On a Green Meadow on a Misty Afternoon

The clear blue lake spread out in front of him. And beyond them, the distant blue hills paled until they merged and became one with the clouds and the pallid blue afternoon sky. The lake rippled in the breeze and the sunlight sparkled off the lapping waves.

He didnt know why he had to be here. Why now. He simply had that urge to escape. Run away from those thousand and five invisible hounds that all but clipped his heels. He was tired from running away. But it was even more tiresome staying where he was. And now as he left his body loose, stretched out on the bright green grass of that endless meadow, he felt like had left the lot behind, and maybe his body too. A feeling of transcendental bliss.

He sat up. Picked up that pebble lying next to him. This pebble too must have chosen to run away someday, and laid himself down by this lake until he became a fossil of his existence, he thought to himself. He felt its smooth cold texture on his palm, felt the weight of a thousand years that had polished him to compliance. He took a breath and launched the pebble towards the lake.

He wanted to see the pebble skim over the surface. Instead, the pebble plinked down to the bottom of the lake at the first bounce. Its ripples cut a swathe through the tepid waves that lapped the bank.

The anticipation of expectancy. That longing for perfection, of a perfectly smooth pebble skimming over the fragile surface of that dreamy blue lake, endlessly, until it disappeared over the horizon into the mist that shrouded the hills. It was not to be, for the pebble wished otherwise. It was an outcast like himself.

The frustration of a thousand shackling dreams, the bewildering anticipation of a thousand hopeful fingers that tore their way through the ground, pointing him the path they wanted him to take. And groping for his feet while he tried to trample over them. The thousand blades of grass all around all pointed skywards, that pinnacle of perfection.

His eyes were rooted far away in the distance. Across the lake where he had willed the pebble to go. Do the blades of grass point skywards there too?! Or may perhaps someone might send the stone skimming back from the far bank, through that veil of mist?

At the bottom of the lake, the fossil finally found solace among many more of its sort who didnt make it to the other bank.

Allegropolis. Episode Two. The Wholly Trinity.

I wait. Stretching myself out on one of the long wood and cast iron park benches. The bench is cold. No one usually sits and waits. Waiting is in the temporal. The past. No pauses for the future any longer. The wooden backrest bites into my back. Cold venomous reality. The electric trains are cold embodiments of ruthless efficiency. Silent as a cocked gun waiting to explode. But all i hear is an implosion of silence. The muted conundrum of bustling voices do not count. I throw my head back, and watch the sunshine pierce in like coloured spears of joy through the stained glass ceiling. City of Joy indeed.

I wonder. Had we all forgotten what joy means? Maybe it meant the same all along. Is joy satisfaction, being content with who or what you are, what you have? Life without the complaint box and the "Articles once bought need not be returned/exchanged" tag. Or does it mean anything further... is it that long forgotten sense of euphoria, that half-drugged break from reality when the stained glass ceiling seems all so brighter and soaked deeper and thicker in colour than it actually is? But then, can the ceiling get any more brighter. Its already washed in the mid-morning sunshine. Can joy actually exist in the City of Joy, where things cant get any better?!

Forgive. Forsake. Forget.

The Wholly Trinity.

The three incinerating truths etched on the scratch-proof grazed steel walls of every alley, penthouse and ghetto in Allegropolis.

Forgive for you wish to be forgotten.

Forsake 'cause thyself is all that is real.

Forget... well... forget 'cause the past never exists, nor existed.

We are all unfettered creatures soaking in the warm sunshine and strained colours of unalleviating joy, caught in a limbo of satisfied imperfection. Here lies the precursor to perfection, taking pride in being what you are. Perfect becomes what you are. And it cant cant get better than this.

The park bench is warm now. I lift myself up. My face is stained in myriad of streaming colours as i smile. Allegropolis, there is something about the city that makes me smile. And i am the last cynic left in the world.

Allegropolis. Episode One.

The city of joy.

Allegropolis is not Calcutta, please.

It just translates to "the city of joy".

I step out on the platform.

The train is delightfully late.

But from when did time ever matter.

There are no clocks here.

Those relics of wooden cuckoo clocks do survive.

So does the clock tower.

The dials do remain.

The needles which ran around, skipping from number to number,

Pointlessly,

Merely to reach back where they started.

They are no longer there.

Pointlessness can be joy,

But not when you are pointlessly in a hurry.

