The art of sadness

It's quite easy to be sad..you tilt your head certain way..make a crooked face, start staring at something vague and uninteresting, take a sigh, and lo! The sadness will start creeping in..it's simillar with happiness, except that you feel tired like dead afterward..is this why we have so much of suffering around?.. shah of blah

In desert

I scoffed at his memories,
when he said he remembered his school,
the lawn in winters,
the cricket, the dust and the heat,
the banana vendor, the walk back home.
I scoffed at him when he tried to call his memories sweet.
when he spoke about his first day in a big school.
when he told me about how inviting the school seemed to him
I thought he was being a sissy, an also run when he told me about his grief
and his struggle to cope with it
i put him in the league of ordinary and he smiles.
He smiles and i can't stand it.
i live a dream and he came out of it.
............................................
yes i live a dream, dream much too surreal
grief, agony, happiness, smile,
and blah blah....
my dreams make them all look stupid..

i whistle, i sing a song
i let the moment pass..
Its much to surreal to make judgements i say meekly
So let's make it someone in the club says
we pass drinks, we share our tragedies, out great adventure stories
someone shares his boring silly day and we are all hooked to it.
A boring day?
well that's real, a relief, we all murmur..
All we need is a boring day the joker shouts
we raise a toast to the the boring day.....
we promise ourselves to be mediocre and boring..
or at least pretend..
to be real...
.....................................
In the desert it's all too real
i have never been to one.. i prefer to think about it...
Prepare.. says Moturam.
The wish to conquer the desert is cop out i say.
from someone who never had the courage to own a moment in the lush green valley..
Muturam smiles at my tattered cloth, my parched torn sandal's...
He knows....
It's not about cop outs or courage he says. it's about asserting my right to exist..
Asserting my right to be miserable..
Why does everyone preach and thunder about the virtues of happiness anyway?
If it's all a farce why one is better than another?
Moturam has learnt a lot..
He knows it all..
I slip out.
And walk away...



shah of blah

For Mangoes in red desert

Moturam always wanted to travel far..far across the red desert.weighed down by all that he expected of himself and all that world expected of him, he was a chubby, little boy. He had sad eyes, eyes which left you speechless, benumbed, even scared sometimes. whenever you saw him you saw despair around him through the little holes in his eyes, through his mouth, his ears, his skin, you could feel hope bleeding away.
Moturam sat in shrine of misery, people travelled far to come to him, they said he had powers, those who met him walked away with a little more juice to live on.
squishy-squashy-chubby-leaky moturam could not cry ironically. at least no one had saw him, even at birth the customary slap didn't make him cry, a pinch made him red, a burn made him afraid; with his startled eyes he saw the world since then, a strangely startled-sad eyes, eyes that saw death all around him. eyes that told him why the tears were worthless as much as laughter, why every emotion was just a sketch on water.. On the first day of his life he came to know he was going to die. he awaited that moment with bated breath and then with indifference as the years wore on, worn him down.
what kept his going was his preparation for the red desert. The desert was ruthless place. it soaked away all happiness and humanity and moisture and of course friends. i red desert no one could keep company of friends because all friends who crossed the invisible red line of red dragon dropped dead, got consumed by the desert. His only companion in the desert would be misery he knew and hence he took dollops and pounds and tons of it from everyone. He hoarded misery in the knapsack on his back, his in under his hat, hid more in his pockets, under his pillow, in the secret closet, but mostly nearby. he was afraid of letting go of any of the strings that tied the door. Through his calloused, weary hands he would touch people. rip open their wounds, let them be light and free.....
Moturam was a man on a mission indeed.. and he knew he would succeed ofcourse if the death didn't come knocking too fast..
He knew he would cry once across the desert,he'd lay sown his burden, breath for the first time in his life.. and cry.. and laugh and be happily Sinister...

shah of blah

On A Sunday!

on a bright and steamy sunday morning, while munching the puree and 'Chai'instead of regular coffee, it came to me that the world is a farcical theatre played out with so many ( far too many, but how does it matter anyway?) actors and no audience at all, which incidentally might mean this play is really good one, given what happens with good plays and stories in general.
i was wondering what happens post life, what happens at the end of the world, why don't we have a swashbuckling climax but a gradual tapering off to death as the likely scenario, and so on and so forth.
it often just happens; for some moments amid the chaos around, one somehow connects to the other reality, the mundan-er than mundane. the truth so forgone that one chooses to ignore it.
while reading about rakhi Sawant and the predictably shocking revelation that she wont marry elesh afterall, how rahul gandhi, a man who's there where he is by virtue of his blue blood bringing a new wave of democracy in our GOP,reading about IITs and IIMs getting a cut in grants so that they'll fund the labs and research by their own accord and need their Netas only in case they don't get enough good students and they must fill the seats from the blue blood, while i kept reading about what is wrong and right around the world, opineating about everything, i remembered my laundry that's not done since god-knows-when, the monday that is coming and the sunday where i need to choose between having a timely lunch and catching up with a movie.. some reality check it is..So i must rush and do whatever needs to be done on a Sunday, eat drink, be merry,.. coz we may diet tomorrow..(i certainly need it Urgently!)...
doshah of blah

