INTERPRETED

Should I write,
another verse on love,
so that the prying eyes
could start their work
to spot
which of my unaware
acquaintances it is about?

Should I write
another one on death,
to again instigate inquisitors,
to probe the annals of my history,
and seek
the name of a non existent somebody,
whom I lost and still grieve upon?

The pen, uncertain, trembles in my hand,
wondering what the next link would be,
What strange discoveries would be
thrown my way,
as the price for a harmless word or two,
unintended meanings plucked out hard,
and rolled into stones
to pelt an unsuspecting hand.

What would suffice to quench the thirst,
of folks busy looking for dirt,
between the lines do they read and find,
all that one could ever mind,
at this paper I stare and sigh,
what all would this force me to deny...

SO MUCH FOR A SECRET BLOG

As at least some of you must already be knowing, my 'secret' blog has lost its defining trait, thanks to my 'great' knowledge about how blogspot works. Anyway, I'm not upset or anything. Though the purpose of creating this blog has almost been defeated, I dont think it was a complete waste after all. Besides, over the last few days I have fallen so much in love with my blog to even think of deleting it or starting another one.

Now let me look back at my decision to conceal my identity. Why did I do this?
The first answer that pops into my conscious mind is obviously the teeny weeny fact that I didn't want to be judged or misunderstood. (Looks like I have over come that fear :) )
The second was more logical or may be it was just the selfishness of the writer in me. If I reveal my identity I may not be able to write as freely as I would want to. Or at least, that is what I thought. I may no longer be able to write short fiction or articles in first person narrative( which I must confess is my favourite and most comfortable style of writing). Why? Isn't it obvious? Simply because of the fact that ones' dear and near to me would try to fish for autobiographical elements in my writing. This may be springing from as noble a reason as the concern for my welfare or for more entertaining reasons (which I have better reasons to beleive in ). And this can be very irritating at times (like yesterday when a friend came up with a theory about my article on deceit)

Let me illustrate how beautifully this can happen . My article or more correctly post , 'Et tu Brute' (read it !! :) ) seems to have interested many. People are curious. Neither me nor you can blame anyone for that. But what happens when a person like myself writes something is that, anecdotes blend with fantasy. I do depend on certain instances or incidents from my own life to put in an article or shape into a story but that is not just it. Then the writer in me wakes up and for the aesthetic beauty of a peice of literature I tend to edit the experiences a bit or add fantasy to it. When I do this, I feel my 'work' is complete. That's only when I feel satisfied.

And if upon reading any of my posts or anything ever, by me or anyone else, dont waste your time and energy trying to figure out whom or what it is about. You can do it, cause it is your liberty to do so. But as a person who writes I can assure you that in eight out of ten cases you will be wrong.

So dear readers and friends, if you want to know anything feel totally free to ask me. Comment or if you know me, just ask me on my face. I am not gonna end up blushing or getting hurt.Why waste time contemplating stupid theories?

I close this article (which to me looks more like a letter), with the hope that at least some of you would try to appreciate ( and criticize) the literary element in my writing (please extend this generosity to other writers too ) than look for arrows pointing to certain directions or people. Lets be more open. After all, all of us do want to write and read good stuff.

TO THE LIGHT BEARER

When the night closes by,
I steal to you,
Behold, and warmth slowly falls into the soul.
Pushed around by a meretricious crowd,
I run, and panting crash into your hands,
I hide my face in your chest,
Hot drops of tears mix with sweat,
Heart speaks to heart, mind to mind,
Time comes to a standstill, worlds vanish,
and the weeps slowly subside.

THE STORY OF GODAV EXPEDITION

Yesterday something awesomely interesting happened.
My friend has a HUGE crush on this guy. I mean, it wont be proper if say it's a crush. They both like each other, but they belong to two different states, and they aren't sure and blah blah blah. Before that let me give you some background information. I am studying in an institute where all of us stay in hostels within the campus. OK pack, I am fed up of this "secrecy" crap. I am a freshman in IIT Madras( but i am not gonna tell you my name :P..heh heh ). We have a big beautiful campus, part of a forest, right in the heart of the city (why don't you just google up for the rest, it bores me to death when I describe it, and it would probably do the same to you.. ).

OK, coming back to what happened. So last evening we were out on a walk. She and I. We have this place called 'Gurunath'. That is were we go to buy stationary and 'put' grub (Insti lingo creeping in ;) ). We were on our way to Guru when a 'classic' idea struck my friend. Why don't we get a chocolate, put a note on it and throw it into his room!! (it had a broken window,he had cribbed about it to her) . That would be so awesomely sweet ! I must confess, that I am person who finds pleasure in indulging in not so usual things. I cant stand monotony. Her enthusiasm coupled with my longing for the unusual fueled our genius plan. We rushed to guru and decided to buy a chocolate and a card for, let's call him, Mr.X. Then it struck us ! How to get into a guy's hostel? Besides it was already 6:30. He will be back from class in just an hour. And on top of everything she didn't know his room number ! So many problems and so little time. But being the resolved little angels that we were, we couldn't pull back the step we had taken. The decision had to be honoured.

