The Unman

Maybe the world's gonna end , what is the droog to do ?

He's gonna learn to dive.

He's gonna learn to dance.

He's gonna play the Rachmaninoff.

He's gonna find something meaningful to do.

He's gonna fly.

He's gonna write his first draft in Goa.

He's gonna fill his emptiness of the conversations long lost.

Maybe all of that won't happen but moloko ki kasam , I viddy them all.

You make me real

Lately I just can't seem to believe

You make me real

Discard my friends to change the scenery

Strong as i feel

It meant the world to hold a bruising faith

You make me real

But now it's just a matter of grace

Crestfallen

This is too hard.
My built walls I dare not pull down.
It scares me too much.
Unfeeling life goes on unperturbed.

You will always be my home .Ava adore.
I shall still walk away.
I shall still stick to decisions.
I die when you go away.

Parts of me fight.
A for anarchy , D for dream.
H for happiness, D for desolation.
And though the center holds the rings around fall way.

*that riff from rhinoceros-smashing pumpkins*

"speak to me in a language I can hear
humor me before I have to go
deep in thought I forgive everyone
as the cluttered streets greet me once again"

Radio Nowhere

Why are there 5 degrees of freedom but six degrees of separation?
Why does every closeness need to be given a name?
Why does watching the stations go by at 12 a.m. make me so terribly sad?
Why does everyone go away in the end?
Why do I not even need to screw up?

Many years have passed
since those summer days
Among the fields of barley
See the children run as the sun goes down
Among the fields of gold
You'll remember me when the west wind moves
Upon the fields of barley
You can tell the sun in his jealous sky
When we walked in the fields of gold

Crash!

The brat will be henceforth fettered and locked away.I grow up today.

Its just overkill

Life in the emerald city

Its been a month in mumbai today.

A month in mumbai is an education in the lust for life and the power of dreams that drives man(person)kind.A city of sky-rocketing rents and insane crowds.

And its january, mumbai wouldn't offer you a cozy warm cozy winter when you could warm yourself beside a fire sipping some fortufying fluids , its still irritatingly warm.

Since this serves as my ROM sometimes so here's some Definite dont's in mumbai:

1. Do not have Goli Vadapao at dadar.The alimentary system bears witness to the tortures inflicted on it.

2.Do not board trains going up from currey road.The crowds are insane .OTOH, you do get a full body massage absolutely free ,along with people rubbing their heads on the sleeve of your freshly-starched shirt.Yup, I'm exactly that awkward height.

3.Never go to seedy-looking "salons".(That's quite another story)

4.Never order large ones at Toto's in Bandra.(It has been hit twice in a week , so off-limits for some time.)I pine for peco's.

5.Do not have malwani food for lunch and dinner for two days even if you quite like it.

Things to do in Mumbai:

1.Bookstores, hit oxford.The Chai bar and hope Kol's reputatiion is spared (The cynic in me believes it will be so.)

2. Parsi food , Irani cafe. someone take me.

3.Ferry rides to elephanta cave.The ride back in the evening with the sun setting over the horizon brings back childhood memories of another port a not so long time back.

4.Cafe Mondego's. The food's actually good.

I miss hostel , bangalore and kolkata .Kolkata gave me some interesting people. Jam , chunky , bora and the blue wings frat is definitely missed. Bastard though they all be ,but they be "I got your back , dude" too.

I just realized that I've now actually lived in all the four metros of India.

Everything seems jaded. December has NOT been good to me . All this sudden growing up.

Trying to be there for friends and family.Hope I pull it off.The brat wants out, gotta keep him in

ramble ramble..

P.S.1: being the youngest kid in office full of people and being atleast 5 years younger isn't too great.No erm....visual distractions too.Feels like Mech dept. part deux. And being addled with responsibility and knowing the weight you have to pull sometimes is quite challenging.Wish I had more friends in Mumbai.

P.S.2: bleddy ozzies.rail the buggers.

I can't get to sleep

I think about the implications

Of diving in too deep

And possibly the complications

System requirements

5 star veg food:
It has to be free

World of Warcraft :
An insatiable appetite for slumping over a desktop for 14 hours collecting gold and slaying rabbits.Its good training for software serfdom though.

