Have you ever come to a point where you really don't have much to say, but you get going on in attempting to saying something anyway? Its perhaps like that there are a whole lot of things happening around; you have an opinion about the subject but just that you haven't got down to thinking much on it; or it hasn't made an impressionable impression on your mind -- yet perhaps the thing around, affects you a trifle and you just collect everyone's arguments and points of view and theories to present it as your own.
So you get down to writing about the subject that's been looping around and despite knowing that it really doesn't matter to you in such a major way, you write about it in a tone that perhaps indicates that you're at least, if not fully convinced, in being supportive to the either side of the situation -- which is more or else convenient to the dependability of time. When you end the whole thing: you feel happier as a person; someone whose done a good deed, despite not really caring about it, while being actually politically correct to everyone's nurtured sensibilities.
I guess a whole lot of people also end up living in this fashion of style. Of course, them taking their, this thoughtful side makes some people very angry, some happy -- and some who realise that their way of thinking actually marks no great trait of personality or of any great importance; but, yet they continue to groove with the flow of such stoic-minded lot and convince everyone of their own intelligence.
In retrospect, which ever stand I had taken, whenever the need had been in a time of complete desolation, it seemed that I inevitability; progressively, went on the side of winning; unfortunately, bearing the embarrassment of unpopularity. However, I always had this self-dependable suitcase of clarity that I would use to avoid the usual monotony of the always 'saying the right thing at the right time' -- this platitude ironically sounds as monotonous -- that I would in a repeatedly, in a manner oppose the popular flow of convictions. Regardless to how moral or immoral -- don't worry, their stand always seemed immoral -- the matter of the situation would turn to be.
Now it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that if you repeat certain actions in a particular manner, it turns around to be a habit you more or less can't seem to rid, or rid but with some change of an environment.
But thanks to being hit by a van of professionalism while crossing the road from school to college, that the years of this activity, well enough, fell away from me. Yet when I come to come to think of those times where I picked the art of a bit of depression and a bit of that Jim Morrison-style of thinking, filling poetry in my Accounts register, sniffing glue, spending hours in the library, doing a double somersault on the trampoline (gymnastics was bitterly considered by the general perception as an act of being a profound 'sissy'), walking alone most of the time, writing letters to no one, that I learnt an important lesson that carried me from an unfortunate stage of life to a shore of contentment -- which was the importance and reassurance of one self. That my self, in the most humiliating times crossed me through the real dark times of the tunnels, to the light. The light would often turn out to be a train that would be opposing me, and smack the hell out of me. (Hehe, it struck quite hard, but then at that time, that shit song 'I get knocked down but I get up again', would sound great as well, despite self teaching Blake and Eliot (thank you for correcting The Office Poet).
Anyway, before the some of you, who have linked me, change my name on your blogs, or on your minds, to Robin Sharma; I just want to tell you that this had been more a project of confessions rather than a 'Find yourself in 8 simple ways' sort of bullshit, which I wouldn't recommend to any of you anyway -- also knowing that you would never, despite my non-attempts do so.
I actually got down to, sadly but rightly, hating some of the people back then, who actually convinced me that there seemed no remedy to find, to their sheer miserable-selves, ways of existence and treating their personal boredom (rather inflicting) it on other people's time of evaluation. I still wouldn't kill them, but certainly would burn them if I got a chance.

'All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players -- with a lost script.'

I'm actually waiting for Godot. He's coming, they say.

The fourth show of the festival needed no great introduction, as the city’s closet and what else call ‘niche’ rock-blues fans mixed riffs with brew. The evening kicked off with the Kolkata band Plan B that blew versions of songs that were undeniably popular, patched with unique vocals. The second performance settled the groove, as Menwhopause, did what they were best at – fusing blues with rock, racing beats and bass along with screaming vocals.The last band, Skinny Alley, stirred a good response as their female vocalist plunged into a soup of likeable rhythms. Their music steered into gamut genres; leaving one wishing, only if they’d stuck to blues.

