia.

The burden of pain she carried in her heart soon seeped into the wounds and cracks of her world of escape. The pain permeated through her skin, into the air around her and made it heavy, suffocating her. Was her gift to turn into a bane? She could have succumbed to it, like she had given in to every sorrow or happiness that came her way, but for the first time in her life she wanted to put up a fight, even if it meant the death of her. Even death is better than a void, better than emptiness.

So she traveled to worlds of suffering with her magic, she saw the horrors of war first hand, she saw the inhuman conditions of the slums, she saw the hypocrisy of the government, she was an eyewitness of how that which seemed white quickly faded to black, and how not all black things were truly dark. She saw cunning behind the pure, and the naivety behind the corrupt. She saw for the first time human suffering, human bondage, cruelty and true surrender. She watched a suicide, she committed a murder, the turmoils and guilt of the world was now heavy on her back, like burden of the workers who carried bricks for miles to build a lost cause. Only then did she see the naked truth, only then did she cast away the pains of everyday life and learn to smile. She understood her gift, this ability to change the world.

Far in the future, when she had truly mastered her gift, and was busy bettering the world, she heard a voice ringing in the distance. She felt a hand on her shoulder, and turned to see no one. Then she watched her world come crashing down, it was a blur of color, like buckets of falling paint. And then it was darkness. Her pen slipped and fell to the floor, and a familiar hand reached to pick it up for her...

Saturday, May 9, 2009

Ah...Woodchuck Gods...

Often I've sat and wondered why the Woodchuck Gods suddenly awoke to realize they wanted to take over the world. I mean, sure the world is in a pretty chaotic condition right now, and they sure haven't been worshiped by any carbon-based life forms that I know of, but why realize these facts after existing and evolving over millions of years? Yet I'm very sure the source of my worries is of absolutely no importance whatsoever, at least not at this precise moment.

The Woodchuck Gods never quite approved the exchange of tiny green pieces of paper for goods of real value. They always found it odd how humans tend to rely so much on these little sheets of paper that there was such a high percentage of them worrying about this trade. Some Homo sapiens even murdered or committed suicide over these tiny pieces of green paper. Now that the world was plunge into what was called an Economic Crisis, the Woodchuck Gods were left dumbstruck at the condition these so-called intelligent life forms brought upon themselves. So many people lost their jobs (what humans hate doing but must do to get these little green pieces of paper), and at such times finding this source of income was very difficult indeed.

The Woodchuck Gods often wondered why some carbon-based life forms had huge concrete/wood structures to sleep in, while others lived under a tin roof, or sometimes not even that. The Woodchuck Gods had always seen that their fellow Woodchucks were well off, and if ever one was in need of anything, many Woodchuck Gods were ready to lend a helping hand. Yet this world of humans was almost cruel. Tattered and torn younglings would go up to these men in suits, holding breifcases, and ask for a tiny share of those green pieces of paper, enough to buy them a meal, but they would always be turned down. Yet these humans in suits would gladly give a portion of their little green sheets of paper to fat men who transported them from one end of a road to another in yellow steel frames that had wheels. Oh the irony...

What struck them as even odder was the fact that most Homo sapiens had the time to hate other Homo sapiens on the basis of creed, class, color, religion, or even sexual orientation! The Woodchuck Gods never cared much if their fellow Woodchucks were dark furred or light furred, or whether they were the types who liked members of the same sex, or if one Woodchuck believed in UFOs and the other did not. The Woodchuck Gods always felt that there were more important ways to judge other Woodchucks, ways that didn't reek of prejudice. Woodchuck Gods believed in the equality of all Woodchucks. Yet humans killed each other because of these differences, they killed each other for no fault, for no reason, for no purpose other than hatred.

"Why do humans give so much importance to the unborn of their species when they happily kill animals capable of feeling?" wondered one of the Woodchuck Gods as he heard about protests against abortion. The Woodchuck Gods always believed that it was one's choice to agree with abortion or not, but protesting against it was a absolute stupidity, let the person in question decide whether it's wrong according to them or not. This went for so many other things, like banning stem cell research. Why stop the scientific progress of the world only because your views differ from someone elses? They say we have freedom of thought, freedom of speech, but the Woodchuck Gods realized that they were just silly phrases to cover up the fact that such things did not exist.

