Wednesday, December 31, 2008

january first


it's january first as i write this post, couched up on the velvet at the Emison's in Medina -a patchy suburb, miles away from minneapolis. it's relatively warmer outside this evening -it's been terrible the past few days. i think i can smell the snow tonight -through the insulated window panes and burnished wood. there's a quaint glow brushing the waxy olive paint of the wall, a bizarre pattern of light scratching the uneven edges of the textured ceiling. seventy yards away from my couch, a string of christmas bulbs glisten in the darkness -golden, crimson, moss and turquoise. i've never really observed them before. they are beautiful.

it's funny how things change with the transition of a new year. needless to say, a digit adds to the lousy four numbers of the calendar, but it feels rather peculiarly odd. i don't know what happened yesterday, but i didn't send emails or cards to people who have mattered to me all my life. i even got down to clicking on the tab to send a greeting, but pressed the cross button instead. i've deleted a couple of contacts who i thought were important to my sanity. i've skipped over contact names on my cell phone -people who i used to keep constant tabs on once upon a time. these names are slipping away today, through my loosened grip of emotionality, and i sit and wonder why this is happening.

there's this passing muse today because i have tried to forget you all this while. i will confess, i have not succeeded. not even a tiny little bit like i wanted to. and then at the cabin, in the solitude and quiet, i've thought about you more and more -rapid fancies and outrageous desires compounding my thoughts. you remember those messages you used to send in the evenings, giving me plastic hopes and fake impressions of how much you really cared? what happened to those blank stares and uncoordinated smiles you would plaster on your face while crocheting by the fire place? really, was i that unimportant that you decided to play this little game? this little game of test and manipulation to question my patience? this little game of who wins in ignorance and sentimental mutilation? have you ever considered your selfishness? your jealousies? your intolerance? i agree you have a basis underlying your estimates -whatever the issue may have been, but have you ever asked me what i have thought? have you ever looked at the situation through my kaleidoscope?

fine. ignore me as much as you want to. i will reciprocate your ignorance: doesn't mean, i will forget you. you know, i've tried to do that over christmas and the new years. i thought i'd resolved to blanch your face into nonexistence, crumble your smiles into an outrageous puzzle of powder and mist, freeze your memories onto a palette of greasy pastel, but i think i have failed. in your last telephone conversation, remember how you curled your lips and pinched at my love, before we played blackgammon by the stairway? remember how you called me the fallible insomniac with your concrete rationale of perversion?

thank you for the love. that's what i wanted to say.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

that day in december...


You know you want to cry out to her and tell her you’re sorry, but your voice dries out with the fading lights. You see the sickly figure on the platform, wrapped in a coat and inked with a smile. The tears rolling down her cheeks, like plastic ink drops, staining a path that you and I will never know. Did you ever try to understand those people on the roads, pin-pricked and homeless, weeping desperately for warmth? Pull your sympathies back today and your plastic concerns –she doesn’t want them with her. Not because she’s lost respect or doesn’t appreciate your worth, but because she’s scared. Because she saw her youth in you, and the endless trails of blood and shame that she hurdled over in the past. You see a violent quiver on her lips, a battered crease on her face and an insensate stagnation jutting through her eyes. You know she’s ripping untruths from her cold reality, her careless memories of abusive matrimony slipping out through indiscretion. But you pose ignorance. You slip back to your shady judgmental self –will you remember her over Christmas? Or even when you wake up tomorrow and wear your make-up? Today you think of harboring displeasure against her husband, or Larry’s partner. What about tomorrow?

Scroll up to the page when all of this started, on a lazy August afternoon when you were thinking about your parents, in a classroom by the library. You were shaken by the thought of varsity activism –leadership roles and positions of authority that you’ve never undertaken since elementary school. The thought that stirs you the most is not your work efficiency –you have enough self belief in that regard –but your peer acceptance. If there’s one thing that you should remember in life it would be that familiarity is not solidarity. Of course you will love your peers, support them and work with them, but never tell them your weaknesses. You’ll regret it someday.