(This old review of a gig in Delhi, published in the paper with some odd 150 words)

Good evening. How were you? I guess, I'm doing fine, thank you. Yes, recovering from those bouts of insanity. In case you've been wondering if this usually quiet-guy has gone a bit loony with all that gibberish being written down below. I wouldn't criticise you on this point, if I were you I would have done the same thing: spat on the screen and then, quietlly when no one is looking, wipe the spit stain off by a clean cloth.
So well, yes, anyway.
I actually had a pretty rough day. No. No-no. It wasn't work sweety/jackass, I swear, I didn't mean to intend that, you know I don't think like that. Right now, at this moment, a professional relationship, is the only thing I can sustain at this point of time.
It was actually while getting off the fuckin' DTC bus that I had a pretty bad fall. You see the bus was on a curve turn, supposed to have stopped for me. The darn thing slowed and then began to roll off (say it like fuck off). It was during that moment that I landed on the ground, the velocity tricked my gravity and left me sprawled on the asphalt caked road with my knees cut; my jeans burnt; and some fucker giving me advice. What a bad time to tell me where I went wrong, thanks anyway, you old muffuckin' gent.
My shoulder seems to be hurting, don't think I can lift it really well. I guess I won't crib too much, its quite all right. Yes, I'm doing fine. Why? Thank you again for being concerned.
The day rushed pass quite okay. The stupid chicken sandwich that the office canteen can ruin so easily (can anyone give them the recipe?) and those sweet darn free coffees that are meant to go with your cigarettes -- my little role with food.
Stangely just had almost no money on me today -- but knowing that its in the bank -- I felt sort of shipwrecked. But there's actually a feeling to it which makes you feel bit cool, ya know right, the vagabond, the Kerouac-kind, left around? Okay, cool, no I'm not losing it again.
As a matter of fact, I had never lost it. Damn, you're not buying it. Strange, anyway, but really.
You know while thinking today, I just realised that perhaps sometimes -- young that I am, go ahead, make me see -- really stress over being impressionable. I don't know about you, but I sometimes really convince myself to behave in particular norms, in harmless ways I tell you. I don't mind these self-conditioning routine checks, its not that hard and I guess its cool to inflict on oneself, right, who else...? But the strange thing is that at the same time, I also really don't give a fuck about what people think of me. I think most of my life just wastes sorting these two things out. Its a good thing, just that I wish not too long thinkin about it.
Heck, its okay. It doesn't really make me that unahppy or any curious. I like the way I am, I am not stupid I swear. Other people are. (whoops!)

Its quite a pity, actually, that there are very few that have heard and liked Neil Diamond. I thought he was brilliant in small flashes. A brilliant songwriter, one of the few to make pop music still okay-cool.

Personal Favourites:
Suzanne
Forever in Blues Jeans
Solitary Man
Brooklyn Roads
Be
Both Sides Now
Beautiful Noise
Sweet Caroline
Song Sung Blue
I Am... I Said