The human world is a complex place, full of contradictions everywhere. Unnecessary complexities add to the already burdensome life that these humans live. The Woodchuck Gods watched the birds fly, and they knew what freedom really is. That eagle soaring up in the sky symbolizes the freedom of thought, that nightingale singing its song in the night symbolizes the freedom of speech, and inbetween is nothing but true bliss. If ever the Woodchuck Gods wanted to take over the earth, it was because they wanted to see every living entity get the most out of this life they had been given, rather than wasting it away in sorrows and burdens with just an insignificant hint of what life really is.

Alas, will the world ever be free?

Friday, April 24, 2009

Another Dose of Poverty...

The woman was a sad sight, she was not exactly old but was bending, clad in an old sari. Her eyes seemed to be two pools of darkness, yet through the infinite depths of darkness you could still see a tiny sparkle. The man was in an even worse condition, quite old, toothless, he could hardly walk, and I noticed his hands were shaking. It seemed as if every movement he made was a form of suffering for him.

I went to the bank today with my friend. We had to withdraw some money, and my friend had lost his ATM card ages ago. I gave him my ATM card while I filled out the cash withdrawal slip for him. When he came back, I asked him the amount, and as I finished filling out the slip, a lady I recognized as one of the maids in my hostel, came to us and asked me to fill out the slip for her. She seemed so helpless and unsure about whether we would help her or not. She gave us a booklet which had her details and told us she has to withdraw a thousand rupees. I passed it on to my friend, as I was never very fluent with Hindi, and I did not want to make a mistake. Then she had to sign, so she went and got an ink pad and put her thumb print as her signature on three different spots. She was illiterate.

Then the old man came, looking even more unsure of himself, and meekly asked us if we would fill his too. I had seen him earlier while waiting for my friend, the man was having difficulty tearing out a slip from the stack, and when he got it, he walked out the bank (probably in search of someone who could help him fill it). He had to withdraw two hundred rupees. He kept telling us his details, unsure about whether my friend filled it our properly or not. He could not speak very properly. When it came to signing his signature, he took the slip and walked out the bank again. By then I was feeling really depressed, and to make it worse my friend turned to me and said, "It's really sad. I've lent that man a hundred rupees before, I think he drinks a lot though."

My friend got up to withdraw his money, and I sat there watching everyone in the bank, especially the woman and the old man. I felt like crying.

When I got back to my room, I did cry (I do not mean to be dramatic or anything, but these things make me really sad).

I understand we have come here to study, we are here to get a job or go for higher studies, earn a lot of money, get a few cars, buy a house, support our family, but is that really all that life is about? There's so much poverty, so much illiteracy in this world, in our own college, yet I hardly ever see anyone giving a damn about it. I am not even a good person, but still I notice these people around us, living in animal-like conditions. All you good people out there, what has happened to you? Why do you miss these things when you go places? Why do you miss seeing the kids working in our mess? Why do you not notice those kids at the crossing who do not go to school? Why is it that you see the old working and care not for their heavy burden? Why is it that no one thinks that everyone deserves an equal opportunity to live? Have you ever given candy to a poor child and seen their face light up?

There's more to life than just success, money, and fame. As the literate lucky of this society, I think we should take it up as a responsibility to look after the less fortunate. Everyone deserves a chance to live life.

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

The Lost People

I'll try something new here, as I do believe it will be a good experiment. I sure hope I don't land up boring people to death instead...

In a ruinous land, far from civilization (and thankfully for that) was a large structure of much importance to the history of the development of mankind. An ancient school, or bath, a public house of the poor, or a meeting place for an ancient government practice, or maybe even a mini city within another. So large and vast was this structure, that even after decades of research one couldn't quite tell what purpose it served, but could only tell that it served one of great importance. Lost was the past in the depths of darkness, and when the light reemerged it was too far submerged, and thus lost forever.