So I take my cell phone out and call up a male friend of mine. Technically speaking hers too. He is her classmate and my senior, yet somehow closer to me than her. I hear a really drowsy, sleepy voice at the other end. I tell him "listen, there is an urgent problem, come to guru asap", half afraid how he would react when he got to know the 'really urgent problem' which made me kick him out of his bed. He came in ten minutes and we spent another five quickly briefing the whole idea to him. He wasn't much pleased I believe but now that his sleep was entirely gone he decided to help us anyway.

Guys have a knack of doing stuff. Sometimes they handle stuff better than we do ( hush-hush, I am NEVER gonna admit or acknowledge this in public ). Proving this point, he calls up his friend, who was probably sleeping too in his hostel and asks him to find Mr.x's room number through our student's portal (God, why didn't we think about this before !!!). Now that we had the card, the chocolate,the destination address and a guy to accompany us we happily headed to Godav (Godavari ruthlessly cut short, hostel sweet hostel for Mr.x). After around five ten minutes of trying to coax the guard into believing that we were there for an urgent non existent group discussion, we eagerly approach the stairs, and guess who was coming down !!....

At this point I really don't know how to describe whatever I felt. My friend was like "Oh shittttt" and tried maximum to avoid his vision. He walked past us casually not even looking at us. Relieved, we went to his room ( my friend recognized it by the broken window). Now, our intention was to through the stuff in through the 'broken' window. The recently patched up window with its holes covered with neat paper looked at us pleadingly.We had taken all the pains to get there, in front of the room, dodging its owner, just to find out that the broken window was no more broken. Never the less we slipped the card through the door (much to the amazement of his room neighbour) and 'accidentally' tore the paper on the window and put the chocolate in.

Phew!! finally the almost mission impossible had transformed it self to a marvelous mission accomplished. Later that evening, Mr.X called up my friend (too much for a 'secret admirer' :D) and thanked her for the card. We tried our best to pretend (with questions like, what card? which chocolate? :O ) and pull the prank to a success. Being an IITian with all that sharp brains needed for the jee he replied, " My dear, you really thought I didn't see you??? " ;)

THERE IS A GENTLEMAN BEHIND THE MASK

Perceptions change. All the time. I agree with Heraclitus on it. You can never step into the same river change. By the next time you try to step in it, the goddamn river would have changed and so would you. To put it in other words you perception about yourself and the river would have changed.
Often we believe that people metamorphose. But may be it is just our perception about them that change.
I know a person , an intellectual friend of mine, in whom initially I couldn't find any elements of goodness. All I could see was a very arrogant rude fellow who was just impossible to stand. He belongs to let's say a little different cultural background than mine. Being the 'conservative' soul ( I stress here, kindly replace the 'being' with 'used to be', after all we are talking about change ) I couldn't exactly associate decency and goodness with someone whom I knew smoked, drank and sometimes took a step further. He was not even interested in studies. But he I must tell you is very talented. I respected it. But that was all I could respect. He made me uneasy and irritated. But my friends, at least some of them, did try to convince me that my perception may be wrong.I openly told him I disliked him. Fought with him. I believed that would could never stand each other. It was simply impossible. The adamant conservationist that I was I refused to even move a little from the circle of perception I had drawn around myself.
Time passed ignorant of the trivialities that was happening in my life. Then something really upsetting happened. One of those little experiences that knocks on your head and reminds you that you dont dwell in clouds. I have this annoying habit of keeping such stuff to myself. If it is sad I let my friends see the tears, if it is sadder I run away from the crowd and hide myself from everyone including me. Then I had a little chat with this 'unstandable friend' of mine. Honestly, I didnt mean to talk. I didnt want to go any further than a normal talk of courtesy. But surprisingly talking to him made me feel much better ( I don't know the psychology behind this). Slowly I found myself telling him things I never even told my intimate bosom friends. Any even more surprisingly he understood. He told me a little story. The story about a man who goes to a psychiatrist for his brother who believed he is a chicken and acted like one. The psychiatrist asks him why he didn't take his brother along or didn't try to cure him so far. Then this guy says ' But I really do want the eggs sir'. The story was simple. But the message was strong. I felt better. Felt good in fact.
Much later, I apologized to him for being rude and so wrong about him before. I could see all that my friends were trying to convince me. I saw him being courteous not just to me but the others around me. No matter what all he indulged in the integrity inside was intact. At least he was not one of those hypocrites who behaved in way that proclaimed "hello there, I am the good guy , come to me " and stabbed you behind the back. There was no 'hug and slap' policy involved in him . As surprised I was at this rediscovery, I was at the thought that why couldn't I see this before. Prejudice pays its price, doesn't it? I told him I could see a gentleman behind the mask. He said when you peel a mask, you find another. And another. And another. He told me he wasnt so good, and I knew that his perception about himself was may be as wrong as mine was.
I have changed. I am glad I have. It is beautiful at times to have a whole new perspective about people and things. Sometimes it feels good to be proved wrong. To look at things from a different side.
I am sipping my coffee. In the background I can hear two aunties cribbing about the spoiled youth of today ( hey, I am not eavesdropping, they are loud enough). How one of their neighbour friend's blah blah son ( I could make out that he used to be a 'typical good mama's boy ) had fallen into the 'evil' hands of bad friends and had been 'utterly spoiled'. Not at all an unusual conversation in an Indian background. I pause. Thoughts drift. Again, I sip my coffee, busy redefining 'evil' in my head.

