loved this song!

HIDDEN

hidden in your every move
are the words that you will never say
stars and moons are not your style
I've known for a while this is not your way

I hear you

I do know you very well
and our time will tell if I read you right
it can be so very hard
looking for a dark horse in the night

I see you

I do know you very well
and I will until you can prove me wrong
maybe I'll find you are not
anything like what I've thought all along

don't think so

one day you'll say what you mean
and will I be seen for a cloud of dust
now I've nothing left to say
and I'll find my way by your light of touch

I'm with you


-Vashti Bunyan

tired
tired of losing each time
tired of making up for lost time
tired of starting again
too tired to keep up with the game


Have suddenly started feeling very rootless,
The time has come to move on again
to leave untied knots behind just as they are
to sever some bonds no matter how precious they are
it will hurt again to let go
hurt even more to not know
was there a chance
did i lose out again


just like it hurts still to know
that across the ocean there is the anchor to my thoughts
very thinly stretched by a taught thread
ready to break any moment
at times i feel like snapping it off
and yet the next day there i am again
back to square one.

Proteus

you come to me in myriad shapes
but u still remain the same
mocking me at every turn,
playing up my faults
seeing me for what i really am

and yet i do not feel afraid this time
no more anxieties rake me
i know every glance of yours
pierces me
untill i become transparent

i light up in your colors
in an effort to find you tangibly
within my reach
but like the blue azure
you slip from between my fingers
each time

like the sea you want to wash away
all that has been drawn
on the wide canvas of my shore
and i lie waiting for your
shaping touch to give me shape again.

this endless search of mine
seems to begin and end in you
but your formlessness
defeats every effort
untill i almost lose faith
and abandon my search for
my future in your hands......... proteus

Hidden Agenda

just a brief hug that says

am ur my friend and happy to be here

seems precious, all that was needed

but there was hidden agenda

there was much more needed and demanded

in codes i didn ot understand

and when they became clearer

the plan had been executed too far to recede,

how could i not understand this little deceit

foolish foolish girl

who does not know what her heart says or mind does

victim of the hidden agenda of her heart.

Lost Opportunities

bullshittin my way thru life
i learnt only one thing, never tell the truth
coz truth only hurts
hurts the people u tell
and hurts the cause u r working for


it worked fine till now,


foolilsh enough not to realise
truth was the only key needed here
i closed the door on myself
and locked myself up from immense possiblities,
abilities to see other worlds
parallel universes


now all that is left are
the sodden burnt out days of my plebian reality.
and more concocted bull shit to face it.

strange emotional eununch

my friend, mentor guide

i did the unthinkable,

now,

i find u unchanged

but so much has changed for me

i live in this vacuous bubble and look at the world

as one not living in it

i observe, i judge, i laugh,

and yet i cry because i was not observant enough to

see my guide become my life

now i am left with strange choices

to laugh at the world outside for their strange mistakes

or to cry at my own stranger change

that leaves me in limbo

a strange emotional eununch.

My Personal Hell

as each glistening droplet slides down my cheek bones

i realise my immmaturity

my naivette,at having run from salvation

thinking it is my personal hell

and yet now that i want to run back to it,

you obsturct the door saying

immature as i was to come out I am still immature to go in,

leaving me in a strange limbo i do not understand .

i was foolish enough to think that you would hold my hand

guide me to my destiny,

little did i realise that you were nothing but my guiding star,

there to show the way - nothing more nothing less,

all keys to that door lie within me

and it is for me to find the key to them.

foolish that i was foolish that i still am

i imagine my guide will still be there

little do i realise that the brief leonoid shower has passed

and no stars or comets will come by to light my path

it is for me to find the light within

and travel the path to again arrive at the gates of my hell,

now turned my heaven.

the tables have turned darling

no longer do i wait
anticipating your touch
no longer do i crave
that one smile
i used to think was
mine and only mine
the tables have turned darling

no longer do i act to please you
no longer am i your friend
and only yours
no longer do you get the best of both worlds
the tables have turned darling

but i still know you to your core
i still can anticipate your every move
only the empty void which wanted to be filled before
no longer lusts after you
the tables have turned darling


now i look from afar and observe you
with eyes that have neither warmth nor coldness
i see you go about your daily life
knowing you are starting to feel the void
the tables have turned darling

like a distant astronomer i observe you from afar
the anticipation is now to see you carry with equanimity
what was my burden for so long
the tables have turned darling

Wanda and Amelie

Watched two movies in the last two days - A Fish Called Wanda and Amelie. Loved both of them but in very different ways! Could not stop laughing with Wanda and could not stop smiling with Amelie! Very different feelings were evoked by both but definitely loved the Amelie version of emotions more. Wanda is more a slapstick kind of comedy with half naked dancing around the room, oafs who quote Nietzsche thinking that makes them intellectual and Curtis showing her ample cleavage and alluring men. All in all - Wanda had all the makes of a good Brit comedy, while Amelie had a totally different feel to it. The film had an odd sunbathed feel to it, the whole movie thus gave you the feel of a beautiful summer setting. Sitting here in the middle of upstate New York - with snow blizzards everyday - I loved the feeling of sun drenched days. Then there was the basic concept of the movie based totally on how our imagination works. It was beautiful the way her mind worked - that world of absolute magic where, LP s are made like pancakes, ghosts come to take their pics in public booths because they are afraid to be forgotten, where her dream guy works in a porn video store, where on calling up she is asked if she is shaved or not coz furry pie is not liked these days. It was beautiful how reality and imagination was blended. We all have fertile imagination like these but in an overt attempt to hang on to reality we lose this fecund imagination to more mundane things and lose that spark in life which Amelie has held on to.

