Police Line, Please Do Cross

This side of the police line.
Looks too textual.
And monotonous.uni-dimensional.monochromatic.

The audience on the other side is already bored.
They do not want to cross anymore.

Hence I shall
quite soon
post some photographs.
Snapshots of no consequence
to the audience, or the one killed.
(Was it me? -the latter?)
Well, still I shall.
Not in this one.
Maybe in this one.
Later shall I decide.

What I Miss....

Memories are infinitesimally more relishable when one has people to share them with. As a child, I had to move quite a number of times, owing to the nature of my dad’s profession. As he served the nation, by helping those that protect her and her people, with his medical services, I got to be a part of the livelihoods of a variety of ‘peoples’, but my own childhood became, to an extent, fragmented. We resided away from our hometown, our people, our cultural fabric. We had to anchor ourselves in waters which weren’t ours, and lived lives which we would have to abandon. I made friends that I knew wouldn’t be forever for me to keep. Those days are long gone, and I have been living in my home-town for close to the last three years, I have made friends in this city, and got on with life. But sometimes, I do remember school. A relic or a memento in some corner of the house brings to total recall the most wonderful, the diverse range of experiences that school was. It doesn’t help that I’m in touch with only one friend from the days I remember as ‘School Days’, and when I repetitively undergo epiphanies that most of my present friends are in touch with all of their miniature-day friends, and when I witness them discussing their days of school-uniforms-getting-stained, drawing-lessons-and-basic-math, junior-school-silly-revenge-tales and Noddy and Enid Blyton and Cartoon Network, it feels like pin-pricks that the people I shared them with are forever lost(well the Facebook and Orkut accounts exist, but in effect, they ARE lost).

Around a week back, a friend from Class 5, Rituraj Jain added me as a friend on Orkut. I remember the times when we used to sit together and discuss things like Civic-sense in Jamaica, and his Mc Donald’s cap. After he had left school, in the nine years of interim, I had thought about him, and about what had come of him quite a few times. So, naturally, I began frantically searching for a photograph of his the moment I came by his profile. While going through his three albums, I was actually picturing the head of the same ten-year old boy, from the Class 5 Class-Photo, on a grown-up’s body. Disappointment hit me when I realized that none of the twenty-five photographs in his Virtual-albums were of his own. He has evidently grown into a nature-lover and pretty much a family-guy. All the photos were either of trees, plants, and the encasing skies, or of his parents, sisters, and extended family. Neither has he replied to my “How and where are you these days, man?” query yet. This is the tenacity of the communication-cord that today connects me and my school-friends.

The world too is changing rapidly. What is true today ceases to hold any meaning tomorrow. Such disruptions even in minute things upset me. I have grown up watching the Filmfare Awards- India’s Academy Awards. The best and the biggest stars and planets of Bollyverse come down to celebrate the best of the bygone year. The grandest performances, the best attires, and the most-memorable moments – these are all what Filmfare is all about. Everything in Filmfare becomes a part of Bolly-history. I want to be a part of the legacy, I used to say to myself every year after watching the event on the television screen in my mundane, dichromatic room. This year’s event, which I watched last evening, seemed less colorful than my SAB life. The lustre, the magnificence, the visual opulence, everything seemed lost. The once-glorious stars and starlets seemed dull and pale, the smiles seemed mechanical, the speeches diplomatic and rote-learnt. Where was the old-charm, the life, the warmth? It seemed like an ugly-cousin of the more-restrained Oscars.
As I die every night, a new I is born every morning. Yesterday’s me isn’t today’s me. Last moment’s me died as the moment passed by. Nothing stays the same. Only the ghosts of yesterday permeate their way into today no matter how solids are the walls of indifference I create to insulate myself, and haunt the happiness out of me, and take it back to yesterday. Similarly shall today’s ghosts bring tomorrow’s happiness back to today. The balance is restored but the walls between the days dissolve resulting in such inarticulateness, to such incoherence of words and thoughts.