It was rain that poured forth, like the ravings of a madman, threatening to destroy the meaning of life and death. This destructive storm seemed to wash away the sins of man, but in reality all it did was cover up the sins of man in a veil of purity. Thus those who walked the earth, seemingly pure, were in reality the worst of sinners, and those who seemed soiled were the true pure men of the earth. What was the purpose of such a veil on the morality of mankind? What was the reason for living in such a world of deception? Here this tale begins…

It was a time when the intelligent life on our planet depended on the existence of a superior being. Please the Gods, perform ridiculous rituals to make them happy and these Gods would let the rain pelt down to water the crops, or let the sun shine to take away the bitter cold of the winters. It was a time when people believed that there was an entity who had nothing better to do than look over all of mankind, and watched each being perform good or bad deeds, and accordingly reward them or punish them for all that they have done. In those times it was also believed that one could visit a few places and be washed away of all sins, or buy their way into heaven (which was like an afterlife paradise). For the rest of the people, there was hell (where all the sinners were sent to, to be tortured for eternity). They say these Gods were all forgiving, admit your mistake and reform, and you will be forgiven, but for the sins you have committed, you would be sent to burn in hell.

What was even more bizarre was that even at that time, no one agreed on one supreme being, everyone had their own concept of a God, and they kept fighting over who’s concept of a superior entity was better.

It was a strange time, and the consequences of this dependence on a supreme entity were finally burdening the world and its entire population. People were so adamant about their beliefs that they refused to give them up for peace and prosperity. Wars broke out, and there were terrorist attacks widespread in the lands, yet these people refused to understand the importance of giving up their beliefs to save the lives of millions. Some of the more intelligent groups even used this concept called religion (worship of a higher being) to hide their true purpose for spreading chaos, which was mostly economic or political.

What makes it worse is the fact that not only was the Homo sapiens affected, but so were all the other creatures and vegetative life on the planet. Species were going extinct, and as the vegetation on Earth decreased, the temperatures started rising, and strange meteorological phenomenon started to take place. The world became empty of the sources of energy, and no one seemed to care enough to conserve the little they had, nor did they try to find and widely implement other safer forms of energy.

As time went on, people became malicious; the world was no longer a friendly place to live in. Crime rates increased, more people were murdered, raped, more thefts took place, more gangs walked the streets. People were afraid of leaving their houses, poverty increased, the quantity of good people decreased. Soon enough the world was struck with an economic crisis (this of course was unrelated to religion), resulting due to the existence of pseudo-money in many firms. When this scam was uncovered, the world was in a state of disarray, for no one quite knew how to handle the situation. Everyday the few sane people left would have to stop and ask, what is wrong with the world we live in? What is wrong with people? Are sex, drugs, violence, money, and fame, all that people live for these days?

Just when the few intellectuals had given up hope, they found they were right in doing so. These intellectuals were the only ones who called themselves Atheists, those who worshipped no one. They realized that the world depended far too much on this superior God to make the world a better place. They were the only ones who realized that to make the world a safe place to live in every person on the planet had to give up their belief in this God and believe in themselves and work to make the world a better place. They also knew that this religious bane had to be removed so that at least a few of the world’s problems could be solved, and so other important issues could be handled.

They spoke out against this religion rubbish, and tried to make the people see that only they could save the Earth from utter ruin. They told people that half their problems lie in this false belief and that people were much too intelligent for such gibberish, but their voices were suppressed. They were termed the demons out to ruin the peace and prosperity of the world by spreading their lies and corrupting the minds of innocent believers. Luckily at that time, they could not be condemned to death, but were only converted into outcasts of society. They were not allowed to help better the Earth.

They formed a society for all Atheists, to try and find a solution to this virus called religion that had spread throughout the world. They knew that in the world today, there was no space for a Godly being, because man had discovered so much in science in technology that there was no need to explain most strange phenomenon. People already knew what was happening. They knew religion existed in the ancient world because they did not know what was happening, so they created this entity to have an explanation for all that occurred in the world. Sadly the world has always been cruel to those who go against religious preaching; the world has always condemned those who know the truth before their time. Uniqueness and intelligence have never been rewarded.