Everyone I know has seen the movie When Harry Met Sally. I am so tied to this conviction that last evening, I believed, even I had seen it before. You see, considering Star Movies, HBO, ZEE MGM (our respected movie channels) -- they've done rounds to kill every certain really decent movie, even the one's worth watching for the second time -- by playing it for 257 times at prime times (say 9 to 10 pm on all bloody days).
So this movie, right, it was pretty cool. You know, not the one you really love, but will watch it for the heck of it. Meg Ryan (Sally) looks that kind of a cute chick, the early days of hers I think, and there's Billy Crystal (Harry) whose meant to be this smart alec, talk fast, proves a point and fuck off kinds. It's a typical romantic flicks, no wait a minute, the not-so-romantic kinds actually, and is kind of cool the way they let you speculate on certain points of the almost slow flick.
But there was this one particular scene, in the beginning, where Harry's just met Sally and is making a long road trip, that he says, a guy can never be friends with a woman. They just always want to sleep with them and that's all, irrespective, perhaps, to whether they are attractive or not. And that perhaps sounded a bit true, for humility's sake not that much, but ya just a little. But I also think I have heard this line once before in my life, (maybe I had really watched this movie, and after 4 beers one really expects things like this to happen and make it all unexcpected, right?) Forget it.
No so where was it that I had heard this one? On the playground outside school, during nursey days, while chucking sand at each other? No. Outside the Mess during the boarding school days? No. Actually couldn't be, cause no one actually even tried to make sense there. Then where? Anyway it'll come, I think.
So, where was I? Oh yes. So when this part was said, apart from thinking where I had heard this one before, I also felt that this was somewhat true. Okay, okay -- may not happen with me all the time to all the women friends -- but it does happen, I guess, when it concerns with us, male kinds in general, is that better? No, okay, one theory to prove it: homosexual men do make better friends with girls (sometimes the really hottest ones, this I know for sure) better than your average 'dude, wasssup kinds.' Is this a debate about infidelity? No dude, I'm not Karan Johar, you know.
I actually really don't know if that's true. I know its not even serious, at this time -- when the China guy and his wife are around blocking the traffic in Del or making great 'bilateral' deals or US is fucking up with Iraq and the trying to look bright about it -- or at any bloody time. But, anyway, randomly wondering, so is it true? Goddammit I know I have work.

By the rate I'm going, in 2010 -- when the Commonwealth Games will be held in New Delhi -- I will be found in a drunken stupor, writing incessantly on obscurity with a macabre imagery in my eyes. None of this will happen, or rather, not even this will happen right. You may find some scars on my wrists -- very possible -- confirming all the crimes I will commit on myself.
If I will be married, chances are that I will be the victim of domestic violence. My body will be used by my wife to stub her cigarettes and attitude. She will torment me by filling dark shampoo liquid in my bottle of rum. There are even better chances that I will the be alotted a wall where I would be told scribble my bad poetry, then be asked to rub them by off by my palms.
I would be usual to bars, where they will be all in the knowing that I will not be able to pay my bills but they will still be generous and abusive. But some, they will be assured that the stories I tell will be all genuine -- the women, the books and the dunkards talk will be from a world of how it used to be but will never be.
I will also be recognised, fame would never be associated to me. Women would only sleep with me to attain the classifcation of being charitable, to which they would go through this routine unregardedly and endlessly. I will enjoy them, and their cigarettes; their world wrapped in the sheets of Vogue and Cosmopolitans and my musing. Then they will let me walk hrough their doors with my suitcase of thoughts.
I will also sing, when I won't be paid well. My songs will be recieved well, they will take my voice with no sharp criticism. My voice will be weak, but my poetry dark and fiery. I would be found in ragged company, hooting and shouting on the streets, the one's whom even the cops would refuse to stop, knowing their habits.
I will also have travelled. Also charged with murders of people I never knew, or cared. I would be trusted by no one, yet I would find appreciation in faceless corners. Acceptance from shadows that no where they are going. Whistled by imaginations of the following generations. And then I would smile. Commit a murder or start a religion. Break conventionality by my path breaking works that will soon be lost in libraries.
But then one morning I will be woken up by hot tea -- very possible the very next day. Be kissed by my very proper wife, who will then fix my tie right, smile while I read the morning papers, make fried eggs and bacon, set herself to work, and everything would be right. But wait a minute, how old will I be? So it goes.

"Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash."