The wizard of Oz:
Pink Floyd's The wall or Dream Theater's Octavarium and 10 grams of good pot or 30 of bad pot.120 minutes of free time.

That 70's show:
A protected township adolescence suppressing an urgent urge to explore.

Solitaire:
The ability to use any comp running windows .A boring job.

A crush:
The want to fall in love even if its gonna hurt the knees.

This years love had better last

Heaven knows it's high time

And I've been waiting on my own too long

But when you hold me like you do

It feels so right I start to forget

How my heart gets torn when that hurt gets thrown

Feeling like you can't go on

This years love had better last

---David Grey,This year's love

lemon tree

Every you and every me

BASKET CASE

	Do you have the time to listen to me whine About nothing and everything all at once I am one of those Melodramatic fools Neurotic to the bone no doubt about it Sometimes i give myself the creeps Sometimes my mind plays tricks on me It all keeps adding up I think I'm cracking up Am I just paranoid? I'm just stoned Grasping to control So you better hold on -------GREEN DAY

Audioburn

Its been a long week what with project submissions , egg-jams and the finality of the end of four years. Anyways here is a list of the tracks most played during it, amidst the frenetic activity of a project completed (which went right through from Plan A to Plan Z), should have actually done some work over the last couple of months.

1. Velvet revolver-Loving the alien
   
2. RHCP-Soul to squeeze
3. Moby-Natural Blues(i guess the psytrance should kick in anytime now)
4. Smashing pumpkins-1979
   
5. Smashing pumpkins-Disarm
6. Deep dish -We gonna feel it(extended mix)
7. Melicia-Running out of time(1200 rmx)
8. Infected Mushroom- Deeply Disturbed (2007 version)
9. Nine Inch Nails-Hurt
10. Beethoven-Piano concerto in E-flat major

I really cannot connect with jazz or hip-hop(which is again just noise).The chill-out collection too seems to suffer well.

Books read- (sigh!) Had to re-read Suketu Mehta's Bombay:Maximum city.(can't wait to get home and pillage through the library , getting "hazaar-fucked" here).oh, and re -re -re -read Midnight's children too, the magic realism is just so fluid , injecting itself like a smooth drug into the vein of the protagonists.

Things to do- After the last couple of weeks jagged insanity, time to chillax(Imagine Constantine with his trademark trench coat and cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth ,telling the world to sod off ! )

It's all a bleedin laugh innit.

Disarm you with a smile
Cut you like you want me too
Cut that little child
Inside of me and such a part of you

I used to be a little boy
So old in my shoes
And what I choose is my choice
What's a boy supposed to do
The killer in me is the killer in you

The singular tale of a boy whose principal pleasures are Sweet Mary Jane,fly-bys and Mozart

I need a little bit of time to break down these walls.There are no gates in this world ,only walls.Walls oozing blood, a pulse throbbing trough the swells of the mortar as if alive.DREAM.Dream of being trapped in an endless level of Wolfenstein except that there are no jackbooted Nazi shock troops for you to riddle with your Uzi.(Yeah,blood, sex and ultra-violence give me my kicks. )

So ...

So....enough of the morbidity.Lets go find Eccentrica Galumbitis(see I have been properly indoctrinated.)

Oh, about the tale..........Well lets see which coffin this Ishmael floats on.So where do I begin?

BETTER TO REIGN IN HELL THAN TO BE A SLAVE IN HEAVEN

I

Once upon a time in a universe far far away there lived a boy who built sandcastles .Little bent crooked ones, muddy ones with bits of plastic sticking out, funny fractal ones with towers, impregnable strongholds of leftover bricks.His little hands conjured stones to crystal thrones,upon these he sat and reigned.He had a court with treasures from the most perilious contests n conquests (namely an old top,a treasured old action figure called "shadowstorm" and a couple of worn-down trading cards).He surveyed the land before him,a quaint old land which had been there before he ever was and would still be when he was gone.The land of the "officer's bungalows" consisted of rows of fiefdoms where other fellow warriors lived.Some were of peaceful and content nature, others challenged him -but the most dangerous ones were the empty ones, not really empty since the old wariors had gone away -these were populated by the "munsters". The looked just like any of us but the difference was that they were dead inside, their faces were lined with the lines of disillusion and apathy, their dark black blind eyes seeing nothing of the boy's world before them.

