I see painters and singers, dancers and musicians. I see art, I see poetry, I see the words of prose in every footstep of some pensive nomad in a khadi kurta, rubber chappals and a jute jhola as he traverses the distance between here and nowhere. I go online and am attacked by the hundred, no, thousands (because what is insecurity if not acquired in abundance?) of peers, seniors and younger hopefuls with their own brands of creation. It makes me envious. Amidst the seemingly turbulent, glamorous  lives of these individuals I feel inadequate and lost. As if I were simply audience to this mass chaos and confusion, the eye of a cyclone if you will, to the howling winds on whose screen occasionally a flash of art appears for mere seconds and then recedes to be replaced by some swirling debris of human failure. Powerlessly I am only witness to the lives of these people, brave enough to be sucked into this torrid whirlpool of self-expression on the off chance that chaos might turn to harmony; that the occasional obedience of passion would spit out some disproportional output. I think I understand this paradigm, I think creation is as simplistic as creating. To simply will something to existence is merely enough to merit the label of art. I admire these individuals and I fear for them, for though I am young, I too have tasted the poison of passion. I think I understand madness in the way that I understand it's volatility. I do not judge madness because it exists in vacuum. It is the loudest of orchestras and the crescendo of aggressive percussions in your head when your lips tremble but silently. I am wary of my own sentience constantly afraid of the shadows that I cannot seem to outrun to the realisation that they are stitched to my feet. Yet I yearn, and I pine for this freedom certain only of uncertainty. I teeter on the edge of this abyss wringing my hands and wiping my wet brow, hovering one foot over the edge. The blackness if threatening but at it's heart I see a glow, soft like the last ember of the morning fireplace. This restlessness has encapsulated my being, homoeostasis is incomplete without it. It is in my morning coffee, in the words I read, in the unusual flutter of the bird across my window, it is my sleep molesting my dreams and caressing my nightmares. Were that I could jump and be doomed or divine. Were that I could turn away to a mechanical existence. Were that I could choose. Were, that I could.

Dirt

I have grown tired, of this Augustan beauty,

One that is infused in all touch, word and speak.

Must we embellish on our lives, gold stars and silver,

Decorate ourselves with pity and the chamki of deceit?

I am not only the high-rise of cement and iron, tall & complete;

Nor just the clear cut of glass and neon street signs, blue & white.

I am the dirt caked on the crumbling walls of cramped houses, more

Than this unpaved road can accommodate, yet less than what is necessary.

I am the dirt. And I am born of it, and I shall die of it,

In the meanwhile I will crawl back and forth from cement to earth,

I shall celebrate and curse it in the same breath. A dichotomy of twin culture,

A symphony of one. In this dirt I will resume my existence, dust it into the arid air.

Easily misunderstood is misunderstanding the vernacular thoughts in my head,

Given way to by mine own tongue, created I know not how, except that they carry,

A peculiar feeling of familiarity, as if a childhood memory suddenly restored in vivid colour.

These are the colours that I am made of, unapologetic and vigorous, oscillating constantly.

So I clutch this dirt, and I writhe in it. I grab fistfuls of it and smear it on my soul,

To restore its colour, but retain its polish. I have no grief to spare over my mutated identity,

Only pleasure in the revelation of its duality, its richness and splendour in ambiguous clarity.

This dirt I smell, and feel and touch speaks more to me than all the lustre of these two worlds.

Narcissism.