-- Leonard Cohen

I know its quite peaceful, well for this moment at least. The Famous Blue Raincoat is playing on this winter cool night, the past few days seem to have passed now. Another week quitely looms ahead of me. With new expectations, I suppose. But I won't think about it, do you think one should have about how everything must be planned. Well I've been reading some plays, the one's I'd promised myself -- some of them written by Miller, Osborne and Pinter.
You may seem to find some influences here and there. Not that that really matters, anyway; cause I'll never write another Catcher in the Rye -- and I know it doesn't have to be written again, that's the sheer splendid beauty of it. I'm quite peaceful for once, and despite the coming week to frighten me with all that I'm meant to fullfil, I will try not to kill this glorious evening that I wish to intend to spend with you -- very unromantically.
Been drinking quite a bit as well -- still can't find my feet -- I suppose you would find it anyway a lot in my blood. There's been some great deal of introspection as well, and that also has managed to really wreck my nights of sleep. I've realised that one musn't, if one keeps to it as a point, have a conversation that provokes you to think a great deal before sleeping. It leaves you howling the rest of the night with water and cigarettes.
I think I'm a bit of misanthrope that really can't, hopelessly do without people. Young that we are, or I am exclusively. Strange as that may seem. I'm not very expressive they say, I think I know now why. Cause you know, happiness is very overrated, it is. This youth plays with the stars, the dragons and ships and pirates -- waiting for castles in the air to be swept and washed by the violence of foaming sea -- the sun in my eyes and a murder in my life.
You maybe rich, but that silver spoon in your mouth when you were born was never really a teaspoon of the first-notch whisky or anything like that. I've heard that you've spat your cerelac on someone, special's face. Your tastes are now quite splendid but will never be even of the remotest dream of the poor who wouldn't anyway wish to trade them with the horses they once had when wishes were not that cliched. I know what I mean, you would have to indulge in philanthrophy. But being in these rags that may not suit your style, I will still try to win the favour of women that refuse to be in your spoilt company, who are surprisingly quite so selfless when they are thinking.
Its very possible that your friend, if I may say so -- this writer -- has lost his mind and cannot breathe a single word of sanity on this page. He will lose his reputation, the one he never actualy had. But what better a place I ask you, where one can spill the seeds of wrong vision smudged in the very air of your comfort, and still not have to worry about hiding his real name from the politer societies -- to still hang around with you.
Those of you know who know me, know that you never really had hope; if you lie now, Santa's secret orgy team will never reach you when you will be 86.
I will always be your humble servant, your notions are very practical but in theory they are all wrong -- I heard this line from one of the secrets of the UN. Although I missed the intelligent point, I tend to do so, I still caught a line that may get me laid, even if its not that kind you really understand. I swear, I know no poker that cried, I may have lost my age but I never said that had no pride, it was this romance that was outside, where I know that I had no mind on that endless ride with Margarita on my side, with your shrieking guide to find, who was it that actually lied?
I shall return, so very soon, and would you wish to. If you are unhappy I can tell you where you can sell them. If you wish to trade them that is.