Colors of Hippo

Right from the time I happened to see a certain Video Jockey with flaming-green hair-streaks and a perfect ‘Nowhere-man’ of an English accent on MTv announce that one could hope to win ‘Hip Hippo Hampers’ if one sends in one’s love-life-related-problems to be solved by Dr. Louve(in Pink, of course), I knew that this would become a phenomenon huger than The Joker, huger than Tiger Woods, even huger than Tuni’r Ma(for those who don’t agree, let me remind you that the phenomenon has been detonated just recently, for the spark to reach the concrete, palpable structure proper of the dynamite of potential, it shall require some time). And what a confident entry into the arena of Lay’s and Cheetos and the banana-chips that are sold in standalone theatres and train compartments (and more recently, Bingo) the magnificent Hippo has made! Armed with a pan-harmonic slogan “Pyar baaNttey chalo”(Spread the love), much aptly suited for today’s terror-torn Earth, the advertisements depict the outstretched arms of THE Hippo,after whom(I guess it’s safe to assume) the company has been christened, invading their way into half-a-dozen frames with people engaging in fights, wordly abuses or corruption, and when offered Hippo chips, all misdoing and sinister activities terminate and all the people at fault realize their errors and accept their mistakes, do sit-ups and namastes- all to finally accept the Hippo chips the Hippo-arms were offering to one-and-all. They say, they at Hippo believe that the root cause of all evils is hunger, and the only way to wipe off crime is to remove hunger at all levels. And they believe, Hippo will do just that. A novel concept, with its heart at a very right place, you might think. However, the first time I opened a pack of Hippo-chips, I was left very disappointed. Those that claimed to be the messiahs of the hunger-struck have very visibly bowed down to commercialization and consumerism and have manufactured packages which are just 45% full.

Anyway, the diplomatic individual that I am, I wish to make no comments on corporate-corruption. Especially in light of the tension prevailing in college, post the student-council elections, where there are more allegations than truth(and several true cases as well) of students assaulting their fellow-students of the opposite political affiliation, I have resolved to face every individual with a lot of love, a wide smile, and as one friend from college suggests very wisely, with packets of Hippo chips. The delicious flavors and the mind-numbing aroma of Hippo shall, I hope, soothe the blazing fury that is currently residing within so many people in college. Holi is just a few days away, and it is one festival which is celebrated with great harmony in the country. So, I would beseech my college-acquaintances to follow Hippo-ethics in life, and step out of the monotony of a single-colored existence, whether blue or red, and embrace all the colors of the world( and of Hippo). I have even heard that the benevolent honchos/messiahs at HippoCorp have decided to distribute for free one Hippo-picture-frame with every two packets of the snack. So go ahead. Get yourself photographed with one arch-‘enemy’, put a smiling-Myspace-Facebook variety of photograph of the two of you into the Hippo-frame, and spread the love this Holi. Hip Hip Hippo! All Hail Hippo!

Dil Toh Bachcha Hai - English Lyrics.

Can’t take my dazed eyes off your burning charm;
Can’t bite off the silky threads of passion, so warm;
Old Age has left me dwelling only in blacks, whites and grays;
Wonder why then the chromatic clouds of youth loom large these days;
Oh God! The pulse is rising, steadily quite
The glow of the face succumbs to a sorry plight
Fear grips me, a forsaken bed causes dismay.
The child in me lives like a newly-conceived sun-ray.
A fresh twig, an unripe fruit, you may say.

Who would’ve ever known, this shielded heart
Would resort to mischief so cunning?
Some holiness of spirit, that instinct doth impart
Was what all expected from one so stunning.
It creates chaos and compels with pursuit.
It dwells on thoughts of no consequence, absolute.
There is none as mischievous as this very heart.
Let it be stopped, let it be cropped,
Deception would tear me down, with tears left to be mopped.
Love seems formidable; I fear it may do a giveaway.
The child in me lives like a newly-conceived sun-ray.
A fresh twig, an unripe fruit, you may say…

Never here. Never more.

Speak to me about worlds that don't exist, about colors that are out of bounds of the rainbow-realms. Speak to me about fantasies that don't make sense and dreams that aren't worth the realisation. Speak to me about lost pasts and the golden enigma. None of it makes sense anyway, none of it fits in.

[Inspired from 'This Side Of Paradise' by Francis Scott Fitzgerald]