There is a narcissism that I have learnt to internalize of late, to demonize to the extent that I've suppressed it. It used to be the fuel for my existence and for it I felt a deep guilt embellished by remorse. The dramatisation of my day-to-existence had become redundant, or so I sought to believe. I seek to believe too much. I compete with myself to attain the most perfect image of the idea I have most recently come to be enchanted by. It is wearing a different dress everyday and changing the facets of my personality to match it. It is the process of deliberate moulding to fit an intellect that I am so taken by.  I have been told that I am far too conscious of myself, that it is a simpler to shake a leaf by breathing upon it than to somehow slip into the cracks of my mind an insecurity. Perhaps I exhibit symptoms of only the human condition, particularly generic and classifiable. Again I speak from under the vistas of a persona I aim to please, one where madness is a glamour every pedestrian wishes to achieve. Yet the one constant is a bitter struggle to constantly change myself, to deter my existence from just being and navigate it to some semblance of greatness. A fleeting semblance at best, it is a short-term achievement that soothes my soul. Of late I have become concerned that my wrote is less romantic and technical, yet foundationally derivative. It is another persona that has sprung in me, an inclination to imitate, to imbibe without realizing that the inspiration I have thus extracted borders on plagiarism. I have discussed this fear, though not openly, for fear of being branded a fake (the personas I wear often co-exist and intermingle). I was handed with the realisation that perhaps all art is plagiarised and that all creation is preceded by some genetic mother and father. Does that in itself dismiss the notion of some seminal pioneer, the first of its breed? To me, therein lies the pursuit for the unique; therein lies the heart of greatness. My narcissism is situated upon an ego, much larger than is visible yet peeking out constantly from under the covers of my skin. It does not satisfy me to simply create, I must create so as to in-still wonder and amazement. Perhaps not the purest motive for creation I admit, and I concede that it is not the sole purpose, but it is an honest purpose if honesty is to be trusted and for that I am grateful. 

I have learned that passion alone can awaken you, but passion alone will not keep you awake. I have learned that there is a discipline to creation, lest your fire burn out and you are lulled back to sleep. Where creation is concerned, a corporal discipline is neither sufficient nor necessary but that your soul must become a vessel to creation. It must be malleable enough to receive it yet be conditioned with a steely resolve to contain it, to channel it. It almost seems as if I have stumbled onto the Buddhist truth of things and now all I must do now is to proceed to create. I wish it were that mechanical, so that I might be spared the mental agony of scrutiny and analysis and of the deficiencies thereby laid bare. Yet it is part of the process, or so urges my new-found sense of maturity. All my creation is a function of my existence and to extricate myself of it is the goal it seems. In this I find a dichotomy that has become the undercurrent of my listlessness, how do I proceed to create objectively when the source my source of creation is subjective? How do I create until I am actively incited, until my spirit is so vibrant that it can do nought but speak? My body is human, and prone to distractions and to the waxing and the waning of inspiration. I find no guarantee in methods nor lifestyles that ensure that my self-expression is both a function of me and yet a standard of greatness. With no formula available, my life has become a series of permutations and combinations and my actions perpetrators of trials and errors. 

This lends justification to my iridescent narcissism perhaps, to the extent that I will justify all forms I take because I am convinced that rationality lends substance to my beliefs. It is in this thunderstorm of calm atmosphere that I watch myself sleeping. I would be a great sight to behold to myself, were I not wrought with infractions that vitiate my existence.

"Would that I could be the peacemaker in your soul, that I might turn the discord and rivalry of your elements into oneness and melody."

"Every time I sit in a daydream, I'm not actually imagining a future;
I'm reconstructing the past to leads me to a different present."


"Isn't that just futile though dear? Like attempting to wake a dead person."

"Perhaps, but its the only way I know how to dream."

Need

I am but a broken boy, so will you lay here,

A few minutes longer, a few days, the summer,

You can leave my side eventually, as all things,

Eventually must recede into the nothing like death.

I’ll think nothing of it, I’ll just stay here staring,

At the bronze ceiling, in sorrowful yellow light,

You can be on your way through the traffic then,

With only your body painted on the sheets I soak in.

If I am fragile, like a twig made of glass,

Why not, then just twist me, smash me,

Into the ground and then laugh cruelly;

Because it is my fate to be broken eventually.

Then I shall tell my heart, be still, be cool,

It is not in your interest to make of me demands,

For promises I cannot keep, yet you know if I do,

I am only deceiving you, but ask me yet somehow.

The last three sultry hours of the afternoon spent,

Were least of all animate for my eyes,  being staid

They were dead set on that bronze, looking at all

The little pieces of nothing that fell into focus.

Despite the heat, within and without there was,

A particular sort of longing, a pining from my gut,

Insulated by this flesh, yearned to reach out, to pull

You out of your own;  to desecrate it and wear it proud.

Numb afterwards, floating in the stench of many cigarettes,

My chest would finally stop fuming and heaving ; grow cold

And suddenly be tired and small, only asking for the wanton

Consummation of binary touch turned golden, turned soft.

Passively I would expect to be wrapped up, enveloped solid

Into a fluid embrace layered with the sorrowful sunlight with

The din of the traffic, the atmosphere of breath and tobacco,

Its core a throbbing mass of detached affection sniffling incessantly.

