Transmissons From A Blank Planet

Vaudeville

2010-08-10T04:03:00.003+05:30

Two suns in the sky
To dismiss dignity for we all lie
And the yellow moon shows too late
To tell the truth on another date
About this city of church air
And the crooked carnival
Inside this grand grotesque fair.

Machine clowns dressed in diesel fumes
Blind knife throwers in their bright costumes
There are the wives taken from widowed homes
Paid in bottle caps to dance with gnomes.
They have thin elephants and timid tigers galore
And there is the green snake with the horrid snore
All led by deranged ring-leader from Bombay
Just a few of the actors in this vicious cabaret.
They will sell you laughs for two cents a piece
And charge you eight quids for being obese.

Here lives a boy with broken bones,
Selling ice-cream and buttered scones.
There are days when he is not him,
Sometimes real, often a dream.
The masters pay him too much heed
For he is one half of the lead.
Here they teach the boy to sing and dance
And follow their every command
When to jump and when to write
When to ignore good advice.
So the boy who is I
In a black suit and a tie
Play our part in the endless loop
Of murder, sex and turtle soup.

The audience come in and wait and wait
And they pray that it will never be too late
For a glimpse of the graceful liar and the honest thief
The lead pair in this vaudeville of grief.

“Now the freaks are on television, the freaks are in the movies. And it's no longer the sideshow, it's the whole show. The colorful circus and the clowns and the elephants, for all intents and purposes, are gone, and we're dealing only with the freaks.”
- Johnny Winters.

Of Prophecies And Boredom

2010-06-12T02:48:00.000+05:30

Either you get me drunk or you stop boring me.
-A Wise Guy

If I'm not working, I'd always prefer to stay a little high on whiskey at every even hour. Its not a bad or a questionable practice. Because things don't 'get' to me after that, I continue to treat everyone like human beings without much prejudice. Alcohol thus saves a lot of other lives including a couple of them who I imagine shooting in the knee a few times a day. Now there comes days at work on which I could only regret that I wasn't smart enough to get smashed. Its never because of the people...those guys stick to what they do and talk about going to Timbuktu. Absolutely harmless. I only pop a vein when people don't show up for work. It pisses me off simply because I'd rather not be pissed on.

Such a work day arrives on idiotically sunny days. The other day, the pissant intern decided not to show up. We called up the sod and he called in sick. It gets better. A few weeks ago, the boss had decided to put out complimentary fortune cookies for every head billed. You gotta have future slips in your fortune cookies, right? Thats what the bloody intern was for! He used to write them up before the baker stuffed them in and they used to do 400 pieces a day.

The bad day got worse because the butcher decided to show up early and there were two of us on the station with work only enough for one. I was jobless and I got the anal end of a deal. I had to go replace the fortuneteller. It was the worst 3 hours of my life so far. I was writing fortunes on slips in a room reeking of sugar and burnt biscuits. For the first hour, I was a good boy, copying premonitions and bullshit off Google. It bored me shitless. I decided to get creative with the next batch of 70 fortunes.

Here are the top 6:

1. Someone will slip Viagra into your coffee today and you'll need to have sex to stay alive.

2. A dark stain will appear on your pant when you meet the love of your life.

3. At some point in your life, you will feel like killing yourself.

4. Today, you will pay your bill before you walk out of this restaurant.

5. The love of your life is sleeping with someone else right now.

6. Beware, you are being charged extra for the cookie but you are too stupid to know it.

We only got about 8 complaints in the box after service was over. That was lunch. For dinner, we got another 17. The only other complaint card that had to say anything other than the cookies was about a waiter with a runny nose. Who the fuck gets a runny nose in this god damn heat?!

All in all, I had a good laugh and people shocked enough to never make me do anything that bores me. They could have got me drunk. That would have saved the day.

2010-06-01T04:01:00.000+05:30

How the hell am I supposed to pair a red Mondeuse with a Banjara Gosht? Its not like Rimbaud ever cooked for Bhagat Singh.
- A very wise man.

The weather sucks but spending half a day at 63 degrees makes a Lightbulb Sun out of the day. Who cares when you've got enough in a bottle to go around? Its been a kind while. I can always tell by the fading bruises and the inability to recollect entire weeks. Living on an excess of whiskey and sex is always a brilliant idea. The copious quantities of alcohol and endorphins carve smiles from ear to ear even while they pull your nails out with a plier. If you can't feel a thing, you cant complain about a thing either. Just shrug off the bad, fidget with the good and live somewhere in between.

Its a disgrace that I couldn't even keep myself absolutely sober for a whole year but that little detail gets shoved into the dustbin by the rediscovery of whiskey. I'd love to live life again like that Dire Straits song, Heavy Fuel I think it was. It went like "Last time I was sober, man I felt bad. Worst hangover that I ever had..."

