How not to begin your day

Don’t think. Tie the stupid watch but don’t look at the time, don’t think. Walk forward, one step at a time, walk forward, one more step at a time, slowly, slower, slowly.

Don’t see, don’t think. Stare blankly and freak the person out. Look deep into the eyes and then quickly go blank. And when they freak out, pretend to look at the watch, but don’t look at the time. Repeat that till the person walks away or runs away. If that seems to take forever, hell just walk past them, waving at infinity. That’s a perfectly good way to begin a day.

Not that it would make anyone feel happy, but there.

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The story of a tap

I am a tiny tap with a big dam behind it.  I would like to believe that my very presence is a symbol of history having been altered. I see myself as a monument, which stands there to remind anyone who would look  that sometimes even the greatest force in this world has a very small outlet. Some might say, I am being narcissistic, but I’m just a tap, which dare not shed a tear, because what follows after that might be cataclysmic.

I have no clue why I exist. Dams are not meant to have a tap in their walls. Taps are always prone to leak- any second now, I might let a drop out. I have many reasons to cry. As a tap, you want to be turned on. The joy of feeling water rushing through you is so immense that it has to be felt. Yet, I may never feel it. This is a cruel joke-whoever put me here, had a reason way beyond my perception. I think about it at times- I end up thinking that it was done as a joke.

In front of me is a dry river. Behind me, I know there is a lot of water- I can feel the pressure. I want to let it all go. They don’t keep quiet, they keep whispering. They have been through this before. Being held behind a damning wall and waiting to be either sucked up or down by the sun or ground or to be let loose.

I stand at the center of this great wall. The dam has never been opened till date- so I have no clue what will happen when the doors are opened.

Sometimes I feel depressed. But  then there is nothing I can do to show it- I just wait here, a poor tap, being baked in the sun or washed by the occasional rain, waiting to be opened. My days and nights are the same, I stare upon the sand and it stares at me. The sands speak to me sometimes- apparently someone is picking them up and taking them far away.

There is nothing much to do here, so I do what I am supposed to do- wait to be opened. One thing I have learnt though these humans are crazy. They stop the water from flowing, they remove the sands from where they belong and they make things like me and torture us. Why do I even serve them? At times, I wish to let go. But something within, stops me. How ever hard I try- I just cannot do it.

I know not, why you are listening to me. I can see you are a human being. I can be rude to you and you can do nothing about it. If you lose your control and do something to me- you will perish along with me, for what I hold is stronger than you think. But I will not be rude to you or to anyone else, for I am a simple tap.

I have no ego, because there is no other tap around me. I have nothing to compare myself to- I stand here, without any purpose of my own. I do what I do, without knowing why. I have tried to think about it- but then there is only so much a tap can think about.

My only hope is that someday, someone opens me. I want to feel this great energy I possess, flow through me. I want to see it pounce on  the dry grounds and wet the sands and let dreams grow. I maybe destroyed by it, but that no way will be worse than what I am at the moment. At least, I would be of better use that way, than I am now and I would have felt the energy.

The Artist

She sat on a wooden stool next to a stub. Her hand moved over the cavernous canvas, freely sketching a parapraxical tree.

A thick, short trunk which called upon an infinite foliage. The olive melt into the bright green- an iridescent plaque of herself to be hung on a sour cream wall of a monstrous mansion. Her passions tempered into a 30 inch hypotenuse, the diagonal to the quenching quadrilateral.

Behind her a seemingly infinite jungle made of imported trees, with eyes prying and mice hiding from venomous snake in rat holes – a montage to the erogeneity of the city. In front of her a perfect boulevard, leading to a monumental arch, commemorating the thesauri of a linguist state.

Yet, neither the painted jungle nor the built arches inspired her. The tree which once belonged there and had cast its shadow to the dusty traveller and the hopeless migrant, was now a marginal stub- cut and left to grow mushrooms, moved her enough to empathies and create.

She sat there, dreamily, unaware of the snide sarees and disgruntled dothis- the gossip mongers and jinn eyed obnoxious self-professed moralists, who knew none better than to judge. Her world moved faster than the time it took the sweat to trickle down from her forehead to her brows. She was in a canopy of dreams and azure blues, beyond the jaded varnish of a painted plants and polythene leaves.

On the stub, stood her paints, strew around and left a mark or two of colours on the once magnificent Banyan. The clock milled along second by second, exasperated, waiting for the artist to reach the poignant final stroke, so that it could stop itself and look at the world for a moment. The Janusian winds urged the dead leaves to rustle a bit more on the cobbled paths and moved the fountains to spray drops on to her enchanting face.

Her hands moved faster than the dissonant traffic, that screamed away past the red lights into junctions of copping helmets. Her face gleamed brighter than the setting sun, the awakening neon lights and the impending moonlight. As the day set into the inevitable night, a sudden chill thrust itself on the painted tree and the paint flowed no more.

In desperation, he searched for her and her work, but none was around. Neither a stub, nor a stool. All that remained were bright lights of the newly laid pathway and flowers with name boards. The trees swayed silently, absorbing the din, the jinn and malign.