Someone screamed in the auditorium. But no one looked uncomfortable. Someone had obviously been killed, as though a scalpel had carefully stolen his heart -- heartless? Considering the kinds we were, what perhaps could be more natural than death while watching theatre. There was even wine being served from floating trays, most faces were veiled with shadows and I felt her soul slipping into me so easily, why? The music played more loudly, a few more screams were heard but seemed so distant. There were even shadows that danced on the walls and a thousand whispers were shared, and then passed around like cigarettes.
The programme couldn't have ended; Margarita was feeling a bit cheated as she cleared her throat and then her clothes to go back to Woland and the moon.
The two sisters walked in, they were all a bit surprised to see them at first. Were they relieved? They hadn't been to the Fisherman's Bait for ages; the tavern was now filled with a plague and the lust that, like, drained from sewage of brothels. A thousand skeletons walked with their eyes oozing as jellies serving the cocktails of snake venom and absinthe, with their tears to flavour or savour and burnt with fire.
Someone was clapping, while shaking his mighty head as though in disapproval. There was an orchestra that came from halls of forgotten halls. There was a room where the jokers crashed on the piano. What a sound it made. Nothing could make sense, could this? They asked themselves without talking. Now, the dream passed by like the night did to an early morning.
There was despair but in the child who wore no feet. There were birds that picked his thoughts all day. While Sisyphus looked up again and said, could this really be the end? Stop cheatin the line that weren’t meant to be his, says the dying professor still the stupid cribber he had always been. Could it really be, while nothing mattered to the circle of witches on the shores? The spells and the visits to the underwold – the locks of Goldie, and the winter madness of the forests of No Return – isn’t it clear now, or better? The armies and their broken vows now lost to the prayers of those who cannot sleep but with nervous laughter. The drunken talk of the dormouse. Alice, sweet as she will always be, lost in her world again, where could she now bloody go?
The Cheshire Cat grins with those fancy whims, she’s famous but can she be found? Could it really be that they killed Santiago Nassar, or was it one of those fantasies that you read at night and slept with the beauty of imagination and their kinds. The rosebud, who said that? Was it Jimmy Porter? Or an angry twit that blew his mind in a car, while the English won the war?
Could this really end? And end in this fashion, while the princess slept on those ferns. The sound of drums beating, as she's being called in the court to be stripped in front of the world – her story, who will tell it? Whose right is it, she asks? Who am I? The Gods are silent. Forget that Zeus now fell asleep while his world began to tremor with the blood that was swum by heroic beauty in Troy.
One more second and Faustus would rise, and so with the thousand mysteries along with him to plunder his broken pride. The harlots on the streets, could they ever have found their Romeo? Or only after death, you sneer in your broken twisted little mind.This song was poisoned; it never falls short says Rumpelstilskin. There is great music in the wrong, after all his princess still weaves gold. Rubbish the fear and die in its heat. The dogs have been bitten by a violent rage. They will rape the virgin cats, and would it be a pretty site? That heroin is beautiful in your eyes. I’d die like Virginia, except I ain’t sinking.

Dress Rehearsal Rag

Four o'clock in the afternoon
and I didn't feel like very much.
I said to myself, "Where are you golden boy,
where is your famous golden touch?"
I thought you knew where
all of the elephants lie down,
I thought you were the crown prince
of all the wheels in Ivory Town.
Just take a look at your body now,
there's nothing much to save
and a bitter voice in the mirror cries,
"Hey, Prince, you need a shave."

Leonard Cohen

Don't Look Back in Anger

If there's a music album playlist that's playing on my mind, bloody loud, its (What's the Story?) Morning Glory, Nevermind, Let It Bleed, Highway 61 Revisited, The Doors, and a whole lot others...

How many times have you burnt your tongue on hot coffee? How many times have you smoked thinking, if this would be the last one? How many words have you come across that you know no meaning of? How many times have you woken in the mornings with no love on your side? How many books will you have to have read to read enough? How many drinks will it finally take to make you feel better and then worse? How many doors will it take to get to the other side? How many answers will come to your questions before you know them? How many times will you say the same thing without meaning it? How many jokes will it take to make you laugh? How many posts will you fill in here? How many times will you love someone differently? How many times will a smile make it all go away? How many times will there be a song that reminds you of a forgotten past? How many poems will it take to make a poet? How many times have you scribbled something and then let it be forgotten? How many negative thoughts you have hidden to be loose in your mind? How many times have you walked away? How many times have you whispered in a corridor of no ears? How many times have you dived into a pool to touch the floor below? How many times have you wished? How many dreams have you forgotten? How many faces will you meet? How many times will you gaze at the stars? How many times will you feel the same? How many times will you let those tears trickle out of you foolishly? How many times will you sink into the floor? How many times will you attempt to be different? How many times will you hate someone? How many times will it take to get an understanding out of you? How many times do you wait for someone when there's nobody coming? How many times will you hang around alone without knowing what to do? How many sleeps will you destroy with your nervousness and anxiety? How many times will you come here, again?

"Let's just say I was testing the bounds of reality. I was curious to see what would happen. That's all it was: just curiosity"
(Jim Morrison confessed in one of his last interviews, in 1969, and I think he justified everything that may have shocked you to love or hate him, or his music.)

