An elderly angel in a deep sleep

4 score and six years ago,
You came into this world
without an inkling of the wisdom,
that lies here before

All of us whose lives you changed,
for better, or for better,
since worse we could never be,
we who knew you in youth and when you aged.

You looked after us all,
every moment of your life.
With a twinkle in your eye,
which only vanished when you lay there in your pall.

You were the source,
of all my morals and virtues.
You gave me my being,
without ever being hoarse.

Your oldest grandchild, spoke words loud and true
"They don't make humans like her anymore,"
I think I couldn't agree more,
No-one could replace you.

To everyone reading this,
there is nothing else to say
regarding my grandmom,
whom I cannot help but miss.

Rejection

       Many times in your life, you are going to have to deal with the word REJECTION. How do you really go about it? Especially when it's something that you consider you had a pretty good shot at. Well, I've been rejected loads of times before. (according to some friends 23 times by various women, though at last count it was a single digit figure closer to 0 than 10 ) But to be rejected in such a way that you're probably at rock bottom in the list of people that were rejected. Ouch... It's literally like the whole, "I wouldn't sleep with you if you and I were the last human beings on earth" line, which while funny to listen to in the third person is actually a pain...

      Now there's the whole, "Now what?" question? Usually I deal with rejection in a, "Fine, your loss." kind of way. But for some reason, this has shaken every single bone in my body in such a way that introspection is of the essence. I have to think whether I was even doing the right thing by trying out for a seat there. Was it my creativity? Was it my attitude? Was it the fact that I was friggin' sleepy as fuck? I don't really know, and the saddest thing is I don't think I ever will get the right answer to it. 

      Now, in the words of Axl Rose, "Where do we go, where do we go now?" Another couple of results left to come, Experiences that I felt went better. But then, what do I know?

     The most amazing irony is that in the very same form, I was asked to fill 3 of my biggest dislikes. Falling ill, losing and making silly mistakes were there in that order. Guess I can put rejection as a number one on that list now.

 

Infiniteness....

What lies beyond the horizon?

Over the brown mound of earth that seems to stand so still.

I want to see the world inside the hill,

And the beings that live inside it.

Let my fury too be unleashed upon a helpless faith

Without the power to do anything about it.

What lies beyond the horizon?

Over the moon, beyond the stars.

Looking over us the gods we cannot see.

We who are powerless, can do nothing but stare.

At the curses and gifts that rain down from worlds beyond 

to give us the power to change what is our fate 

that which has already been written at the pearly white gates....

Getting down with the sickness

"D-E-N-G-U-E and J-A-U-N-D-I-C-E"
              You wake up at 6 AM in the morning, or at 6PM in the evening. You don't know what's which. There's a clock in your room that keeps ticking, there's a bed that you lie in, there's a fucking TV on the wall. You can't move, you can't eat, you try to sleep but you're interrupted by the nurses walking in with their fake smiles, the fangs that they conceal behind the well brushed teeth.
           You have a needle in your hand that's supposed to be putting vital fluids in your body but it feels like it's sapping every ounce of life force out of you. The pain of the blood clotting remains long after the needle has gone.
          You get the bill, it's an insane amount for what seems to be more of making you sick and less of making you healthy.
      All this shit because a mosquito decided to bite me one morning.
                        

Life for dummies.....

        Here we are. As my physical manifestation has completed it's 22nd revolution around our very own star, the time for introspection begins. This isn't just for me anymore, this is for everyone that is probably reading this article or will ever read it. By the definition of all types of people out there, Socialist, Capitalist, Nihilist, Atheist, Fanatic, Academic, Drifter, Traveller, or just plain Psychopath, I am well and truly an adult now. To all those who think that we crossed that bitter threshold at the age of 18, you are well and truly mistaken. Human beings remain adolescents till 21, and at 21 they're still adolescents by virtue of their unwillingness to accept the mantle of responsibility that must be thrust upon them.
       Yes, Responsibility. A tabooed word till recently. You can claim that you were responsible as a child, but that claim can (rightly) only be met by ridicule. Do I accept the responsibility that I have? Well, frankly no.
      And the reason for this is very simple. Someone recently asked me (as a lot of people have asked me and probably you as well) what exactly it is I wanted to do with my life. To be honest, I don't really think I have a friggin' idea. And for very good reason. Because of a word that seems to confuse me (as it should you) very frequently. Happiness.
      Am I happy doing what I'm doing? Most certainly, the answer's no. Will I ever be happy doing what it is I'm currently doing? Well, again another no. It's just that any work that one does eventually tends to monotony and a lack of motivation. Do I think I'm particularly good at what it is I work on? Certainly not. Can I be better? Most definitely. Why am I not better? I don't know, and what scares me is that I don't think I'd care to find out.
      SO comes the next query. What would I rather be doing?
      It's funny, cos I'm pretty sure that most of the world thinks the exact same thing. No one I know is really happy with their job. Never-ending complaints about the pay, the working hours, the lack of motivation and the comparison to people with "better" jobs. The truth is that the grass is always greener on the other side.
      Why can we simply not be happy with who we are and what we do? Because if we were, we would cease to exist. As individuals and as a collective. The more progress a society makes, the more it is an estimation of general unhappiness and dissatisfaction. Why else would we try to outdo ourselves and everyone else even though all it would bring is some more material gain?
        The rat race is just what it always will be. We will run in it, we will earn money, we will have children and put them in it as well. You will claim that you are a non-conformist, that you would like to do what it is you're happy doing. But then that's just a load of bullshit isn't it? You will do whatever it takes to put food on the table. You will not become a journalist because you will earn peanuts doing it, you will not become a writer because you might die of starvation just before you get a book published, and you will not live off your parents till then because it might lead to the death of 3 people due to starvation instead of the death of just one. Besides, what will you do with a career like that? You contribute fuck all to the economy, you do nothing to enhance the progress of a nation and therefore you are stuck in your own paradox.
        We are met with disapproval regardless of what we do. It comes from people around you, or it comes from within. Both of which can kill you, if you choose to give a damn, which you probably will.
     

