The Mansion

If you’d walk by the road you’d see,

The broken-glassed, barred windows,

The irons on a padlocked door

Once sentinels of proud, shining metal

-now a crumbling, flaky rust.

If you look ‘neath the mien

Of sorry dilapidation

As you walk upon my dusty paths

Flanked by clods of earth

You might raise the dust

And see the specks swirl into shape

And form a dancing mirage

Of my erstwhile magnificence

Those lumps of parched earth

Might sprout rows of flowers

The blind windows that lie in wait

Might just again see

A push on the padlocked door

Might break the rusting hinges

Protesting, squeaking it might open

To welcome you within

Long has been the wait

Since they left us here

And wait we did – for year upon unending year

Till the weeds now seem like friends

And we see them grow in a pattern

In the rose bush flower bed

The parched earth of my compounds

Waited long for the gardener

It smiled temptingly at nebulous clouds

Too far away to perceive its glance

And then it forgot what it felt

To be soft, nurtured and fertile

It took its arid state as a given

And basked in its long wide cracks

And you now wander into my grounds

You see me lie wasted

Would you strike away the cobwebs

And dust the decay away?

Would you tend to my lawns

And see me thrive under your care

Or would you leave like the others

Daunted by my countenance?

(This one was inspired by a painting I had a glimpse of - don't remember the finer details, but just filling in the gaps of what I saw there, was so despondent, so touching, that it had to be put down in words)..

Stifling Sensualism

Every mouthful of sweetness

Leaves a bitter after taste

Every Eden has a Serpent

Every ocean a Siren

Temptations that waylay you

To ease the path of life

And then weigh your feet with chains

Of moral righteousness

They term every pleasure illicit

And darken each moment exquisite

With heavy clouds of guilt.

Every sensual indulgence

Has a shameful afterglow

We shackle with sanctimony

The very gifts of life

Till it’s a mortal sin

To even feel alive

A Breezy Ruse to Muse

A soothing zephyr flits around,

Untamed and free, no burdens weigh it down

It skips and skirts the flowers, the trees

Till finally its time for the evening to bow

And with its heavy ware of memories

Crouches in dusk

“No time for the youth to flit and fly,

Sleep off, zephyr”,

The ageless wind sighs

It moans wistfully and caresses the leaves

Stirs sepia silences, whispers sweet nothings

Runs a finger through forgotten strings

Discordant notes echo through the stillness,

Strike against empty walls of the heart

Reverberate, resonate, retrieve

-from remote recesses,

Forgotten losses, forgiven pains

Desires pined for, guilty gains

Making the cut for LSD

LSD, as used here, stands for nothing more than the innocent 'Literary, Speaking and Debating' society.

For the fear of dampening the culturization of potential MICANs, (who might be desparate enough to visit my blog for nuggets of information :D - I am a hopeless optimist!), I will not divulge the details of this ever so mysterious society. Suffice to say that I tried to be endearingly creative. I don't know if I endeared myself in any way, but I made it through to the GD round (yeah, GDs don't just stop at the admission procedure!).

Dear parents, please pardon my using you for selfish ends. Continue loving me inspite of it :) (after all, you've loved me inspite of my incessant chattering for two decades now!).

Copy-pasted from the original ppt, for the purpose of ARCHIVING.

About me -

The fluctuations of my public speaking career.

-P.D.

The inception

Some people are born public speakers.

Some attain the art of public speaking.

And some have public speaking thrust upon them.

If I were to apply the Shakespearian thought to my life, the last certainly applies.

The ‘thrustees’ being my ever-encouraging parents’ vested interest in preserving their ear drums.

In the honeymoon period of doting parenthood, you’ll find bright eyed, just turned mom and pops encouraging their child to speak, “Bolo Beta, Bolo!”

But every parenthood has an initial 3 year itch when you face an irresistible urge to gag your seemingly angelic child, who bombs you incessantly with decibel bombs, 24X7 and then they plead, “Bas Beta, Bas!!”