My Religion

The room is filled with the smell of incense, reminding me of Calcutta and Durga Pujo; it's a familiar smell for me, associated with a lot of nice things- holidays, friends, new clothes, good food. But here sitting on a mattress without a frame, surrounded with roommates none of whom are Bengali, and looking at an idol of Balaji and Ganesh being prayed to I am somehow dissatisfied. I have missed two consecutive pujas. Have actually attended school and gone to work during those times and am wondering how much Pujo matters to me now. The religious aspect of it was never too big for me, there would be the usual preemptory namaskar to the idol at the beginning of Pujo and then I would be engrossed with my friends for the next five days. Pujas for me were the time to meet up with friends who had gone away far, to have conversations till late night, become instant critics to the variety programs put up by the township folk and of course, eat out everyday. But I guess after I came over here all those memories have started to fade - though once in a while like today the olfactory memory comes into action and brings everything rushing back.

This entry is not so much about Pujo as it is about my belief in religion. My roomy comes after her bath, nowadays, stands in front of her idols, lights the incense sticks and then sits down and reads her slokas for sometime, to herself. This is a new development in her. After a couple of failed relationships and now that she has started to go for interviews and needs to get a job, I guess her fervor has increased. Nothing wrong in that I guess - most people need to concentrate all their fears, and insecurities on this one unblemishable ideal which can help them get through all their difficulties - and that is how God's concept develops. I have my fears and insecurities too and although idol worship was not practiced in our house, I chose Lord Shiva for a variety of reasons to be my God so to say.(I had heard somewhere that this is the one God who listens to young people the most. Plus being the head honcho in the order of things I expected him to get a lot accomplished much more easily and much more faster) So meeting time with him was at night after going to bed - I would have my little talk with him as to what I want for the next day, and then sometimes add a need for the near future also to the list of wants. It was a relationship based on give and take - him giving and me taking, and I was very happy with the arrangement of things. But slowly as I saw my little wishes being realised, I began to do less work for myself and put more emphasis on the power of the prayers - as a result, I began to lose out on a few opportunities. Obviously I was not studying, procrastinating and expecting to still get good marks because I had prayed for it the previous night. The desired results were not achieved, as a result, but rather than starting to work on my studies, my belief became hinged on the fact that perhaps my technique of worship was not right, and I started incorporating namaskars and stuff in my nightly prayers. It became such an obsession that I compelled myself to say and end the wish lists with my own form of prayers and with a certain number of namaskars. I guess this is how ritualistic religion evolves. It was a lot later that I understood the truth of the words "God helps those who help themselves".

I remember while all the other girls would do Shiv Puja and stuff to get a good husband, I would be at home happily ignorant of the so called “importance" of these rituals. But I could not come out of the habit of those nightly prayers. I remember my Ma being very worried about my studies and asking me to fast for Saraswati Puja before the two big events in my life - my class 12 exams and my GREs. The first one I did but the second one I flatly refused because it seemed insulting to fawn on somebody just for this once if I had not paid my respects before. But funnily enough, according to the hierarchy of Gods - Saraswati is the daughter of Shiva, so I went straight to the head of the family for my favors as usual at night and asked him to tell his daughter to see to everything. (How very convenient for me!)

But after coming here, I have this strange feeling that I am in a different country and he has no control over situations here. So though I tried it for the first few months here, I slowly got off the habit and have never got back to it afterwards. Things have gone bad in the middle but strangely enough I have never blamed my lack of prayers as the reason. I have been questioned a lot by my atheist friends here whether I believe in God or no, and I have said no. It’s a running joke between them that I am an atheist for the atheists but a religious Hindu for the Hindus. It's a comment on my belndabality with all atmospheres - but seriously speaking my belief now is what Swami Vivekananda had said - your God is within you, as long as you keep him happy you are gonna be ok. This is the one motto I had been taught by my father and that seems to work the best. If I can work to better myself in every which way - it feels as if a benevolent force is watching over me. If you wish to call this force 'God', yes, then I am a believer in God, if you wish to call this force your will power - then you’re a believer in yourself, or the power of man. Whichever way I vehemently hate labels so I guess you can’t in the end say what my religious beliefs are. For the atheists I know - it will be a good indicator of my beliefs if I go and do a namaskar in front of a deity with a bunch of people, but for me it is more about not hurting the sentiments of others who have invested so much belief into this idol. I do not like belittling anything and anyone just because I don’t believe in it, but for my atheist friends it becomes a question of morals if they have to pray to a deity because it apparently belittles their morals. So my final verdict is - Each to his own belief as long as they do not clash.

The seductive allures of being miserable

Human beings can be an amazing study. They are like moths, they know that they will burn and even the ones with the singed wings fly back again to the same thing. Especially when it comes to relationships. No matter how much they profess they have learnt from past mistakes they go back to the same trap. What is so seductive about the mistakes that they have to be committed again and again and again. Or rather what is so seductive about being miserable? Constantly being in a dilemma of whether it is there or not, and even more surprising is the fact that when you have achieved it you grow discontented with it again! and look for more things to try and achieve, fail and then feel miserable again. The euphoria of miserablity is inexplicable and yet unavoidable. Somehow things that dont make you chase are too gettable and dont have that spirit of adventure in them and thus are not attractive enough. Is it all about an ego game? - as long as you cant achieve it, your ego is unsatisfied and you keep on trying harder, but the moment you achieve it - your ego is satisfied, things fall into a sad state of ennui. There is this bengali saying - "Nera dubar beltolai jaina" - meaning that a man who has been affected once will not commit the same mistake twice, but with what I see it should be - " Nera barbar beltolai jabe" - god! seem to have talked about the same thing over and over again, i need to get out of this god damn place soon enough or else i will turn into one of them too!