Breaking the collar bone was not a good idea. I think I'll have to give up the piano. It hurts too much if I play an hour or so. No point trying if trying is all I can do. Look at what happened to Metallica. It also means that I'd have to give up on the idea of learning to play the accordion. Its time I taught myself to play the violin or the saxophone...something softer this time. Mastering the harmonica cost the landlady her sanity and one eardrum.

Stark raving mad women are way more fun than stuck-up ice queens and garden variety psychopaths as far as company is concerned. The one I found is a doctor (this really saves me a lot of pain). She'll agree to anything and is always game for breakfast at three in the morning. You know you are in the presence of a Goddess when she fishes a wrist rocket out of her pocket and from the shotgun seat, shoots a guy taking a piss against the wall.

Summer should almost be over. I gave up working for the fat French fuck and moved to The Five Rivers. The Punjabis know how to eat! The day always ends with writing tomorrow's requisition, a liter of lassi and half a bottle of Cabernet. Its a relief from plating Monets and Renoirs till midnight. There is something really creepy about the French and their obsession with impressionism, even when it comes to food. The new boss has a beard which could make Dumbledore weep in shame and he lets me play as much of Porcupine Tree as I want while I work. Asking for anything more, in my opinion, should be considered a criminal offence. If you ever come to eat out here, refrain from ordering the Murgh Kali Mirch. Trust me, you don't ever want to know 'Why?'.

Confessions, Promise, Suspension and Plans

2010-04-17T01:36:00.001+05:30

Why must we leave our footprints everywhere we walk? Is it to reaffirm our memories of soft lands that we once treaded carefully, intoxicated or drunk till the point of sobriety? I wish never to leave my impression behind. I wish to take them away from the steps of every door that fell shut with promises of staying open through hurricanes, silence and graceful goodbyes. You promised that time would heal. You lied through your teeth. I knew better than to trust you but then again, you were the only one who could see the true passion mistaken by most as common debauchery.

Thinking time will heal all our wounds is like using an ice cube to plug a leak. Doesn't really work, does it?

Time doesn't heal. The best it can do is make us forget, lock up photographs in cold basements and let it gather layers of fine brown dust till we can't see the smiles in the frames anymore. Fingers too careful to wipe away the dirt stay still under better (or worse) judgement, afraid of staining the raw pallid skin with figments of lost lovers and silly sentiments. Time doesn't heal. It lets the salt of the sea seep in through the cracks in our Armour, into buried wounds, burning and scathing, bringing them back into painful existence.

In this time of ours, we roam the plains like free electrons bounding through mirror worlds, bouncing off reflections, crashing and fumbling into particles of true matter which we dream of being a part. Why do we dream? Is reality drowned in a bottle of whiskey not more comforting than those colourful shards that we spend our waking hours trying to clutch at? I hope so. I hope to conclude our half accomplished meeting in the sweating jungle of flesh and detuned sound checks. I hope that we can reconcile the unforgiven December. I hope that we can come up with astounding excuses for our nature. I can only hope for so many things but this promise I will keep. I will find you, even if I have to continue living and dying by the hour in greasy kitchens, scalded by the flames of my sin.

I got suspended from work today. They want to lock me out for two week or so. It was my fault that I left loose ends and let my insanity get the better of me. Its just that this one mistake I made and left it to take care of itself decided to come back and make me suffer for every bit of stupidity that gave birth to it. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do for these fifteen days. Work is the one thing that keeps my head in line and all of the gloom out. I sleep in the freezer and work three shifts back to back when I have to. Maybe I'll take a holiday. Go deeper into the north. I haven't really traveled since I got the bike. Maybe it'll keep my mind off the ensuing chaos.

A Dirge For...

2010-03-26T11:19:00.000+05:30

Doors close in a sleepless night,
Revealing slowly,
The gates of hell are manifold,
The labyrinth, endless.
Once in, the doors close tighter,
For hell is also in liberty.
The wide terror of the sky,
The serpent wind and the harsh cold birds,
Whirling, whirling.
Everything goes around.
Death and re-birth,
Growth and decay.
All the rose gardens are consumed
In the flash fire of flying time.
Each time I walked away from her,
Strung out by the hungry wind,
I've thought it.
Should I kill the cycle here?
Should I cast myself in?
Onto the prancing sea,
I let your tide pull me away,
And I die in a thrashing curse,
Meeting the yellow eyes of moon-white birds.
Flesh to be chewed by the Earth's savage teeth,
And bones ground to sand,
By her infinite waves.
Obliterated,
Lost in the desert of your dispassion.
Surely only a mad-man would turn again,
Run where the free winds cannot reach him,
And the tides do not wash.
Only a lunatic would escape,
One prison of the mind,
Spurn liberty to burrow again,
Into this contorted maze,
This sweaty dungeon of the soul.
Sometimes we are kind.
More often, a dunce.

[Its been a long time since I wrote last, here or even in the diary for that matter. One can only write with a muse by his side or when one has words worth saying. I had none.]

A Girl Named Mistake

2009-12-13T03:22:00.001+05:30

A were-goldfish transforming into a wolf
Breathing beams of the full moon
Watching a train full of silent women
Plowing forever through the twilight
And three old women taking a weasel on holiday
- Who else can write such bad, oblique poetry other than me.