Remember October? Those little chatters on the pavements and in the gymnasium, when you’d be gaping into the mirror –wringing your towel and observing your nose. You had plans of fashion shows and community board games, where you’d expect a hundred to show up and raise some money. They fell through. Not because it was an impractical suggestion, but because of the lack of interest. Meetings on Sundays would evidently mean missing Desperate Housewives and Sex & The City. What importance does AIDS hold compared to all the glitz and glamour? Didn’t football seem more interesting than discussing factsheets? Or the odor of sweet alcohol, for that matter? Wasn’t illness a more plausible excuse for absence, when really, fraternity houses were the real attraction? But you learnt to be flexible. To realize that there are endless sieves in this promising world –be brave enough to face them.

Then the plan of action changed. You wanted donations –a considerable amount from a nearby mall, and you got them. Pools after pools of scarlet ribbon, glazed pastel sprays and painting sticks. You folded them into little bows, pinned them up for later use. For all the condoms and labels, you stickered them neatly and set them aside. You never flustered with rage or squirmed with embarrassment at any of the decisions or indecisions. But you didn’t forego of your chances. You learnt to be a leader. You know they hated you for the tangent of new faces. They felt a prick of intrusion, an enduring interference sliding through their plans. It was all your fault –said or unsaid. Maybe it was, or maybe it wasn’t, but you know you tried your best. You tried to mediate the wafts of accusation with a calm smile or a gentle blink –nonreactive and indifferent. There’s something else you learnt other than cold criticism –tolerance and self-positivism.

With all the preparations more or less set, you dived into action. You sent reminder messages, twiddled with the faculty for extra-credit, planned flyers and banners and forum locations, informed the radio station and a host of other students to work for a cause. To work with respect and dedication stemming from a genuine concern and not from shameless make-beliefs. You learnt to weigh your worth and gauge your value, match your ideas and leadership roles in a wider arena. You boosted your confidence when you interacted with new people. Initially distracted by their awkward discreteness, insulting comments and narrow-minded gestures, you had tried to escape. To break away from this vicious whirl of pride and ego and alter-egos, of caustic joys from people who devalued your intent. But you learnt to grow out of it –quickly and efficiently. You’ve seen reality today through the haze of an ancient bioscope. Some people never change.

Do you also remember the clouded apprehension from the blood examination you opted for? Shuttling between spasms of emotional histrionics, you whispered consolations to yourself. Skipping heartbeats and breaths and narrow-minded self-quibbles, you panicked with fear. Because you were afraid of society and life-long accusations. Of frozen sympathy and the drudge of fatality. You can reach out to the millions today, holding hands and sharing tears. To support their existence and walk with them before they fade away. Not only for the blatant homosexuals, but also the innocent infants who see so little of the world. Of the hundreds and thousands of broken children, who come and go, like little flashbulbs across railroads. Their parents had aspirations and countless dreams in their make-believe existence, but they slid away unnoticed. Stop grieving over your missed opportunities; they never got a chance. If there’s one thing that you learnt today, it would be to respect your worth. The world will never wait for you.


Sunday, November 9, 2008

seven trebles


I’ve seen cities with boundaries. Strong, concrete bricks separating miles and miles of broken land. And I’ve seen cities with an overwhelming calm snaking down the roads, the mute sensations of people’s dreams, and countless homes where people come and go –playing silly games with life. If there’s one universal problem that threatens progress, I’d say it’d be poverty. In the city where I grew, midst the grease and sweat of unvocal pain, there is no corner for sympathy. For rickshaw pullers and diseased orphans twiddling with fate and illiteracy, what value does politics hold? If there ever was such a thing called clean democracy, we’d still be mooching for profit and commercial gain. In the city of joy and endless sorrow, I’ve seen freedom in the eyes of a million strangers, suppressed by society and fake gender equity. Houses that squeal of ill-fated wives, beaten and bruised because infertility is their fault. In a time of thwarted change, do you expect race and ethnicity to slide away from social fabric? Never! As long as my people value people over business, those children on pavements will eat mud for survival.