Comrade, you're stepping on my foot

If you are a fucking Indian -- and you are not a politician or a son of one -- but you're just pushing your stupid self out of college or are in your prime youth days, smoking harsh cigarettes outside your post-graduation college, and can't help but thinking that you're going to bring about a change to this country someday. Which you just as may well -- but say you are a bloody communist, chances are that I will want to rip your beliefs and stuff it in the big hole in the sky of pretentious-intellectualism. Naa, I'll just do what I will tell you in the end.
I am sorry, if I appear a bit too impolite for your kind and well-nourished sensibilities, but please don't get my goat. You know it is quite, actually very, peaceful grazing under the azure skies. So what is it with my, er, fellow comrades? Have the potty-headed, stupidly stupid, old-drain-brains, college professors gone so nutty that they're drilling this stupid idealism to these already-feel-so-bloody-smart kids and this, with such rubbish.
What's more irritating with them is that not they are studying the course quite seriously, but have done no further reading on the subject before developing this political philosophy and unleashing it in the polite-tight-lipped-society. 'Oh ya! George Orwell, he wrote that book on Animals, right? No damnit, he wasn't fucking a vet, whaddya think!')
They have these few lines that they've mugged up, and if they say them aloud in their social outings, and I think they draw some: 'Ooh-aaah, ho/hum...s/he has to be blood bright. Ya know, here we were talking about smoking dope right now and man this one's so hardcore, almost trippy. Now I get it! It was Marx and I thought my report card!'
The strange bit are these social outings of there, where they'd like to profess how deeply intellectually-politically rooted they are. Look at the irony: they are obviously invited by some capitalist's son to a capitalist's private property to drink and smoke a capitalists wine and cigarettes -- where a down-trodden lower class man is serving you, who doesn't even cross your mind while he does that, as you eye for him to bring you that plate of chicken tikka's, that which has been pre-cooked in a capitalist's kitchen. And there, there, you actually expect me to believe that we should join you?
Don't think Naxalism and don't think CPI (M). Don't think Lenin and don't think Stalin. Think about how good it sounds: everyone's the same bloody class; happy; united; only peace and love; hand-in-hand; no democracy! Just like John Lennon's Imagine (I really like that song by the way!) Wait a minute, which Lenin/Lennon was it? Aaah, before you go again, time I get another drink.

It doesn't really matter you know. How worse can you push worse to get? I know you secretly make your way here to know what's on my mind; I am just a bit surprised, you should have already known. Will you make my life more miserable now than what I already suffer just to see you? Remember I ony pity you, I take my anger to people who convince me that there's still hope. I may not look into your mocking eyes, but I know you wonder. I forgive you before you even dream of it in the darkest hour of your sleep. It doesn't really matter to me, I just don't care as much as you do.

It had been raining since the time I loved you, and then the dream got up and left the room. At this time I felt everything was plain and obscure. There was darkness but she was just a cousin to the shadow. I met mystery then in a black corner, and I felt her slide her cheek against mine. I didn't tell her that I hadn't shaved. Then there she said she didn't mind but left me in a corridor where an old friend had no eyes.
I felt silence making her way, when the moon was hiding, and there was a cottage next to the river. There was even music that came from an old piano, where the violin screamed and died. There was wine, and she had those eyes. And I felt that there was no room, were we at Norwegian Woods?
Then came the marching soldiers and took the circus away. It was heard that they tied them with ropes of pain and broke their jaws and slashed their wrists. When the fire burned, some smoke was collected and the river then carried them away.
It was that time that I walked on water for the first. There were few friends who had died a long time ago, and then there was happiness stripped bare and some crows. They played with words and sang different tunes. The rituals called Achilles and a blind poet that died that morning.There was no meaning in it, and this they all knew. But the festival carried till the four moons of the princess sunk the mighty ships and no one escaped to the morning. I clutched one hope and it dragged my soul with a set of silver horses. They killed Jonathan Swift, and I was one of them.

