I dream of....

He was tired...tired of dying bit by bit everyday..waned by the misfortunes that had become a routine and yet did not allow him to get used to them.Exasperated by the baffling coincidences that made him a loser at every step of his life...

His life was full of happening...the bad ones..he kept writing the sad chapters in his life everyday..

And yet...somewhere deep down in the ordinary mind of his,he saw a light of hope...a flame whos existance was yet to be ascertained....a flame which was going to serve a precursor to the countless conflagrations...His name was going to get engraved in every stone that mattered...Every time capsule was going to witness and record what he was going to do...even he did not know why he felt all this...

When is that day going to come..He mused (like everyday) one night as he put his tired cells to sleep one by one...

Somewhere in the half conscious quarter of his sleep he had a feeling..Feeling that he had never experienced once and yet he knew the smell of it but was never allowed near it...like a favorite dish brought in front of you just for the smell and then snatched away when your stomach is crying with hunger...But this time he sensed it a bit more strongly.This time it did not recede..it stayed there...it hit him squarely on his mind.....and what a beatific feeling it was...

It was the epiphany....epiphany that he was The One......epiphany that the time had come....his intense desire has finally fulfilled....he felt that aura which is felt only by the almighties....

For once his head was held high instinctively...his ever arching back became straight...he felt how it was like to be oneself....Enough was enough now.

No more was life going to play cruel game of dies with him...No more he was mere a dispensable insignificant earthling...Time had come to answer them...Time had come to silence them all...He finally had what he had seen only in his wildest dreams...

He had his Fate on her knees in front of him...something every mortal human being secretly desires deep down..

The moment had come...All that was left to permanently sign his name in the time was that final act...something that was rehearsed a million times before in his mind...But to futility,until now..

An act that would be a legend for the centuries to come..

He approached them...channelised all his rage,the mad vigor of victory in his hand...and iniated the sequence for that fitting reply...That sequence took and eternity to complete....every spectator had his breath stuck deep down his lungs...Time became a very distant relative of the observers...

The zeitgeist intently waited to make an entry of the occasion.

Finally that moment was over...the hand had reached his perpetrator....and kept reaching...with more and more intensity...

*SLAP* *SLAP* *SLAP*

He started laughing with rage...with vengeance....it sounded like a mad cackle....as if someone was mocking maliciously..

His hand did not stop...

*SLAP* *SLAP* *SLAP*

.

.

.

.

.

He woke up with a snap.Why was he slapping his own face...he saw something red...something black on his palm...a mutilated cadaver of the mosquito that had raped him out of his dream...his face was painted red with the bites and his own slaps...although it was difficult to separate the shades of red,whether they were from the shame,the angst,the pity or the actual slaps...

He did not bother...It had taken one measly bloodsucker to wake him out of his mammoth dreams and left him abashed.

He surrendered.....He yielded in...his mind was unbearably heavy and weightless at the same time from the vicissitude of what it had experienced just now...Although he had tried to teach his mind to bear,to tolerate quietly,it never listened to him...nobody did.Nothing had changed...nothing was going to change..Ever..!!

He could hear the mad cackle somewhere...as if someone was mocking maliciously...he did not have to think twice about who it was...

He was only too familiar with his fate's laugh.....his head,back to its misery...his back,back to its defeated arch...

While My Guitar Gently Smiles... ♫♫

Every time I surrendered to the anomy,

You decorated the silence for me..

And when I needed that missing hue,

You helped me find it within you..

Droned by tedium,when the mind became cloudy,

You allowed me a refuge in your melody..

Gone are the days when I sang blurred,

You made my empty songs sweetly colored..

Because of you,the music happened to me,

You bonded with me and me with thee..

elated I am,as I hold you gently,

You will,as always,serve me dearly..

PS: (For those who are interested) There is something interesting about this poem.Try to find it out. :)

Something experimental.....

Dear You,

You took a stab at breaking my spirit.You tried your best to drown me into the infinite oblivion of negativity.

You tried your best to push me into the abyss.But I held on to the very cliff till my nails bleeded.

When you left thinking that you undid me,laughing maniacally and hysterically,I was smiling at you.When you left and announced to the world that you had me done,I was already preparing my triumph speech.

Though you took away my speech,my sight,my hearing,you couldnt take my soul.Each and every cell of mine was warning you that I will be healed,I will be back,I will be paying back with interest,My time will come....

My time has come....

Ive learned to put a smile to my pain.Ive learned to draw silver linings around my sorrows.Ive taught my will to live.When I smile now,its as pure as a baby's conscience.I don't feel a need to contort my face lines to hide the toil and turmoil that once my life had become.I can build the temples of serenity and peace within my mind at my will.I've learned to paint my dreams with a colorful gamut of hope and happiness.

The canvas of my mind is fresh and clean all over again.The colors of spite,sorrow,hate,malice doesn't even stay on it.

I smile at you now.I laugh at you now.I pity you now.I condescend you now.

In fact I am so strong that I forgive you.I leave you to live the life of eternal debt of pardon from me.Its more painful than anything you would have ever experienced.You will realise in due time.