Contradiction One.

The Clock tower chimes.

It chimes for joy.

It chimes whenever it feels like it.

There are no birds any longer

To chime for joy any more.

The metallic song of the clock tower will have to do.

Have to do?!

So can there be happiness in compromise?

Has to do.

Contradiction Two.

Chat Discourses on PseudoMetaphysics and the Human Ontology.

silence: i can't go on like this

have lost all motivation

me: chchey!!

silence: so want a break

me: whats wrong now?!!

silence: sigh

me: yeah thats the problem with our generation

the general apathy towards life and ambitions

silence: but i am not like this

me: hehehe

so we all say

silence: usually i'm fired to do things

me: you just became postmodern

silence: now i don't feel like reading what i have to anymnore

me: yes yes

welcome to the world

silence: want to read some literature, study for NET and live somewhere else without much worries for sometime

me: hmmm

wokay wokay

do it then

silence: and it is also in my birthcard that from 21-5 of this year to 07-12, i 'll have a time of restlessness and moving away

me: hahhaha!!

then drift along a while

anyway i am off

silence: i should, but towards the better :)

me: hehehe

theres nothing is better and all anyway

its all just pretensions

make-belief

see i ll give and analogy

its just like smelling a flower while walking along a road

it smelt good

but fact is you were just breathing

and it happened to smell nice

silence: see, i was not online

so come again with the analogy

me: and you would have breathed anyway and have to breathe anyway

shit

see the good things in life

are like smelling a flower while walking along a road

it smells nice

but eventually it was just that you were taking a breath

and it happened to smell nice

and whether it smelt nice or not

you woulda taken a breath and moreover couldnta helped but take a breath

thats all

life is all about breathing

in and out

silence: ya, i believe in the cosmic connection which exists between your nose, the flower and the moment u decided/involuntarily took the breath

me: thats all there is to it

nothing of that sort

if the cosmic connection willed that you were not to smell the rose

it wouldnt make any difference at all

you prolly wouldnta even noticed there was a rose worth smelling by the road

silence: exactly

so, that is imp

me: in no way at all

if you were oblivious to the smell of the rose

the rose never existed for you

silence: then there is no rose

me: and you go on in life

silence: and how do we become oblivious?

me: breathing as you go

silence: karma, my son, karma!!

me: hehhee!!

it just depends on why we chose that path

and that might have a little to do with our past

but hardly ever

it has more to do with our future

if you think about it

coz we always choose paths to reach somewhere faster

or take our time and delay the trrp

silence: but our idea of what is fast, and how fast it will be in a life that is at the same time snail paced and blowing away in centuries, that is karmic, my son

me: we always do have the faculty of choice

but that doesnt mean we may get run over by a bus coz we did some incomprehendable mistake in our past

based on a choice

the universe is far more random and chaotic than that

if there exists an order, it is that of chaos

we wont see that in everyday events

but put everything that happens around together

and thats the picture you get

and hence no better or worse

silence: but who controls our choice? where in the oceans shall w unravel the real mystery of agency? who decides for us? the well perceiving faculty, oh, aren't they just five in an unknown zillins? or is it the time that decides for us? the time that comes to us like a srtorm or as a child's cry, as a hushed up moan oin bed, or as the silent naughty half look of a girl by the way?

me: hehehe

silence: can i copy this chat?

me: hehehe

yeah yeah

hahhaa!!

now you ve thrown me off track

yeah lemme get back to it

aah

so time...

and how we perceive and react

well when we are placed in certain social and ethical circumstances

some choices are made for us already

the choice of the system

the system that tries to find order in the whole entity of existence

hehehe

yeah

its a futile human attempt

and if time seems to decide what we want in life

that is because the systme wants us to believe that is what we want at that particular moment in time

and so the next question naturally would be

why should we look for order

silence: no no

me: then??

silence: what i said is not that we decide to suit the ytime, but the time decides for us

me: as in time brings forth events that determine our life??

silence: also

me: hmmm

that again is a futile human attempt to find order

cause time in itself is arbitrary

silence: exactly

me: and we create time in order to dispell our fear

silence: so, being a karmic, as our conversation proves, is a way of being pomo :)

me: how come?!