Are you an unhappy person? I mean repeatedly, or even periodically, unhappy? I am. I have this thing going on and on with depression. It really feeds on me. My folks say it’s because of jeans. No wait a minute, that didn't sound right. Oh yea, well it was genes they rightly said. And I think that has a lot to do with the way why I feel miserable. It happens even in good times. And I don't mean general unhappiness, which can be pinpointed, rationally thought about and shot down like it happens in the draw scenes in the Wild Wild West movies.
Few months back, I did a pretty big story for our Metro pages on the high rise of suicide cases. I had to pose sometimes as a phoney suicide attempter, calling these so-called help line numbers. Some were very fucked up and rigid and, even if I weren’t such a case, I would have still killed myself trying to communicate with them. But the one's I didn't pose as one, there was one consultant on the phone that gave me all the quotes I needed and in the end. Threw a few harmless questions, more like he was interviewing me. I answered, almost as though I was getting used to being questioned. One story before that I was doing on Drug Rehabs in Delhi, and there I was posing as a junky.
In the end of the conversation, he felt that I did have a suicide intention buried in the layers of my conscience. But for him, almost everyone does. Its only the limit of this intention that varies from people to people.
Anyway, so I am an extremely unhappy person from time to time. This often spurts to me being very reclusive and keeps me aloof.
Every time I hear something about myself, I am often filled with trepidation whether what I'm going to hear about myself will be harming in any sense. And then, any criticism rubs bad on me. I am not even like my Old Man, who always appears to be nonchalant when he hears criticism, when he sits in his bookshop -- it’s the best in Delhi -- and I respect him for that.
He sulks, but sometimes. I often sulk, but deep down I always seem to be brooding. My day can be even fucked up with a small headache while getting up in the mornings. Its kinda sad scene, you know.There's one respite and that's reading. But I get upset knowing that I haven't read enough. Sometimes I just imagine things. Beautiful things. Sweeter things. More like a Marquez land that I slip into. That's a really cool place to be. The women, the legends, and the sheer humaness in its fantasy – its really cool.

I found this very old poem of mine. Written in school, in the bitter end of a class of Accounts in 11th standard, perhaps it was the last one of the day. Ajmer was warm, the water salty and happiness lay in the sound of a bell.

In my mind

Lost in the narrow streets of my mind,
Streetlamps on every dark corner,
Music playing from lonely sheds,
Some women danching with winter chills,
A coal scribble of poetry on white walls,
Smoke making its way from bitter chymnies,
Journeys to endless roads,
Memories declining and fading,
Beautiful eyes, words and lust,
Expectants grief; disbelieve in distrust,
Words hidden, riddled with hope scorned,
A curtained vision of a world beyond.
Laws invented and then justified,
The princess of thoughts sailing ahead,
The rain gods play with thunder.

If you are a Dylan fan, I suppose you would already know. But if you aren't, then there are these few songs I would ask you to listen. I've been listening to him for about 2 decades and I think he's really really good. My favourites...

1) Like a Rolling Stone
2) Visions of Johanna
3) Its all over now, Baby Blue
4) Mr Tambourine Man
5) Simple Twist of Fate
6) Tangled up in Blue
7) A Hard Rain is Gonna fall
8) Mayback pages
9) She belongs to me
10) Shelter from the Storm
11) Desolation Row

Just to tell you

Do read this short story of Greene, A little place of Edgware Road. Fascinating.

Another one -- it was a part of a collection of short travel writings -- by Dave Barry on Japan. Simple, witty and brilliant.

How does it feel...

Picked this movie from a crummy music store for 350 bucks. Sweet! The Stones are next...

