Two faced clowns

It was not as the usual cliche goes about how he walked into my life with a storm raging at the back. I barely noticed him for the first couple of years, and then it took another few months for me to even accept his existence in my circle(yeah! like there is one). When I sit today and weigh my scales, or look back at other times when a guy has ever got me writing, it is definitely not in a similar tangent or mind frame when i pen my thoughts today.

When I gather my strings back together and wonder what caused the incubation period to start with, the era of formal, professional hullahoos, I feel it has a lot to do with us being so similar and yet so different. And so they say something about like poles repelling. For the egoists that we are, it must have been a period where we stood back, weighed each other, head to toe, and marked the opponent as beyond reach. And what is surprising is that it was all so mutual.

Coincidence, destiny or some divine intervention, but our paths crossed and the differences, with the similarities surfaced. Tempers rose, ideas were thwarted and truces were reached upon. Such two faced we have become, that we live in a world split wide open. There are moments, when we share a common laugh and see a common dream come true, and it is immediately shattered to pieces by a slight, venomous remark that originated from the lost dungeons of the heart. A second, we are discussing a plan for our individual futures, up and happening, and the next minute we are demeaning each other with dry, sarcastic wrath. So often are we sporting a face, a stranger to ourselves, in front of the mass multitude, that I wonder if we know ourselves as much as we know the other.

I often wonder if it is a play of multiple personas here, me and the one within me opposed to him and the one within him. Through different paths that we tread, we change partners between the blacks and whites of each other and as one may imagine, the most hurt is shed when the blacks meet. And the hard reality of acceptance dawns when that moment of hurt is showered. What keeps us coming back to this turbulence is hope, I am forced to believe. Why else would you demean one another and still hold your hand to show the familiar way? Hope that there can be a flicker of friendship amidst all this hollow.

A light at the end of the tunnel, a moonrise at the break of dusk, an audience and a show by the two faced clowns that us.

Trains and Rails...Miles apart...

Am not gonna start off with a ramble about why this post has been incubating in the distant corners of my machine. The new title to my blog roll is what would best describe the current state of affairs... So Shall It BE!!

Certain moments make me pause and wonder about the contrary emotions that the same situations trigger in our lives. A little train journey out of town to a megalopolis had shoved a host of ideas and thoughts, too much for the over clogged mind to handle.
I think back at train rides in India, the sights and the smells that came with it. Staring out of the barred windows, letting the wind mess up the hair was a pleasure on its own. It brought with it tales of far away lands, dreams about warriors and heroes mounted on horse backs, hills and falls spun out as a mega movie released by the mind. A quick peak out had the charm to drain all the noise innate to the train journey. With vendors and hawkers selling their goods at fair-like proportions in the little passageways winding through the train, there was always something to keep yourself interested in your journey if the world outside the window wasn't promising enough.

A quick memory of a sweltry summer afternoon flashes by, when a deep nap in the upper berths of the train was broken by a sudden fall down heights of the berth. The entire coupe had gasped in concern of a broken bone or a bleeding face, only to be faced by a tooth mouthed grin. I had barely felt an inch of pain at that point and it still leaves me shocked. Other times that I remember are bullying the little one to get hold of the much coveted window or putting up a sorry face to the old man opposite, to win his sympathy and eventually the priced seat.
Meals packed especially for the journey were a feast in their own sense, the smells of the food mixed up in a cosmic melange with the inborn smells of the train were a pleasure. All washed down with the in-house coffee or tea, served in the true-to-its-spirits disposable cups, was the perfect end to a perfect journey.

As the scene quickly faded by, large stretches of land, complete with the pasteurs and their bovine friends, zipped past, standing proof to any law of science quiestioned by mankind. A fleeting smile flashes through, as I remember trips recounted by friends. Stories complete with the women living in a man's body making passes at them and the excuses thrown out to turn down the proposal. Amusing times of men blushing to pink for once and living the life of the fairer lot. There were other stories from friends of love storied begun and end in those dingy seatways.

A jolt gets me back to reality and I notice the train stop. How unusual it is in this land of the technology for the beastly train to halt for a minute, the unease that it rains on its occupants!? Hours standing on tracks in no man's lands were spent taking a quick stroll out in the open or gazes till the end meets the eye.

The trains here, miles from home, leave a very mechanic feeling in my gut, a strange reluctance in me to unite with the system that it has built for itself. The tight shut window panes, letting the steam filled air cooled and circulated within have an effect quite contrary to the openness of the panes and the hearts I felt back home. Distant journeys paid for the first class and spent at the door, half hanging out of the train is so unimaginable in this side of the world. I confess it is a pleasure I miss a ton here.

As the train rattles in to its destination, three stories underground and years of technology and science behind it, I quietly pray for the beasts back at home and long for the life that they brought with them.