Turn the kaleidoscope to this fertile soil, and you see business and commerce racing past the bricks of emotions and dreams. I’ve chosen not to overlook the graffiti on the walls. A violent patch of pastel and blood, war and liberation and instrumental harmonics. Even in this game of profession and wealth, where opportunities flow past the grips of the unconcerned, my people don’t lose. This is not a stage for black-ties or rags, but a place where you voice your worth. And I have learnt to value this vicious cycle. A beautiful spectrum of scarlet and gold dissolving into the white of November rain. They will change into a different palette some other time, braving universality and globalization. Haven’t you seen enough in politics?

Monday, October 20, 2008

liquid god





and you swoosh past a string of giggling smiles, cosmetic transgenders and frowning homosexuals into the bustling shuffle of downtown transparencies. you see dissatisfaction on a narrow face. bearded and tanned, sitting on a bench in the north quadrangle. you feel the spots on his shriveled skin, beaded with sweat and lost recollections. you want to lend an arm to his mutilated fist, but you shy away. not because you're scared of sarcoma, but your distrust on dripping emotionality. you know you want to walk up to him. meddle with his memories of fluid eroticism. his thirteen years of hide-and-seek on the fabric of social downfalls. his mottled histories and shattered dreams of shady professionalism. you feel the disability in his futuristic imaginings.

two more months, he whispers.


and then you flip back on the velvet of yesterdays. on all the times you've wondered of liquid brawniness and the ferocity of masculine sexuality. of the rough caress of throbbing palms and hypnotic curves of sensuality. of bizarre romanticism crawling through your sentiments. lunging at your conscience. flipping through the montage of social criticisms and cold discrimination. because you loved the vapor of warped fantasies. delusions and tailored metamorphosis.


and you remember the times you encountered AG. discussed homophobia and loving men. the Bible and transactional identities. punishment and legalizations. social myopia and illusory heterosexuality. of the evenings when you mused and pondered over sexual excitability and social values. eveness and imbalance of god-sanctioned emotional routing. of bawdiness and crude emotional vulnerability that made kitschy whores out of narcoleptic strangers, scooped and swirled into anatomical puppets of surrealism. and the silhouettes of nudity merging into frenzied pleasure. erotic love and skewed masculinity... shadowed from the satin of social dogma.
there was a time when JE said, it is evil. we will gauge the distance.

Monday, October 6, 2008

new age schizophrenia


and you bump into a bundle of strangers swivelling past a lamp post -half smiling and slightly tipsy. friday night blues and saturday morning jumbles spiralling over their uncomfortable gait, as they swish past a crumbling apartment, blotted with pastel red and moss. you follow them till the curve across Berry Street. heavy eyes and trembling fingertips silhouette against the morning sunshine. electric vapors of sweat and pointless babbling bead your neck till you switch over to a different bylane. you are greeted with a broken house, cigarette stubs, a condom wrapper and a bar of half-eaten chocolate with crystalline creases of teeth-marks.

and you stumble into this foot-step of new age schizophrenia.

not of mercy killing and raging abortion, but of a silent whisper which floats through your system on a friday night. you are reminded of chicago, and the frightening tingle of dimes and quarters looping across Michigan Avenue. and of waking manhattan bordered with ghettoes and strip clubs, that you were once tempted to enter. you skim through all the indulgences that flow past when you don't recognize those toothy grins. chemicals, sex, drugs and drinks. you energize on the thought of drunkeness in the basement of some fraternity house. some female insomniac groping you down your denim. you lose discomfort and allow yourself to skip into the viciousness of pounding african rhythms. your feet are wet. your shirt is a patch of paint and lipstick. you dance to broken beats and cosmetic flesh till your recollection fades away...point-blank.