Being blessed with a child, exceptionally talented in the use of her vocal chords, my parents’ woes were exacerbated, especially since discouragement flew off my skin like paper bullets off rhino skin.

Public speaking seemed the only route to dull my chattering and hence, push came to shove and with their passionate support I walked up on stage, to create history.

The grand fiasco

Failure, they say,is the stepping stone to success.

Your future success being directly proportional to the embarrassment generated by your present failure.

You would need similar optimism after debuting in a nightmarish public-speaking experience in which you say “Good Morning!” and then stand gawping open-mouthed at the audience for eternity and finally mumble “Thank you” and stumble out in a zombie trance, to the glee and whoops of a thrilled audience.

In the highly awkward and susceptible teenage years, this could scar a fragile psyche for life. But my parents were in too desperate a situation to give up right then.

So, there I embarked one year later, with nothing to lose, to create more history.

Status quo

And this time I won.

-----------------The Happy End----------------

The presentation does not end so abruptly, but the post must, or my paeans of self-praise would leave me with no claims to modesty. And the lousy, indentation (the editor has a will of its own) makes self-congratulation rather inappropriate right now :-(

All we need is a little love

We can walk through all our days frivolous, half-loving, stopping-by-the-doors-and-never-staying. But what do you do in these dark, dismal, funereal times?

Do you continue with a charade of happiness, drowning yourself in a mix of happy-movies, happy-songs, happy-times?

Do you put up a façade of strength and break down inside? Why am I expected to cope – does coping mean shutting out death and narrowing down to MM assignments and QT tests? Am I expected to be insensitive to this?

Why can’t we drown in collective grief? We all feel the oppression, the weighing down – it’s right there. And yet we escape – malls, diners, movies – does it help?

Why can’t we confront and be weak, isn’t it but human – our last heartfelt tribute to him who’s left to never return. Yet it’s so uncomfortable to broach.

Why can’t we focus on the passing away. Why get entangled in the how’s and why’s and we-don’t-understand’s? What is a death anyway – another statistic of who-what-how-why and the blame games about irresponsibility? Does it make death less heart rending?

Do you think of all the times you invited death and she refused? To be struck by her cold, unforgiving visage when she turns up uninvited? When you beg and plead and she refuses to leave? And then takes you along with her.

Why can’t someone just tell me it’s alright to think. To cry. To acknowledge.

Perhaps I am just sick and delirious and raving mad.

Perhaps. Immune and vulnerable. Not the usual stoic, impenetrable fortress. That you think I am. But then am I normal or are you? I, who cannot get back to my books. And you, who remain unaffected and think of it as an academic holiday. Perhaps I envy you. For your insensitivity and immunity.

And this is when I want to go back to childhood. When sickness was not so much about medicines. It was about a loving caress. A loving voice that reassured you that all will be well. Strong arms that enveloped you and told you it’ll be fine. The warm, intrusive curious eyes of a sibling that never left you alone. About the miles travelled to heal you with warmth.

Is it too much to ask for it all now? A little bit of love in harsh times? As I swing between a need for solitude and companionship, to find a sense of belonging in mutual grief? For understanding and warmth. Peace with silence, and hope with words.

And it’s in times like this that we realise. There’s nothing to replace human contact. All we need is a little love, and we’ll be fine. This should be my catharsis. I wish you yours, soon.

Note : After reading this, please don't try and tell me I need to talk to people rather than 'vent' it on a blog. As if I don't talk to people or something.

If that is all you can say, you are the nth person to say so and lose the whole point. I can only say that you don't understand 'why' people write. It is not simply a vent or a rant. What writing really is, is not for me to tell, but for you to feel and find out. And if it feels like a non-cathartic chore to you, DONT GENERALISE. It's my poison. Period. No discussions. No sermons.

Humpty Dumpty had a Great Fall

Some things in life have to be done.

Like writing this post inspite of the pile of work staring back unblinkingly at me.

I had decided that the next post from me would involve more soul searching - 'Rivers of Blood' or 'Hegemony of the Parrots' (courtesy S.D., thank you!) or some other excruciatingly informational piece, a marked departure from my usual zero-use policy for posts (why does everything have to have a 'use'?!).