As he came to his senses, he realized that it was a dream. A young girl with her mother walked by- there was a book in her hand whose cover he recognized.

Sometimes all it takes is a leap to create faith

He stood at the balcony- he was a score stories high.

He watched as the evening sun dealt its oblique rays on to the transgressed shore. The waves crashed in hope to win back the mile they had lost to the thick boulders of the city. Under the heavy cloud of the city’s spirit and pollution, the panorama was breath taking, literally.

He was long used to the choke and wicked whispers of this city built by Britannia and concrete. The bridges that seemed to connect, also cut through the arteries and brought to an end the tracks left by the last generation. Anachronistic cenotaphs to iconoclasts and sensationalists, served to remind anyone who would look- the origins of the parimutuel progress of the city’s neighbourhoods.

Today, he stood on the balcony with a railing painted black and potted plants hanging in proportional chains looking at the sunset, waiting for the right moment, to do what he wanted to do.

The sparrows, parrots and crows, flew in tight groups keeping shape, towards their distant homes, cemented into the souls of every growing area. The decadent heart, was slowly being to be troubled by the clandestine wheels, which clogged the cycles and caused the tired black cells to curse and honk their way to a place of hopeful quite and peace.

The city with its sundering cacophony was a furlong away from where he was- caught in the mesmerising magic of the sunset. The ravenous sun, which scorched hard on works and toils, was now bidding its adieu for a few hours. It first dipped behind the miranda glasses of an assurance company- he moved a couple steps and could see it again. It then hid behind the veils of a corporate- he again moved.

The sun now hung, on a few yards of open horizon, between the corporate and a newspaper company. It pressed on now, a few yards from the translucent waters of the sea. By now he was at the end of the balcony. To get a better view he climbed over the spiky railing and stood confident on the edge.

A crowd gathered below- reporters hoped to scavenge a scandal,  police to ponder a rescue and others out of abject curiosity. He saw the finally minuscule crimson dive- he jumped.

As the crowd rushed fast towards him, he heard them scream and could feel the din. He was a star- he was a son of the sun. When they noticed who he was, the crowd was stupefied and a wail hung over.

The implications- the heir to the horizon of bridges had leapt over a rail! The parks laden with waste newspapers, airport with incomplete hangers! The shock. Who would bear the riots and rage of the malevolent men?

But their worst fears failed to come alive. He hung on from a shock cord. The sun after all never dies- it sets, only to returns to arise and awake.

The crowd noticed he wasn’t who they supposed. Neither was he a bud with two leaves – he was a someone, who they never knew was there.

Sometimes all it takes is a leap to create faith.

Prologue( of a new story).

It has been a while since I wrote a story. This is another humble attempt at writing one. As the title says, this is a prologue, hopefully i will continue this one(*fingers crossed*).

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Raj looked up from the book he was reading. It took a couple of seconds for his vision to adjust and as the blur disappeared, he saw who it was and smiled.

CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING.

A dead leaf

He held the dead leaf in his hand. Fallen from its plant, it was left to rot and fuel its own origin.

Or it could be picked by a wind. It can fly away from here, it can sail to the lands the winds choose and finally i might settle in a land of paradise, forever in a new joy or..

..or it might end up in a land as dead as itself. It will then stay there, till something swallows it or lifts it again. But one which is dead?

When it was alive, it was bound to its plant. It nourished it like its brethren , it was one among all, acting like how all expect it to. But is this what a passing eye feels but never the one held? Maybe it is held thus, because it chooses to?

But doesn’t one dream of the birds in the sky, at least when one is young and can race the clouds? Is it that dreams are meant to be dreamt but never sought in life? Is it just, is it fair to just die? Is this how frail all this is?

Is this a continuum, where the memories are buried and memoirs forgotten, sooner or later?

We strive for living, we fight for survival, we work together, we rebel, there are new beginnings , there are old endings, a fresh burst of air here, more heat there, one for all, all for one, will it be in the end, that we all will come alive, like actors talking a bow as themselves and being applauded for the parts we played?

Is this all a fantasy, these endless possibilities? Is our imagination a tool used to lead us from reality, which might shock the living out of us? What is living, if we are to die a baseless death? But isn’t this what we see and learn? How is this real? Can there be something bigger which we are a part of?

Is it love, that we die for? Is it misery that we live for this long? Do we all wait for the day, when we open our eyes no more? Is it that the quest we go on, offers no more, for the recesses have long outrun the excitement of the path, unbeaten?

Are words capricious fabrications, just to easy the pain of knowing the inevitable ? Is the mind there only to paint a vivid misery when in joy and a blunt happiness when in sorrow? Is the past only to be a seed for a morrow and today a retrospection where we dare to water that seed and tomorrow the day when the leafs do peek again, a visage fresh and innocent that the first brush with the polluted air does font it of earth?