you were told, once, life had far too many choices. Mr A just repeated it.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

tin can

walking down manhattan makes you feel a lot of bizzarre things. you watch it on television, read about it in the papers, see it as a backdrop in almost every movie, and you know you want to go there. you wonder what the lofty buildings are going to be like -a musty smell of glass, ceramic and concrete paws your sensation. you imagine standing in Times Square -hoping against hope you'd meet your favorite actor or sports person. and you know you want to breathe New York city. and i've been fortunate. although my cab driver from new jersey to la guardia was a stout brazilian man with a brawny physique and an overpowering attitude, he was quite an enthusiast about showing me around manhattan -and luckily enough didn't charge a single cent for it.

things don't always come free.

and i saw new york city slipping away from my vision, in bits and pieces, in the quiet of a sunday morning. walking down 5th avenue and the universal studios administrative building, with the sunlight combing through tree tops, a bunch of african americans swagger past. fresh paint from graffiti stained on their shirt cuffs. a couple of corporates curve past central park, breathless and apprehensive. and you see the boutiques, the fashion houses, the crockery stores and the restaurants. and the mexicans, the lebanese, the afghans and the japanese milling about the pavements, huffing and puffing on a lazy sunday morning. you scan 360 degrees around, and you see the empire state glittering in the morning sun. and the clouds floating around, and you hear the peppered hush-and-chirp of exotic birds. the trump towers looming in one corner, and a hundred bank-tops silhouetting against the lousy sky. and in the midst of this heaving richness, you hear a piercing sound of tin cans. you wonder why.

Monday, August 11, 2008

manhattan

Location: Manhattan

guy1: hey what's that u have on ur tee?

me: it's UCB

guy1: Uber cool bitches, huh?

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

mind riddles

she has 3 days to go, while i have 9 and now it's more about the last minute packing, scrolling down the details and ticking off checklists. this is the time when friends advance in priority -subconsciously or otherwise - and the family picture sidles away to a distant corner. but i guess that's how life moves on, shedding past the shadows of your parents' dreams and aspirations, realizing the value of independent decision-making.
from spices to emotions, items are pocketed and earmarked in the case. labels and tags screeched onto the semi-hard fabric. you wonder whether immigration officials will question you for your belongings. will harass you if you're in black. will root out a mock defence to every emotion you portray. they ask you to spare the rolling tears, and all the little hugs and embraces with which you grew up. and for once your heart skips a beat at your freedom. nostalgia and homesickness chirp into your throbbing veins. your eyes pounding with the pain of empty expectations. you want to lung out your crying voice. but you chose to depart. you look back and see your father faking a smile. your mother's hand frozen at the tilt in which she stroked your hair. you want to reach out to them and tell them you love them, but you don't. and then you stroll ahead into the row of endless counters. steamy sweat beading on your forehead. your eyes are dilated with confusion. and then you flip through those dreary images of departure curling up in your mind, and ask yourself -am i escaping?

Thursday, July 24, 2008

mud mist

right, so my inspiration for joining blogger is definitely ARC. no, i don't want to shy away from any form of acknowledgements, and i think it is essential for me to mention the person who motivated me to join this.

i'll be leaving for college in another 2 weeks time. a different country, a different city. different cultures and different people. i don't sit at the 'i-expect-such-and-such' table and ponder over anything in particular. i'll take life as it comes, and yes i'm excited about college. if you ask me about homesickness - i don't know how far that is going to creep into my system, but i'm sure it won't paralyse my thought processes. departures are usually painful -i've seen the drama that goes on in the airports with mothers and daughters laced in embraces while the father is usually the pacifist (trust me, guys don't get away that easily) -but there are always two sides to a coin. you leave a heap of imaginations behind. you're semi-confused whether you should feel sad about leaving or excited about meeting new people. you tend to see through those tears -they don't matter to you any more, because you're out of the cage that circles you. yet you pause for a second, exchanging glances with the unknown, and you ask yourself -am i really doing this?