To get back to my meandering narrative again, however.

It was late in the night. My mind heavy with the 'smoky', 'marijuana monologues' of Sankalp. The last thing I should have attempted was Badminton. At midnight. After light years. And try playing it with the flair of a three time kindergarten champion (which also I never was). At peak, 'hanging around' time. To an almost full capacity crowd.

Perfect recipe for unforgettable embarrassment.

With a flourish I picked up the racquet. Eyed the approaching shuttle with eagle-like concentration.Worked out complex trignometric-elevation, wind-velocity drag, projectile equations in a nanosecond. And with full confidence and dexterity whacked the plastic out of the shuttle.

Had it been cricket, it would have been a poetic four.

Never one to give up, I got back into position with reinforced determination to prove my athleticism. The shuttle whizzed towards me - silent and sinister. In a split second, my brain decided THE strategy to win this battle was 'shock and awe'. (I wish the brain would stop being so anarchist in its ideology and take my self's feeling and esteem into consideration on such suicidal policy decisions). I found the feet spinning around my centre of gravity in frictionless 'jootis' . Simultaneously, my nimble arms flayed wildly at the shuttle and I found myself diving into a graceless aerodynamic trajectory, ending with a smooth landing by slithering a few humiliating inches on the court. Spin, fly, dive, slide.

If this was a circus, it would have been the most acrobatic and popular act. With all the peeping Toms staring out of Palaash windows, and the laughing hynaes on the courtyard benches, it was instant celebritydom.

Atleast I now have an answer to the cliched interview question - 'What was your most embarrassing moment'. Summer placements? Bring 'em on!

The Lost Race

Schools are a trailer to the movie of life.
And in a fit of a 'Eureka' moment, some sadistic P.T. teacher decided that the best way to prepare the fragile minds of the tiny tots entrusted to him was through races. But then he realized that at the sprightly age of eight and nine, when potbellies are alien and rheumatism of the knees is unknown , running is a joy, not a punishment. And with this realization began a saga of scarring young impressionable minds (yours sincerely starring as yours victimized in the series).

Why could a race never be a simple exercise in running from the start to the finish line? Why did it have to involve inanities like carrying a spoon with a pea between your teeth? Worst, why did it have to involve eating bananas when every Indian worth his tan knows that bananas and Indian summers are inimical? And herein lies the key to why the mess-bhaiya has to suffer a daily interrogation about the state of bananas at breakfast and solemnly swear to their un-rotteness.

I was the fastest kid in the block. I ran like the wind, darted like a bee and braked like a butterfly. If there was one chink in my armour, it was an intestine wringing aversion to rotten bananas. And that is where the PT teacher's creative thinking began. The format of the tiny tots' race : run hand in hand with your partner - of the opposite sex (Sri Ram Sena would be so apalled, this debauchery began in school itself. ) - rush to the finish line, gobble bananas and run back to the start line.

The D-day dawned bright and clear. I chose a sterling specimen, fit to be preserved as the finest, perfectest banana there ever was and clung to it like a drowning man to a shark. Through the crowded bus, i shoved for a shove and scratched for a scratch and though I was much bruised, the banana emerged unscathed. And then in this proud moment of victory, fate played foul and dealt me a deathblow.
All the other bananas lay in a careless heap at the end of the finish line and that is where mine was to be kept too! There would be no chance of finding it in this Everest of plantains! My partner and I sped to the finish line like eloping lovers , but the love turned star crossed at the finish when I jumped head long into the banana pile looking for the much protected one I'd brought from home. Needless to say, people came, people ate and people ran back and I suffered the murderous glare of my partner and the humiliation of being the last one left standing at the finish line. Finally, the school captain asked me to budge and make space for the next lot of banana eaters and suggested that maybe the shoe-lace-tying race would be a better idea. But that is another story and meanwhile if you see me turn pale and look petrified at breakfast, just take the rotten banana out of my hand - that's a scarred psyche for you.