Is it me or the dream??

it has been one of those days when i wake up, with some strange dream left unfinished, thus a sorry taste in the mouth. My mind, swarmed with thoughts and feelings it is no longer capable to comprehend, listed down a host of resolutions, that it very conveniently forgot in a jiffy. Such is the flimsy state of the mind that it is waiting to give up a horde of its favorites, a never before and a never again. The tangent that life has reached is devoid of any sense or order, not that I have ever found it before. But the kind of uncertanities or randomness that I see today, has left me questioning my ideas, interests and wants. I take time off to wonder if I am as flawed and non ideal as the world looks at me. And having reached a state where I have begun to question my own ideals, i feel soulless and vagabond. A constant array of ideal gentlemen, that i see day in and out, leaves me stranded, alone and wrong in a world full of rights.

Is it me or the dream??

A year older and none the less wiser :)

As i sing another birthday wish, wholeheartedly, my mind flies back to a time in the past. I sat in the rear dungeons of a speeding car and quietly ushered in a new year. A year older and I wondered if I had become any wiser. If the marks of age had started wearing off on me. I still love the ice cream drip down the cone as I lick every finger, to not miss the fleeting last taste.

The look of the rainbow and the smell of water in the air still turn me on and I still sit here waiting for the first sight of the snow. My childish wit still wants to be the tyrant in any conversation and I still argue with anybody questioning my choices.

My nights are still blessed with nightmares, the ones that I jump out of, brimming with sweat and panic. I still cuddle on to my pillow and want to spend every possible minute in bed before duty calls. I still rush home from work like a child running back from school, liberation and freedom in the air. The sights and sounds of the trinkets still please me and I want to own every single candy store in the country. I want to read every page I can lay my hands on and listen to every piece of music that lies at my disposal.

Money and politics do not interest me as yet and I still do not understand the workings of my market. Yes, I comprehend my taxes, but I do most of the related out of mere force. I still love the shades of red and orange in the fall foliage and I love to let the waves wash me away. Rollercosters still thrill me and candy floss makes my day.

Have I grown an inch different in the years I have lived? Tough question. Do I want to change any bit from what I was yesterday? Given a chance to go back in time, would I change anything that I see right now? No. I am sure I will make the very same choices that I have made this far and that is what defines me today. Happy Birthday!!

A sordid mind, a lost soul and the white sands

It had turned out to be a fight for freedom, an issue of now or never, a do or a die as the cliche goes. We had to find the right moment, the perfect moment of blue and white. The journey had become a quest for us outsiders, a token to take back as proof for greener pasteurs and bluer waves out there. When we finally reached destination finale, after hours of soaring tempers and disappointed ideas, there was no more room for any further wait. The urge was obvious when each pair of feet ran out of land at the first sight of the sea, a thirst quenched by the first drop of the ocean water on our feet.

An hour later, as I walked back, satisfied for the minute with the amount of ocean I had in me, I took a second look at the beauty that lay in front of me. It had been an old lover's return, the first touch had the same sense of urgency and had sent out the same shrills as the initial touch of fingers, after seeming years of separation. As I had let the waves take me in and wet me through, it had been a feeling of complete surrender, a complete acceptance of anything my mate had in mind, a total trust in letting life go ahead with each wave.

As the day had unfolded, there were a million trinkets of emotions sprayed across the floor of my mind. There were a series of ex-es and the questions of life post a fall-out, questioning my very roots in the belief of love. Then there was the eternal question of weighing your friends as much as you weigh your emotions. was it wrong on my part to expect all the goodies at one go and not want to make a choice of one over the other?! Is it too complicated a thought to compartmantalise, to make sure there is room for everyone in our lives?! That way, one gets to eat the cherry and the pudding. I believe there is always enough love in our hearts to share it around and there should never be a point in your lives where you will have to stop giving away to one, in order to satisfy another. If you find yourself having reached that crossroad, where it is one or the other, then there lies hell; a fate that you have built for yourself and are the only one to be blamed.

As I lay there, on the pristine white sands, letting the crystal sea wash itself through me, I experienced a cleansing of sorts. A purging of thoughts, ideas, emptions and any such baggage that life rests on you. All I felt was the sea, the lash of the waves, the sound of the air and the moment. And a holy thought it was, to live every minute for its due worth. Who may tell what trials may swarm you down tomorrow! As we had drove down to the beach, on a strip of inconspicuous land across the vast, over bearing ocean, my life had decided to do just that, enjoy every stretch of beauty that lay around me; complete with all its colors and shades.

A new year had quietly found its way in; neither announcing itself consciously nor making a hullahoo about it. And I had grown a step closer to maturity, a small foot ahead to a life where I could decide to live a life that I choose to carve for myself and not let commitments bind me down. As I had watched the last inch of the sun's orange blend into the blue, I had let all fears and worries rest and had enjoyed myself to the last minute.

I cruised into another destination, the wind playing games with my hand and summed up the happenings of the last one day in one sentence :

It is always worth getting dirty and letting some sand mess with your hair.