The Seeker (Circa 2008)

We start the game and make the pass,
Peruse and pursue, a one-off chance,
Till we meet the perfect keeper,
Keep on playing; he might be a seeker.
Now we know that the seeker hath found,
All that he looked for on another ground.
A playing field much different from ours,
Bloody combat that burned the hours.
There our seeker lay wounded,
Beside him, his castles grounded.
Thus our field he plays with much deliberation,
Could he be the perfect incarnation?
Keep playing; have the seeker close,
Share stories, voices and prose.
Through the looking glass dreams unravel,
The stakes get higher, hear the heart rumble.
Till we find our seeker hath found,
A dream catcher, to keep his hopes on the ground,
None of his dreams ever saw flight,
Dull in the day, morose by night,
His stories were merely words on a tapestry,
Hung out and sundried, soaked in melancholy.
The seeker had played the game from afar,
Built a wall, protected the scar.
Now we know that he never sought to find,
The game he played, of a different kind.
The seeker still plays with a wall of stone,
We retreat to the side lines and watch the warrior lone.
Tales of demise and fantasy abound,
To set into motion, a silent sound.
Keep on playing, forget the fumble,
Buy us time to watch the wall crumble.
Let those trapped dreams soar in the sky, and watch over us,
The seeker and I.

***

My reaction to this in 2011:
- I phew'd
- It feels so so strange to read your own writing from way back when.
- I can barely recollect the context of this.
- Now that I don't feel a constant state of internal struggle gagging me, what could I write about with at least a quarter of this intensity?

This morning...

I missed Porcupine Tree and had flashes of the Steven Wilson concert so bad that I didn't even have the patience to Login.

Where did all the water bottles go?

It really worries me that kids these days carry little water sippers for a whole day of school.
I remember lugging around a red and yellow, one litre water bottle of Milton (the most popular water bottle manufaturing company in the 90s) with a blue cup on top. I hated that it was so badly colour co-ordinated and that I had to carry it in addition to my backpack but I made sure I drank all that water through 9am - 4pm, no matter how many stinky loo breaks it took me, so that I got back home with an empty bottle.
Is this a family-parent issue?
Because I honestly don't think any parent is discouraging their child from drinking too much water.
Kids play, kids sweat, kids do PT, kids need to get out of class every now and then for a loo break, kids need to distract themselves from what's going on in class so that they can have a sip of water.
Are you listening to me mummies and daddies?
Don't fall for the cheap little sippers that the supermarkets are offering. Those are for the housewives to drink from while they shop. They might be attractive and have Barbie on them but they're not for your kids. I trust you know how to raise your children and certainly want the best for them so as the new academic year starts I sincerely hope that you buy your child a nice, big water bottle, one that's well colour co-ordinated. Please.

A Re:Stacks kinda morning...

It was all nippy, windy and dry,
In the AM.
Just like it'd be,
Had Bon Iver hijacked sunshine,
And thrown their own lovely lazy party.

My Perfect Memory of 1989 - '91

I remember it very perfectly.
Those dirty khakhi tiles and brick roof,
Flanked by yellow, blue and red wooden posts at either end,
With little semi circular seats,
That seated four of us six year olds,
And our colorful double-decker tiffin boxes.
The IA classroom at corridor end - left,
And my kindergarten class at the other end - right,
From where we pushed opened our big blue door,
And peeked into the long brown lane,
That reached the foot of the peons quarters -
Dark brown walls and empty black rooms in the day,
Where, rumor has it,
The old witch from the skinny alley took refuge,
When little feet mustered bravado and invaded her den.
And then the canteen of 1991,
Where the UNESCO club held their fundraisers,
And sold delicious samosas for Rs.2,
From oil stained brown boxes.
The same place from where,
Two years later,
Mrs. Pathan would treat us to chocolate vanilla ice cream balls,
To deal with the depression of turning,
A year meaner and older.

Reality is a blind spot sometimes

Listening to music on the outside.
Stringing it together with a montage of happy memories in Polaroid photographs on the inside.

My, my, my!

Deuce

Temporary or permanent?

Yesterday or today?

Direction or deflection?

Lucky or lonely?

Here or there?

Hug or kiss?