The journey

Several months into his journey. As he was passing through some old old islets , aladdin was hit by a memory wave that almost toppled him over, to his surprise, he realised he wasn't thinking about the isle and his fond memories, but fatima..he realised that he wanted to see her again,to hold her,unlive the bitterness,fall for her once more...and he knew it wouldn't happen,he won't let it. Except by a miracle..it was a wave that made him remember zaman and his most dreadful-stealthy warrior,-The Fish...he knew he'll travel farther, hunt for zaman's soldiers,he knew he will never love fatima with same innocence,.unless the miracle happens. So he waited for it...for all times to come..shah of blah

The Mangoland

Moturam loved mangoes. He was capable of anything for these sweet, tangy delights.
One day fine day, after getting scolded by his mum for breaking into landlord's orchard, suitably surprised at this break-in where nothing needed to be broken for getting in,Moturam decided to find his own mangoland where there were ripe mangoes through the year, and nicer one too than the two wretched trees that consisted the orchard.
He decided to travel west, for all the good things appeared to come from west. the mangoes, the silvery moon, the quiet star-lit nights, the cool breeze, all came from west. Moturam had seen the sun sink behind the big-fat dune in the evenings. all his friends said the mangoland existed across the desert.
Moturam was a brave boy of uncertain age, he was a bit chubby with nice friendly smile and large, moist eyes.besides mangoes, he loved big-fat religious texts kept in the house. His mum held these as sacred. one particular book told him in whispers, as he was about to doze off under the lone gulmohar tree,That if he wanted something really-really badly, the world would conspire to get it for him. Moturam was a conspiracy theorist in his own right. the idea struch chord somewhere, only thing was what was it that he really needed badly. as he was being scolded and lashed that day, he realised his destiny-to search for what remain hidden to the world, the mangoland for all his friends( Moturam was not small hearted when it came to sharing something that was in abundant supply, after having his fill, he will let his friends have theirs too-he decided in an instant).
on this day that we mentioned, he took his leave silently, solemnly, and gallantly. he marched into unknown ,unchartered desert all alone, friendless,with his small supply of food to keep company.
he walked for a long long time till he reached the burrow of red devil.
Moturam was tired and hungry, the devil was tired and hungry-they made a pact. The devil will have moturam to satiate his hunger, and they he will let moturam do likewise, thus creating a live(?) example of win-win strategy.
The red devil was huge, Muturam wasn't too small either for his (uncertain) age; moturam saw a good bargain here and agreed.
And thus the devil devoured moturam!

shah of blah

Loneliness and Beer

on one hot sultry Sunday morning i decided to shun all worldliness and head towards the Himalayas.i took by meagre belongings,said adios to my hermitage and started my journey towards the final destination as per my dharma.
At the point of writing this i am sixty years old, very old man with plenty of vitality to carry me along to another few years.This is quite a contrast from my other life in the bustling city, or so i believe. i cannot say i have a very strong memory nor do i claim to have many interesting stories to tell, yet, in twilight of my rather long day, as all old babbling men do, i am filled with the desire to lay bare my story. i call it a story for i cannot say how much of it is true; i have never been very particular about telling the truth when fiction seems to be more alluring. Thus dear friends, you might keep your bowl of salt ready as you leaf through this rather fascinating ( to me at least) tale.
I was born a great man, or so all the soothsayers said, i grew up through my childhood more or less fulfilling the charge of greatness until like an ordinary mortal, i committed a sin. But let's not get into all the sins that one can commit and the one that i committed. what we shall talk about is much more pleasant to me. It's about one magnificently lit full moon night, the kind you see when you are lonely and you lose your strength to despair. if you let the moon and the wind and the sand and the prickly earth play around a bit, let them believe your are part of their beautiful inanimate kind and not viciously alive , if you let go of your rather weird pride of life, when you let your body drift in the current, dissolve in it bit by bit, when you allow yourself death, you will see the lovely night. i said lovely not by accident. it's love you discover with power of hundred fierce storms on such rare nights. It's on such nights that your fears might just loosen their grip, ( and they do if the wind is powerful enough, If you are absolutely lonely, if it's a full moon night indeed) and you might just sin. you might just die, you might just fall in love if you are stupid enough..
On the night i am talking about though something profound happened. As i was wandering alone i hit something hard accidentally.. a black weathered book, a rather forlorn and likable peace of poetry, and a dark bitter liquid that lay beside, rather ominously. i was full of intrigue and credulity in those young days. i knew instantly though what it was.. it was bitterness of the unfourtunate lover bottled up. i tasted it and accidentally rediscovered what was thought to be only a frivelous folklore..
That's How Beer was rediscovered...
No ofcourse that's not the end of story, but.. let the old man breath and moisten himself.. and then only we'll know a bit more about what was in a the store..



shah of blah