NAME ON THE WALL

In one of those boring classes,
Where the words of wisdom seemed
To fly high over my head,
And numerous invisible bees
Busily buzzed in my ears,
Stifling a yawn for the millionth time,
I looked out of the steel barred windowsill,
Grateful to obscure gods,
for its close proximity to my seat.

Something then caught my fleeting glance,
As my careless eye drifted from sight to sight,
Hidden underneath my comforting opening,
To what I thought was a more worthwhile doing,
Was something scrawled, rather scraped with much interest,
Small yet conspicuous in its modest dwelling,
Much more to eyes like mine, looking for better things.

On a closer look I could see,
it was a name of an unknown someone,
Who had dwelled in the past and shared my seat,
I could then see him sitting there,
Looking out of the window,
then indulging in that strange activity.
Out he took the rusted compass, I saw,
and set out to carve his lone name,
To whisper his sad story,
to generations that were to go through the same.

In that moment of epiphany I could relate,
To whole humanity who had to share my fate,
To all those lost souls who scratched their heads,
Wondering why the professor couldn’t be absent,
Somewhere within the spring of empathy burst forth,
And a deep love rushed forward to my stranger friend,
Now I saw myself opening my box,
Out came the rusted compass again,
And set in the noble task, to declare the name of another martyr,
For millions of generations yet to come,
And feel inspired by his silent story…

A LITTLE CHANGE & A LASTING AFTERMATH

It is funny isn't it? When sometimes people surprise you in the least expected way. Oh, that's what surprise is all about. Catching you off guard, when you least expect it. Now just contemplate how it would feel when you get surprised on both the sides, by two totally different people, in two totally different ways. When your perceptions about people and life altogether changes in a split second. Ah ! it is painful. At times it really is. The change. The change that forces you to accept that you were so totally WRONG. And when the pain eases, reality creeps in.
I had a friend. A friend whom I liked a lot. A lot in the sense, like really really a lot. In that friend ( no pronouns, sorry, identity crisis ;) ), I saw the goodness in the entire world embodied. A friend who was my trust personified. I know I am speaking in superlatives and that it can really piss you off. But let's just say it is my way of emphasising what I really feel. It springs from an urge to convey exactly I have in my head and heart. And then one day I wake up and find it gone. Without leaving a trace behind, as if it never existed. We were very close, this friend and I , and left no secret unshared. The classrooms, corridors, coffeeshop, combine study sessions in the library, frequent fights and comebacks....you know one of those rare friendships you get once in a lfetime (superlatives again... .. but I hope you get my point)...
The worst part is I dont know why it had to happen. This entire "break up ; part ways" episode. No reasons. I mean, no convincing reasons given. One fine morning(when I say morning I mean it literally, we had chatted for around four hours even on the previous day) my best friend decides to pretend I dont exist. To talk and be nice to all except me. Oh, dont gimme that advice again. I tried to communicate. I tried to talk. Tried my best to atleast know the reason why my friend took such a decision. And then, let it be. I still cant say I have accepted it. It is difficult you see, to accept such a change in a person whom I strongly beleived I knew inside out.
Sometimes we run across each other in class (while we are not particulary busy pretending the other doesnt exist) or on the corridors, eyes meet and quickly pull back as if burnt. For quite a while I brooded over all the possible reasons for this strange episode. Misunderstandings? Manupulation? Or was it the 'green eyed monster'(yes, I like Shakespeare ;) ) again? Ah! each time, invariably I reach back on the hot seat of cluelessness.I was hurt, deeply ( if you look closely, may be you can still find its traces in me ). I kept it to myself and occassionally when the bottle inevitably brimmed, it poured out as poetry. For all the cynics out there who are wondering why someone should take such a small trivial thing as this so much to heart, sorry to disppoint you but Earth still has a not so negligible population of sentimental fools.
Looking back, I ask myself. What have I learnt out of this? I fish for the faint silver lining in the dark clouding hurt inside my head. The truth is I still like my friend as much as I did before. Hating doesnt make things any better. It just ends up making you feel worse about yourself, the world and everything that happens in the world. I know the change is permanent. May be it was even inevitable. And pushing my optimism with the last ounce of will power left in me, I may even end up convincing myself that it was for good. Nothing can ever be the same again. And even if someday my friend comes back, will I be able to be what was to my friend ever again? I doubt it. The emotion, the intensity of affection will remain the same but can I get the same perception with scarred spectacles? Can the broken trust be ever mended? Rhetorical questions , aren't they?....
May be this is all a part of "growing up" as my mom puts it. May be with time the hurt would go. I look up and see my friend busily typing something in the computer opposite to mine. My eyes, forgetful, strays there for a second.. My friend looks up. Eyes meet. I pull back with a face that shouts "I dont care" and a heart that whispers " I miss you. God bless dear one".