This society spoke out against what was happening in the world, thinking a large group will be stronger than an individual. They took a stand against injustice, a stand against foolishness, a stand against religion, a stand to make the world a better and smarter place, a stand to remove evils like terrorism and remove prejudice against certain people because of what religious teachings taught other people.

Sadly all the intellects that were a part of this society suddenly disappeared off the face of the Earth, in a so-called “sad accident” involving a terrorist bombing of their station. They had been disbanded. No one cared much to look into the issue, and in fact there was much rejoicing in certain parts of the world for the devil in disguise of Atheists was finally dead. The veil that had fallen on mankind was much too heavy to remove.

Bleak was the future into which the world was thrust. Things did not improve, in fact conditions only worsened. Finally the human race destroyed themselves due to global warming and a nuclear war.

Today mankind is no more, for evolution took a step further out of which we have come to be. To us there is no such thing as a supreme being who controls everything that happens in the world, to us there’s only us and all that nature, science, and technology can give us. We are an evolved race of intellectuals. After finding out so much about the past from where we have come, the only conclusion I can come to about those ruins is that it must have been a place of worship. To us there is no God, which explains why it took us so long to discover the purpose of those ruins. Oh the irony.


Saturday, April 4, 2009

Eucalyptus

I hear a whisper in the willows,
The scent of eucalyptus fills the air.
I'm only climbing up the steps right now,
As though you were never really there.

I feel myself flying, touching the treetops.
I can still hear the screaming in my head.
A cold breeze catches me and sends me soaring,
As the earth shrinks into an insignificant thread.

I'm walking by your side now,
As you decide to lead the way.
I can feel the awkward silence,
But I can't make it go away.

I'm too busy looking happy,
Too lost in believing everything's alright.
Then again I hear the screaming,
And this time it gives me quite a fright.

You pretend as if you're happy,
But I can see it in your eyes.
You wish for things to be so different,
Though you believe you're paying back the price.

We're feeding the brown ducks now,
It's no longer something we can hide.
There's this sadness on your face
Which desperately makes me want to cry.

I want to hug you and tell you I admire you,
I want to see you laugh.
But there again I hear the screaming,
And I lose the courage to do anything like that.

We're heading back home now,
I really don't want to go.
I'm terribly afraid of the screaming.
More than that, I don't want to see you low.

As I step through the door of destruction,
I think of the day of which I just had a share,
But there's only one thing that I remember:
I really love the scent of eucalyptus in the air...

I wrote this a couple of years ago, and it has now become one of my favorites.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

I Still Remember... (The Start)


It doesn't take long to judge a face they say,

Within the blink of an eye I knew you inside-out.
You did not see me as a girl that day,
But as a friend you would like to keep without a doubt.

Do you remember that time we were up all night?
Drinking coffee and shivering in the cold.
I knew I loved you, it gave me quite a fright,
That with you by my side, I wanted to grow old.

I wrote a book soon after, that was absolutely pointless,
Hinting someday I wanted to disappear with my best friend.
In anger I burnt it into an ashy black mess,
Still the pain in my heart it could not mend.

Sometimes you don't need words to understand,
The turmoil of a perplexed heart.
Time itself often lends a helping hand,
To those who have patience, waiting from the start.

In your small act of deception pertaining to a book,
I found a new meaning of joy.
You pulled my cheeks and I gave you a look,
Hiding how I felt for I was much too shy.

You named me Lucy, I named you Aslan,
And I felt your hand holding mine.
I’ll never forget that feeling, I never can,
Of the shivers that ran up my spine.

I still remember the look in your eyes,
When you told me that you love me.
And those long walks, ending with sad goodbyes,
In which we learned so much about each other, yes truly!

I still remember that day you said to me,
That our friendship shall always come first.

It’s what made our relationship so special,

The fact that we were more than just in love.

The above is dedicated to that special someone in my life, thank you for being there for me through thick and thin. You've been difficult at times, but great most of the time. :D I promised I would write a poem for you someday, and I'm very sorry it took me so long. With you even the best I've ever written won't be good enough, for I don't think I'll ever have the perfect words to express how I feel about you. So for now I guess this will have to do...