I find myself greatly absorbed when I read Indian women writing about sex. There's even a trifle of trepidation while reading them, sometimes its even embarassment I'm embarassed about. And before you start pointing fingers at me, and assume that I maybe a sexist of sorts here. I would like to say that I'm not one. I wouldn't want people to think of me as one.
What draws me to them is not for a perverse reason; if I was a honest voyeur I would have found many such reading material from the worlds of Cosmos to Porn sites -- blogging wouldn't even cross my mind.
So then what attracts me? I suppose, if I really come to come to think of it, its plainly to see women being expressive. Everyone here -- I assume -- would read anything that is largely honest, thought-provoking or something that relates to a consequence we relate to or understand, right?
Anyway, so when I read blogs of women (few I know; most I don't know) writing about what they really feel; forget sex even if its just an exhibition of feminism.
I end up truly supporting them.
It really upsets me to see women -- especially cause I live in Delhi -- often being confused for subjects of mindless joy. It happens everywhere really, I won't go into domestic violence and exactly equality issues, but I mean what I come across in open: from pubs to buses.
Most of my blog women friends, display a great natural skill of writing and use this medium to bring about their personal thoughts of matters that concern them deeply. I really find them hopelessly interesting.
There's even a great issue of mentality, which sickens me to real horror. I often end up blaming television for it, not entirely but largely. Now don't call me a prude or Sharmilla Tagore side-kick! I really don't mind the display of a proper sex scene in a movie (which I think will arive in 2030) or a bloody flavoured condom advertisment (can you beat that, saw it in the papers), but those senseless music vidoes of Hindi songs. With those item-numbers.
It has an audience that largely consists of senselss people. The video only manages to convince people that women showing even a bit of a skin, is like the slut on television. Hence, women of even the smallest fashion fall prey to them.
This is a long-talk anyway, will continue one-day.

Someone, once, rightly said: We are all in the gutters,
but some of us are looking at the stars.

So it turned out really well. Despite everything that may have turned the whole evening unfortunate, I realised that a good company is what one needs at the end of a drunken literary event. And who else, but in the company of the lit-lot can you find great amusement, serious conversations and a great share inebriated humour?
Mr Rock n' Roll Circus had a plan that we shall try and skip the early bit of the poetry reading and ghazals, and be there at such a time when things start turning slightly better. We were scared that we would be cramped in the BCL Audi, and a smoke desire could cause great distraction. Luckily, it was not inside but outside. Beneath the stars, with lights poetically arrayed which hung like curtains on both sides, besides the ever beautiful bar. The seating was arranged in the fashion of what I think Bahadur Shah Zafar may have liked and had. There was the stage in front of us where William sat with the musicians (that was the boring bit) but it didn't last for too long.
He didn't come with me, so I made my way early. Getting in was a bit of a case. There was one chap who barged in with me, kept following me like a shadow to clear the security while murmuring to allow him in with me. I was a bit afraid, you see I didn't want to let in a suicide bomber along. I had no clue who the hell he was. Anyway, he was caught because he was such a bad actor, and his nervousness failed him to enter.
Trip was the first one I met. The programme started and we slipped out to catch a smoke, basically to miss the music. Met eM and Duck of Destiny on the side where people were coming, we smoked some more and killed time. eM was pissed, and every time she woukld give me the look and I would stare hard at the dust on my shoes. We heard sounds of clapping, thought it was over and headed in. It hadn't. But the music sounded better probably cause we knew it was now going to end soon.
Saw the The Bigger Picture and the Edit Page team march in. The Bigger Picture, took his place next to the bar making polite conversation with the bartender. Some firang landed and started talking to him about some Defence deal, and he suddenly turned around and shouted: "Pass me the beer now, the show is over!" The show had just got over and there was this sudden brief silence, and almost everyone turned around to see him grabbing his drink. That was cool.
eM was sweet and didn't grill me much after that, she had the very cool hat. I discussed The Dude with Duck of Destiny in one of his short story. Mr R'n'R landed up and I bummed a few cigarettes of him. Tokyo Arrived was around. Nilanjana and Annie were looking really special and nice. Spoke to Lax about The Pirate's career decision move. Megh and Lil' Sam were also there, and we were all sharing laughs. There were some people I knew, I socialised as they say.
After all that we all got more drunk and some of us rushed to Pandara for food. Lil' Sam and the Duck of Destiny randomly disappeared -- met some outlaws, Bangladeshi's, some funny named pub, all in 15 minutes -- but were there for dinner. And I was a happier person at the end of it all.