      "But then wasn't life supposed to be all about food, water, clothes, air, sleep, fun and sex?"
                                                                                                                                   -My Inner child

       Yeah. That's life for you. Eat, drink, cover up your privates, breathe, sleep, have fun and get laid. That's how simple it was supposed to be. Curses to complications.
        And if growing up has muted that voice in your head, fuck you....

The Journey

As he lay, his body torn,

Wounds filled with shrapnel

heart turned to stone.

The chaos around him, had ceased to last

after seconds before a call had come to pass.

A call he made to his mother of 18 years.

He knew not why, she was moved to tears.

The same mother who once threw him out,

the day that she and her father had found out.

"Such hypocrites they are", thought the man.

"The lessons they taught me were lines in the sand,

washed away by the tide in which I was cleansed.

What I then saw of the world...." his thoughts stopped, tensed.

He looked around, saw a girl in the train.

The same one from the day before, his face strained.

She looked at him now, her face a sad story.

"How many meals would she be denied?" No honour, no glory.

Every one around had a different face,

Some happy or sad, some filled with grace.

"Everyone has their story to tell,

who am I to blow them to hell?"

With twenty seconds left, he knew there was no time

He had a decision to make, before his clock would chime.

"God would not create so many stories,

had he not wanted to finish them all.

The decision is not mine, nor the Mullah Omar's.

He has misheard the word of God, or misled,

I wish I realized sooner, then I would not have bled.

I would still be with my family back home,

not throw out, living the life of the proverbial dog looking for his bone.

I will do one thing hopefully to set things right!"

He flew off the train, jumped with all his might.

The second he hit the ground, the bomb went off

He thought he had done good, saved a lot of lives,

But it seems the poor fool did not realize.

On a platform he jumped at Dadar West,

230 people had met their Deaths.......

Disclaimer:- This was written in 10 minutes completely out of my imagination. Yes, it's fictitious and I don't really think a suicide bomber would get a change of heart in the last 20 seconds but when you have someone lecturing during a training session in office, a lot of really really messed up shit enters your head. Might as well make the most out of it and write a poem eh?

A swirling vortex......

Sleep is optional. Lack of it is a hallucinogen. Something else that works as well though, is a fully loaded mind. Ever had one of those experiences where you just stare off in space, blank as a sheet of A4 paper before it enters the printer? And at the end of it, that's just what's happening, you're blank. In your head is this swirling maze of issues, none of which are getting resolved or even close to getting resolved, and you can't fucking figure out which one you're thinking about at that second, or which one you were thinking of 10 seconds before. The worst part of it is, it just appears in flashes, long enough to keep you staring at space for a long long time..

So I sit down, open my laptop screen, stare blankly for 2 minutes wondering what the fuck I want to do? Which issue I want to think about? What I want to write about? Whether I should get to work on that project, that assignment, that article, wonder about what I should have done when, what went wrong where? And it starts again, Stare off into space, start listening to Pink Floyd, that soother of our oft childlike and confused souls. Start remembering the last time I got high, laugh about that, but then it's a flash again before the next thought replaces it in the vortex..

They say that when you die, your whole life flashes before your eyes. IF that is the case, someone give me immortality. It's too confusing to sit and sift through all this shit without understanding where and what to think of at one time!

That's been me, for the past 1 and a half hours, I get like this sometimes, gets triggered by anything, but more particularly by a sudden spurt of activity in an otherwise dull monotonous life. Some people might even care to call it trauma. Too strong a word perhaps, probably might settle down any time between the next 5 minutes to the next 5 months.

But till whenever it does settle, I need my anaesthesia, bring on the Music...