Life in the land was cold,hard, uncomfortable and uneasy.Rivals abounded and the ogres cast dark spells of school -times. Often there were skirmishes ,a couple of epic battles and pyrrhic victories which ended with the boy being grounded n the ogres found their prize dahlias trampled.


And as you were, you'll be again
To mold like clay, to break like dirt
To tear me up in your sympathy

Taggedaze......

Since RBP has tagged The Sandman himself(no mean feat by itself), I will give you a glimpse into the simple everyday pleasures that provide fleeting moments of happiness on this decaying world.
In a Poisson distribution:
1.Finding a last ciggy/roll/chocolate left in my stash that I thought wasn't there.

2.Eating a magnum -sized death by chocolate at Cornerhouse.

3.(Moving on to other affairs...) Renewing old bonds.

4.Wholesome adda with friends at the tea shop discussing life or something like it over chai, bun-omelettes n lights.

5.Waking up to a song playing playing on my comp eerily complementing my dreams.

6.Finding downloads have completed just as I enter my room.(I set it up that way sometimes though, just for the thrill.)

7.Whooping people at chess/cricket/Quake 3/CS.(I prefer Quake 3 .)

8.Watching Fly-bys.

9.Playing big brother to sis.(Sigh ! she grows up so much every time I get home.)

10.Snuggling upto mum on long wintry afternoons.

Time is never time at all,
you can never ever leave
without leaving a piece of you.............

Angels of the Apocalypse

Send me an angel.Just any goddamn kind will do. A recount of all the angels I've seen, makes for good introspection.Or is it just me again under the influence feeling like Alice falling through the rabbit hole,waiting for the black pit at the other end (with my karma it can't be anything else but that).
So,tally-ho and here we go!(I approve hounding small furry cuties to their death, I eat babies for lunch.)

The Angel With The Curls. TIMELINE:3 years past the event
She was the first human the Sandman remembers to have spilt the milk of human kindness on him.Some FSOBs pushed the Sandman(they knoweth not the wrath they have unleashed,chun-chun maroonga) who fell over some flowerpots grazing himself.The Sandman looked up into the eyes of an Angel,a face with curly locks veiling the Kindness.A hand reached up,though the hurt to find another.(I know too mushy goin, more mako later)

The Angel With The Brand. TIMELINE:4 years past the event
Sandman remembers this one particlarly well.Why not since this contact goes back the furthest and has played the part of a finely poised fulcrum.
A sunny day ;the Sandman plays in the dust n grit of the arid Indians plains(not building sandcastles thank you, thats for more mature introspective years).The Sandman sees the slide in front of him as a shimmering peak and in that tender age when you are only afraid the guy who picks lil kids and sends them to drama school(yeah, the progenitor said that.Explanations have not been asked ....yet).However inspite of his awe ,the Sandman proceeds to get on its top step over step;he can see the wind making the leaves swirl and the cracks the earth and those little tufts of grass fighting as Life against the white hot sun.The ground feels so far way ,the crystal heart of the Sandman misses a beat as he sees the smooth polished surface of the slide with the sunrays of an unblinking sun glinting off it. The slide seems to stretch to infinity ,the small patch of sand at the landing seems to be a shimmering mirage in the horizon.
*dream theater guitar solos in the background,make for an even better memory*
And then she gives me courage to make that slide of faith .

Angel with the Golden Voice. TIMELINE: 5 years past the event
Do you remember the first time you were wrongly hurt? Do you remember the first time you had ice cream or the first friend you made on your way to school?She was the Sandman's Jenny.
The Sandman cannot forget the first sight of her, when one shimmering evening the Angel with the Brand took him to her friend's house past the garden with the purple dahlias.The Sandman opened the door to find an Angel in white coming down the stairs. Sometimes, when the Sandman retires into his mind he can still see her walking down the stairs towards him in slow motion ,her dress moves in snow white ripples contrasting with the strange stillness in her eyes.