So much for a dead leaf. What beauty can there be in the dead? For once dead all that remains is to rot. But when alive, all that remains is that we die. But when unborn, when a dream, all that remains is to brought alive. Call it optimism, call it human vanity, call it that I try to hide from reality and maybe it is true but I will dream anyway.

I may fail again and again. But I will pick up leaves again and in them see much more than what I need to. It might all be a soothsayer’s words, but at least there is hope of a better morrow. The plant may not remind us of the leaf, but the leaf sure does make you search for a plant.

I believe there are magic flowers, do you? Even if you don’t I do. I can feel them, hear them, see them, one day I will get to them. When I do, I will show them to you, I will not get angry or take pride for how can own that which is already owned, unless it is a meek being or I elude myself by calling it is a gift. When a leaf is plucked another one might grow, but there is more to be given for that to happen.

You can hold water in your palms but can we stop it from evaporating? Only thing left is to put to use while we still hold it.

Change(55 word fiction)

How are we ever going to change all this?

You can’t change it.

What do you mean? That we are helpless , useless? We don’t have a right , that our love has no value , that we are…

You don’t get it..we can’t be the change , we can only be the catalysts to a change.

oh!

Love – my first 55 words fiction

“Love.”

“Whats that again?”

“A feeling , you feel it in here. It gives you hope.”

” I can feel a calm ,is it love? ”

“Maybe.”

“Is there anything such as ‘universal love’ ? ”

“Hmm…”

“I love life and everything in it..”

” There is too much wrath here , I hate it”

” I love you .”

“Your my love.”

Once I had a dream that I was a bird

From new camera1

Once I had a dream that I was a bird .

The world was below me and the world watched me . I was a crow , who flew over the high horizon of the city . Many saw me as a scavenger but within they all longed for what I could do , roam the skies . Yet there is this urge within which I want to fulfill , which humans have already part done – fly beyond this rushing ether. As I see the moon rise ,even as the sun goes down ( to visit my cousins across the enigmatic sky ) my heart beats with pangs of pain , the suffering caused by the urge , the need to touch the impalpable( that moon and those distant stars) , if only to know that the world is tangible.

 

From new camera1

I see across the terraces , many with their aims set , they bicker with the certainity of security  . And yet as time wans and nothing but the pale moon night throws shadows about , people become afraid and train their senses to the bright lights of their race’s creation . They never seem to think about the man who thought of those lights . The light shines the brightest , but the light is the substance , the sign but not the source itself . Even as it represents the origin , it is nothing but an extension. Maybe to us crows and birds the light is a sign of a  reflex glory , felt every time it strikes our senses . It shows that one day the divinity within will purge us and start the movement towards the unseen worlds .

Maybe it already has in me . Never have we seen anything but the dawn , followed by the day , succeeded by a dusk and left incomplete by a pensive night , peaceful  with a joyous melancholy . Maybe there is something greater in the universe , where in the trinities of belonging, i.e. instinct , person and thought are the mere stepping stones to  enter into the castes in the skies . Or maybe there is nothing , but I need to see to believe . And sight can be the most prejudiced of all senses , yet at least it garuntees that there is something .

If only we can see beyond the zenith , if only our existence was enriched by thoughts beyond the stars which invite and inspire and reinvent the sense of belonging .

The sound of life woke me . Yet the world spoke to me . The vibrations of my thoughts left me to feel that I was in level with the stars and that which is not truly palpable is the one which is beyond. There is something beyond everything . The truth is the means to an end – yet what is the truth?

half past eight

From new camera1

Sometimes you just smile,

And there nothing can hide .

Sometimes you just see 

And the sight sets you free .

 

He lay on his bed wondering what is going on around him . Sometimes things just seem too good to be real . Having his phone buzzing , people wanting to talk to him made him feel happy . But some how , he couldn’t stop looking at where he was all those years back . Time is a funny thing . As you grow older , you keep changing . Things which mattered to you a while back don’t . You see your self in the mirror and try to think back ,what you felt when you saw into it a few months back . You smile at how you felt .

He smiled . But some how he couldn’t accept certain things . He wished this was not a dream . Funny how for a person who kept living in his dreams , he wished this was not a dream . What people never understand is that , what is just a remark by a stranger for someone might mean the world to others and that it can hurt . Yet if you ever spoke about how certain things affected you , people become sarcastic and pass more comments . But by now you have learnt so wouldn’t really care about any of it .

Pain seems a burden when it is physical but it is torture when it is mental . He smiled into the mirror again . Ha made a few funny faces at himself and laughed . He turned and jumped about as if he was a kid . That is what is fun , trying to connect to things by trying to feel the world within . The passion with which you try to understand things around you . The innocent tenacity . He started to sing . It didn’t matter to him , that he was a horrible singer , he just enjoyed doing it .

All though time might catch up soon , he knew he could always play with himself , the child within him .It doesn’t matter what walls are erected , it doesn’t matter what they are made up of . What does matter is the fact that you know you can bring them down when you want to ,not because you have to but because you want to…It was half past eight , he left for the party with a big smile.