hehhee

silence: bcoz, both tend to be taking away metanarratives from human effort

in fact, even slightly hinting at the randomness of time

me: karma hints at anything but the randomness of time

silence: that's true

me: the only randomness of time advocated by kramonc theory is that

silence: but we wil tweak it a bit for concensus :)

me: i ll strike you but you dunno when

hehehe

wokay wokay let that be then

anyway lemme wind up

saying

we exist coz we do

we live just coz we have already breathed the next breath

silence: against ourt own fears, i'l add

me: philosophical pseudometaphorical discourses make me very hungry

metaphysical that is

i really have to go off now

lunch awaits

bye now

see you later

silence: don't call it pseudo!!!

me: hehehe!!

okay okay

will be redundant then i see!!

hhahaa!!

silence: :)

me: bye now!!

silence: bbye

Arial Black

{Tragedy is like rocket science. Quite (cry)ogenic it is.}

{Silence. I am listening to hear the fan swear.}

{Safety pin, they call it. Only pricks prick!!}

{Arial Black. Poseidon White.}

{sin sin sin sin sin x. Trigonometric damnation.}

{Elephants have big ears 'cause they can't close their eyes with their hands.}

{Peekaboo... Fuck you too!!}

{Silence. Telepathic message sent. Yeah, so what were you telling me?}

{Cant you see the full-stop?! Or do you expect anything more??}

{There it is. The Full Stop.}

Going back to rhyme

As i hold back my voice,

And lose what is mine;

Wish for a choice,

And end up resigned,

Wish i could turn back the time,

And go back to rhyme.

When clock shows its thirteen,

And my twelve hours bespent,

The world with its spleen

And its seething resent,

Makes me bitter as a lime.

'O, if i could go back to rhyme.

My feet feel the weight

As my boots drag me down.

I bite back the hate,

And iron out my frown.

I wait for the chime,

When i can go back to rhyme.

Hope and persuasion

Eats up your dreams.

I wish for fascination

But end up in screams.

To flip off the dime

I have to go back to rhyme.

When the air gets too thick

To fill up my lung.

The dust has to lick

The taste off your tongue.

To wipe off the slime,

I go back to rhyme.

As the thoughts that were snow,

Fall down as chalk.

I search high and low

For a key and a lock.

Can't lose what i'm

Must now go back to rhyme.

Once, in those days of innocence of yore, i used to write exclusively in rhyme. And now, i have probably, to put it conveniently, grown out of it. The truer fact is, rhyme is too beautiful a thing to capture the cruel ruggedness of life or whatever jazz. Rhyme is too innocent. Rhyme is perfection. Rhyme is that spotless framed sepia picture of childhood, that smiles at you, capturing the thoughtless joy of the moment and pretending it will last for all time to come. Rhyme is capricious. A piece of nostalgia. And now, you can just look back and smile at it.

This poem is a vain attempt to go back to rhyme. I need not be sorry, or feel pathetic about it. I can just laugh at my vanity to turn back time... Hehehe...

For the Leprechaun's Remembrance

All events and incidents in this blog post are non-fictional. The characters in this post are based on a non-fictional insect termed Pyropyga Nigricans and a not-so-fictional Irish folklorish fairy.

Every night my lights go off post-three in the morning. All is quiet and silent. Except the steady wheezing of my fan, as it kept dizzily spinning, spinning daisies on my ceiling. And the calender leaves rustling in the wheeze. I can hear the rainy wetness outside. But thats just part of the silence.

As a rule i hate LEDs in the dark. Part of my obsessive compulsiveness. They seem too bright. And they catch my eyes and refuse to let go. Too bright i tell you. But i have gotten used to the LED indicator of my UPS, blinking steadily to show its charging up for tomorrow. In a way its kinda reassuring, and i never am sure in what way.

And then the last few days, i noticed something else. After i turned off the lights, i could see a yellow-green light blinking timidly on the floor. Searching and yearning. Yet. too tired to fly and float up towards the yellow-green LED on the table. Too scared to be disheartened and disillusioned. The firefly would always be there, under my chair right next to the computer table. And every night i ll switch on the light, get outta my covers to check on it, to hold its warmthless light within my hands. To share its longing and find its belonging. But once, the light came on, the magic disappeared. Evanescence of light, and that wickedly humourous sense of euphoria that only pure magic can create. The firefly turned into the soft-bodied leathery beetle that Wikipedia says it is.

The Leprechaun had left that speck of gold when he crept into my room at night. The rain was lashing outside and he wanted to be remembered.