XX or XY?

Original or ditto?

Stay or stray?

Sunshine or shade?

Bed or kitchen platform?

Hughes or Plath?

Capitalist or photographer?

Two or three?

Pixels or paint?

3rd date or 50th anniversary?

Indian or French?

Silk or chiffon?

Apples or oranges?

Husband or lover?

Wife or hooker?

23 years old or 3 ?

Inside or outside?

Now or never?

Postcard to London

My dear London,

Please stop flinging your men in my face.

You’ve taken them from teenagers to gentlemen, from frail to broad shouldered, from bald to curly, from intellectual property to oil.

You’re sending them back with manners, courage, respect, chivalry, empathy and a certain gentilesse that is hard to fathom.

You’re teaching them about there and here, and distance and people, the past that was, and the present that is.

You’re making them smile more, talk less, fly more, walk less and in some cases promise more, act less. But there are always exceptions to every rule, so I’ll let that last bit pass.

Basically, to cut a long letter short, you’re pretty much turning them into smashingly charming pied pipers!

I think you’re doing a groundbreaking job, but before any more of them stab me with their charisma and send me into a tingling nostalgia, I beg you, please stop sending them my way! Or… nurture them like you nurture all your other dirty English folk, those crass, foul mouthed wrecks.

Please. This is a sincere request. I hope you can empathise.

Yours helplessly.

Aftertaste

You know,
When you are no longer called, a three letter word,
When your five letter someone, finds everything absurd,
When the voices you do, start seeming strange,
When nobody laughs at pitch and reverb, squirmed into vocal range,
When you have to think about who next to entertain,
When you shoot down your main audience, and stand to lose your game,
When mails are peppered with a polite ‘Thank You’,
When you over use a pleasant emoticon, you forcibly drew,
When you think so much, but do so little,
When you dejectedly accept, a thought so nimble,
When you head home after work, without a second thought,
When you finally have that something, that you so desperately sought,
You know.

You finally know.

Recovery

One day you will think about it again,

And realize that you haven’t thought about it in a while.

And it will surprise you. And perhaps you'll smile.

Because, you will always get what you want, the minute you stop trying.

*Thanks Hugh MacLeod for 'A plague of Happy Memories'

Stoopid!

It’s Nut Cracker Corp., you idiot!
Not Nut Cracker Crop.

Grey ol' Pune

College wasn’t really a neon dream.
It came with its fair share of ranty, biased professors,
And young blood on a power trip, fuelled by ganja.
But on days like today,
When the weather is conspiring against the order,
And authority is breathing down my throat,
I miss those days when I could stare out the window,
In an Advertising Ethics class,
Turn around and say,
Please! Let’s just go!

Remember those days …

When we ‘did’ FLAMES to find out if our puppy love was reciprocated?
When we drew little notes and ‘proposed’?
When we thought girls with short P.T. skirts were trying hard to be sexy?
When dividing the desk into India and Pakistan was considered so Standard 4?

…

Good God they’re over!
For it was also the time that my sweet mother cut my hair like she would a boy's, and when Mrs. Paul laid her eyes on it, she exclaimed, “But this short?”

To the Madus and their snack packs*...

When it’s neither time for breakfast nor lunch,

And because I’m not at a derby where they ‘do’ brunch,

My stomach is a-rumble, I can hear it tumble and it can’t take it's hunger any more!

O how! O how! I never thought I’d miss your khakhras & kachoris so!

*dedicated to the inhabitants of 334 & 327, owners snack packs(suitcases) so delicious, they will be cherished forever!

Lagori

Foot on the crooked chalk line, one after another,
Wiping beads of sweat with sleeves, no bother.

Tiny hands clenching a red rubber ball,
‘Neat maar haa’, the ultimate motivational call.

‘Arrey just missed’, and much forehead slapping,
‘Eudhach asel tarr you try na’, some more snickering.

The Lagori glared at the little people, all untouched,
Small hearts, bodies and eyes, drenched in chaos!

‘Tey bagh, the other team got their Yokozuna’,
‘She will maaro a big kick! Aata dhaava!’

Our big tower came, crashing down with a groan;
And as the floors got strewn everywhere,
We dashed to gather our seven stones.