Fast-forward 11 years;a news reel flashes 5..4..3..2..1... dusty dusks spent indoors as partners in crime, running after her as she sped away on her bicycle, spending hours arguing over Barbie and GI Joe, getting hurt in kabaddi matches only to find her tending me,sleeping dog-tired on the sofa together after a tiring Durga Puja party, listening to her riyaaz , showing off a newly picked up tune on the keyboards,getting into fights over silly things and making up, staying at her house for days when shifting,going to high school- walking back together,
finding she's grown up into the prettiest girl in school,finding she has no time for Sandman, resenting it,accepting it,getting separate interests n drifting away,
bumping into each other and being awkward,the first crush and it can only be she,
the angel goes away for a year,making up again and finding that they still bond,
The Sandman being told he has to move and she already knows, crying together, the last party and the last walk together down her lane...................

The Dark Angel:404 error

I've been searching for you
I've heard a cry in my soul
I've never had a yearning like this before
All of my life where have you been?
I wonder if I will see you again

The Abyss and The Rose

Float.Hate.Place.Expanse. A few words I "saw" when I woke up today to the strains of Jim singing about the end.My perception changes every moment of how I feel about them.
An explanation eludes me as I search,sometimes the search itself becomes the answer.
So,I stared into the abyss and sought the rose but only the abyss stared back at me.

FLOAT:An instant replay.A beach in goa.Letting myself go under a wave for a minute,feeling the sea calling back the sand like a mother to her child.I open my eyes through a curtain of water ,sea shells floating beside me as I see the sun breaking through the clouds.My surroundings have the volume button turned to mute.For a split-second. I let my head back thinking that perhaps my dark side too will be washed away.Then the water lifts me I float,the sea calls back her own.I strike out and surface,water dripping down my ears and sand in my trunks(it really is uncomfortable).To the voice going in my head "break,break,break,break on through to the other side" and the screams of a friend who thinks she's drowning in the sea for now.

HATE:Like jim said,"When my fist clenches crack it open before I use it and lose my cool".A feeling much more useful than love ,it has really changed the world.How do I see the world?How do I know where the thin edge is between hate and love?Isn't it just easier to simply easier to cease to care.
Funnily,I didn't see Himesh reshammiya or any of the buggers in class(I'm allowed to be crass)or any lost loves or my mess food.
What do I hate? Is it just like something bad I have n then spit out?( but even that tends to linger)Do I love to hate or hate to love? I close my eyes and I see a cracked white wall oozing blood.Dunno whats that all about.

PLACE:
"Hazaron kwahishein aisi ki har kwahish pe dum nikale
Bahut nikale mere armaan par phir bi kam nikale"
My place.I'm not talking about the current urban jungle that my room looks like now or my place in the grander scheme of things(cults are nice but can't seem to find any local ones).
What I am writing about*feverishly-stoned-sloshed-dreamily* is about the place in my head where I commune with all the voices.The one where I talk with me.The room with the white walls.The beach with the shining stars .The river patrol boat (I only have three places, they do get overcrowded).


EXPANSE:
It is a curious incident of which I tell you about.On a trip to rajasthan ,we went to ranthambore. Its 5 o'clock in the morning and the forest is like nothing I have seen before. Not the dark mysterious sunderbans or the wet duars.We are in Tiger country ,my guide follows the calls and the open-top jeep follows his directions.We wait for the king/queen of the jungle keeping a silent vigil(my stomach does growl setting off a false alarm, thats what you get for not getting me any breakfast).An hour passes by and we go to another spot along the trail.The sunbeams crisscross the path .A few dips and then we come up behind the fort on top of the valley. I see it then.I'm in a Technicolour dream ,every shade attenuated and every image in sharp focus,the grass is golden and the trees are geometric designs of nature,the earth is a mottled crazy palette of red,magpies fly overhead.And everywere I look it becomes even more beautiful.

P.S.:I did get to see a tiger .


This is the end ,beautiful friend.
Of everything that stands the end.
No safety or surprise the end.
I'll never look into your eyes again.