Then you would turn and you would leave, dragging it all with you

Withdrawing pulled back by invisible strings of realization concomitant

Of lust, receding further and further so that with each step my longing grows

Until your body is now downstairs pulling into a cab, dragging my heart behind it.

The Sun and the Moon

Sometimes I believe that the moon shines brighter than the sun

So what if the glow is softer?

I too am like the moon,

I borrow your illumination and shine

Does that worry you?

I like to cover things in a silver blanket, I'm a mother

I save my children from your harshness.

The moon  comes full a fortnight,

You come alive everyday in a burst of flame

Nay, you are the day.

The sun breathes life into everything it touches, it inspires

But you bring them your ire, your vigour too.

I breathes stilness into life, I cradle and I adorn the silence

I soothe their hearts and lull them to sleep

So they can be rested for the labour you give them again tomorrow.

The sun and the moon are two halves of all existence,

You and Me are two halves of one,

One roaring to the calmness of the other,

The calm singing the roar to sleep.

Dirty Window

I was being driven back home tonight, amidst the dirt, heat, humidity and an array of fast moving lights. I like staring out of windows when I’m in a car. Just staring outside at everything that flashes by and fiddling with any thought that comes from it. I see giant neon signs on office buildings and it makes me think of the government, and my father and the general personality of men who work in administration. A new hair salon! Makes me think of my rural cousins and how to them this city must seem filled with glitz and glamour far beyond their understanding. Perhaps they are less in awe and more reproachful of this lifestyle that we lead. Unnecessarily excessive, lugubrious even; who would pay 250 Rupees for a measly burger, fries and a milkshake when you could have a delicious idli with masala filled chutney and crunchy wadas drowning in sambar. I turn ahead and for a moment am jolted, the driver almost drove over some vague brown thing lingering in the middle of the street. It is dark and the headlights of the car don’t do a good job of lighting up the brown fuzz. Oh, it’s nothing. It’s just a stain on the windshield that I mistook to be something on the outside. This makes me think of the way I see things.

Perhaps, everything we look at is through a dirty window. Each stain and smudge on the pane is something I mistake to exist on the outside of the glass, and it eventually changes the way I see what the outside really is. Each brown spot represents some misunderstanding or profanely absurd assumption I continue to labour under until one day with a jolt I realise that is nothing but a stain and proceed to wipe it out with my thumb. That’s much better, now I can see clearly. It was like when I realised recently that growing up one is accustomed to a certain pattern of relationships and the functioning of those relationships may grow, but essentially remain the same forever. I feel quite disillusioned with the notion of a dramatic moment where I would suddenly break free from these mundane bonds and fly away much like an un-caged bird. Yes, I feel quite content with revelation and quite proud actually, of having solved a minor equation in the math textbook that is life. Now this is funny to me because almost 30 seconds later( because off late with the influx of information and the exposure to inordinate amounts of intoxicants, my brain has been processing things quite inconclusively). My brains decides that is does not make sense. My mind is almost sceptical of anything that comes it way and it puts on its glasses and eyes it head to toe, scrunching up his nose and observing the matter suspiciously before letting it through, but never really trusting this new information completely. So of course, it does a double take and says, but wait, my hands are nearly always dirty. When I wiped off that smidge off the screen, did I perchance leave behind another glossy blur? So once again, the genius begins re-assessing the consistency of this revelation and concludes  that I’m still not really looking clearly at what is outside, but only a slightly less skewed version of the same. This really me annoys me to the point that I almost  abandon this reverie and just continue staring at the pretty lights, the gnawing problem this poses however, does not allow me to. As I think about it, perhaps thinking about it in terms of concrete truths and lies is not the ideal thing to do. The motive is to see clearly, which I believe here would mean to be able to think clearly ergo make decisions without conflict of thought or emotion.  My hands aren’t as dirty as my brain makes them out to be, and I can essentially see the previously blotched out part of the view outside much more lucidly. Isn’t that enough? This settles down the aggravated part of my brain that is more or less ready to sacrifice my sleep for the night to maintain that basically, all conclusions are inconclusive. The question however, remains as to whether this dirty window is really an analogy to an outlook on life, or that I should just pick up a wet rag and clean the bird shit off the windshield.