Go now.Go till you couldnt distinguish between your blood and your sweat.Move till the line separating sanity and insanity disappear completely.Wade till your mind becomes a blank slate.A blank unwritable dastardly slate.

Sincerely,

Me.

Bombay to Goa...

Hi

I actually wanted to write a sequel to Pingology.But thought of pre-empting it with something that is much more relevant and much less a balderdash.This is something I have been planning to write since I arrived in Goa for a sabbatical after resigning from my job in Mumbai.

This post is somewhat about what Mumbai meant to me in my 3 years of stay.

Let me begin.

I wont sugarcoat my opinions.To be frank I did not really fall for Mumbai.I couldn't really come to peace with this city even after 3 years of my stay.For someone who has stayed all his life in Goa, it's hard to accept the city life.More so when that city is Mumbai.The more you observe the more you tend to see how diametrically opposite Goa and Mumbai are on every level.

While living in Mumbai many times I used to have this mental image about it depicting a room whose walls are obliquely swelling outwards having reached the threshold of its capacity to hold matter inside.("where 2/3rd of the population lives on 1/3rd of the land"..from some book).Its almost like having a free empty space (be it for a ground or garden or whatever) is a crime.There is an inherent tendency to stuff/fill an empty space,based on its size, with a mall,a building,a shop,a vehicle or a person.Of course a native Mumbaikar who has seen all this while growing up will find this a routine and a matter unworthy of any fuss.

A Goan wont.

Let me describe the yardstick against which I compared Mumbai.

I was born and brought up in Goa which is known for its sushegad (come on..you must know the meaning of that term by now) lifestyle,laid back culture,no worries,no tensions,the pace adjusted to a very comfortable speed as per everyone's needs,the relative indifference to the terms like hectic busy rush etc etc,the smooth shiny roads between lots of greenery and trees just optimally filled with traffic in the office times and occupied more by the occasional stray dogs or cattle than vehicles in the quieter quarters of the day,the serenity that is omnipresent though the people,through the clean pollution-free air that surrounds,the blurred boundaries separating a neat village from a city,the ever so beautiful capital city,the pleasant climate,the rainy season that turns everything that is green into greener and did I almost wrote a paragraph about Goa without the word beaches....(no pun intended) and best of all,the genial people...

To be frank,and ask any Goan for that matter,a shift from Goa to Mumbai is not much different from speeding up a car from 0-100 Kmph.

The drastic movement does affect you at first.It did to me as well.

Ill be upfront about things I did not like about Mumbai("hated" would be too strong a term).

The insane travel times owing to the zombie traffic,which can be desettled with as little as one light rain shower,the robust and efficient local train network which is always defeated by the ever bulging population,the noise pollution,air pollution,lack of greenery and trees,senseless number of malls everywhere,a continuously growing thick jungle of concrete etc etc pushed me to the wits end when I was on the receiving side of it and made me run as far as possible from it.

But over the time I acclimatized myself to all this(although not completely).I learned to live with them.

Now let me face up the other side of the coin.Let me tell you what Mumbai meant to me.

This city brought me in the broad day light of reality from the Comfortable cocoon I had been into whole my life.

A bird cannot fly living its whole life in the nest.It has to jump into open air.Mumbai was that uncharted open air.I don't know whether I've learnt flying but I at least realised that I have wings.

New people,new environments new rules etc. brought about a lot of change in me.The decision making ability,the maturity,a broad mindedness,the perspective everything was positively affected by a significant extent.

The rat race is closely associated with the lifestyle over here.But I find that term pejorative.It's more of a race.Whether you run it as a rat or a cat chasing the rat or just like that roadrunner who doesn't care where he reaches,its your choice.

Its meaning is open for any number of interepretations.

I look at it this way.It gives you a sense of competition.A desire to prove yourself.A desire to rise above and break the stereotypes,a desire to make your mark,to be heard,to be known...

And frankly whatever little success I had in achieving all this would not have been possible had I been in Goa.

There is an insatiable zest for life here.The city literally lives through its people.

It was for the first time that I was in a same city of terror strikes(26/11).And I will never forget that.

The life was back to normal within hrs.The terror was failed miserably and shamefully in the hands and minds of the Mumbaian.

He showed that it would take something more than cowardly terrorist attacks to break its soul.The unshakeable spirit of the people really dazzled me.It really was awe inspiring phenomenon for me.There is simply no place for past-tense in a Mumbaikar's life.

Legend has it that the Phoenix bird routinely burns itself to ashes and reborn and rises again.

The proverbial phoenix of Mumbai doesnt have that much time.It just keeps rising.Taking all the blows and burns, healing itself on its way up without halt for a respite. :)

Summing it up,I am glad that Mumbai "happened" to me for many reasons.Wanted to write even more.But some other time may be.

May be I was a tad critical.May be my view towards Mumbai appear as a narrow minded one to my mumbai friends.But then we all tend to have a soft spot for our home land. :)

Having said that every place has its unique signature which sets it apart from others.Its not about how beautiful the signature looks but how unique it makes the signee that is important.And i totally respect that.

So please do not misconstrue my comparative opinions as condescension.

Love you Mumbai..but just as a good friend :)