Its easy to do something stupid... don't need much brains to pull off a stunt that is going to make you regret even waking up the next morning 'cos when you open your eyes, the Mistake is still lying there, wrapped up in a blue blanket and softly breathing bullets. The Mistake hurts more than it saddens. The Mistake is something that cannot be corrected; once in motion it always snowballs out of control till it starts an avalanche to bury me in ice for six hundred more years. Yes...it does feel like an eternity when each tick of time pushes you an inch closer to the hour when the Mistake decides to join the waking and asks for a number, an explanation, a kiss or a hand.

I have nothing to offer. I'm but poison and blood, heartless and cold, silver mercury flowing through my veins. I'm not sorry for being so only because I know I cant be nothing else. I am what is left of me, chipped and slightly cracked, afraid of sunlight.

It felt like confusion and blood boiling in the cleft of my red and dying heart, ebbing and flowing, clotting up and choking my thoughts into breathless agony. If she wakes up and I'm still here, there is nothing that I can do or say to get us going about our different ways. There is no where I can run to, every door is closed, every eye blind and every face cold. As much as we deny it, any state of affair is 'complicated'. Its complicated from the start to the finish and its still complicated when it decides to start all over again.

She spurned me the last time around. She left me engulfed in hate for what she had tried to do. It is too disgusting to even talk about. She cut herself with a knife when I walked out the door. Blood makes me squeamish. I called her a daft cunt and disappeared with the night. We were seventeen, stupid, high and fucking around like jackrabbits. And then she decided to walk in through the front door yesterday, sobbing a little, makeup running. Tears scare the hell out of me...especially when I wake up to it.

I was petrified. I could see the storm coming a day away and yet I didn't even ask her..."How in hell did you find out where I live?". And now its too late. The disaster has left its tread marks on the table and on our skin. Do you know what its like to fall in and out of love, breakdown, get up, play bad, be sad and still try to convince yourself that it'll all just go away the next day? I never will.

I can't even find it in my heart to tell her that she is just the girl named Mistake, as I sit here swimming and drowning in my head, watching her watch me with closed eyes locked in some dream, a very faint smile trying to appear like a crack on the surface of that sad, stragebeautiful face. Am I bloodless and black enough to deny that smile to break my cold reason? Am I only cold machines and twisted logic? She still sleeps silently, she is still here and my gun is missing but the trigger.

[Sorry to you all who have wasted their sight on this piece of a scream. I couldn't hold it in anymore. I had to share it some way and still not feel disgusted that I did.]

The Voices Go To War

2009-12-07T17:18:00.001+05:30

Be nice, behave
Take one for the team,
At lunch, be bright
Talk about philosophy and what comes next;
The man or the monkey in space

This is what life is to you and I want no part in it
'Cos they brought me here against my will
Only kicks and tears and punches and stones
Will ever be able to break my bones
Your words are hollow and your smile crack'd
Catch me if you can
I'm ready to run and I'm packed

Be reasonable, think
Care for the things you leave behind
Sleep silent, be polite
Dream of bright fields or a warm cloud
Give up hoping or give up being proud

You little pissant, you know what I am
You know well I cannot give up my pride
It is all that I have left other than my ears and a hand
You make too much of castles made of sand
Too blind to see them being washed away
Silently with no traces to be found
And you still ask me to stay?

Be good, listen
You have too much to lose
Be one with us, stop breathing
Think of the love that you'll be missing
Forget all your pain and the aching

Delusional you are, you cant be saved
I have no love to miss and only wounds to heal
Bruises blue with blows and years
No friends, not even peers
Get that you are barking up the wrong tree
You don't live my life
Now fuck off and let me be
:)

2009-11-28T17:20:00.000+05:30

There is only so much that you can write with a 88.2% fractured right collar bone but I have to say that I still don't like wearing helmets. I rather stick my head inside a Jack O' Lantern or a Tiger's mouth and we all know what happened to the last guy who broke into the Big Cat's cage at the zoo.

2009-10-31T01:45:00.000+05:30

They'r calling you
Some kind of Ghost
But I know thats not true
'Cause time and time again I spoke
And I have spoke with you
- Chris Martin

I'm confused. Its funny but its not a joke. I don't know why I'm laughing even when these thoughts are leaving tread marks on my brain. Its complicated. No time for second guesses. You are a ghost. I don't know why I can see you even when I refuse to believe that you exist.

The Ghost is a colourblind chameleon changing shades through the day, from green to orange to grey. The sun is hard on me but in daylight even, I can see her. How many of you have seen a reptile with such a pretty smile? I think I must be hallucinating. I got dropped on my head a little too much. My mom always said I was a fool. Guess she thought it wouldn't do much harm.

Winter is nearly here. The days are growing shorter and darkness comes early. Its a funny time of year. Makes chaos out of sense and sense out of absurdity. Its not a joke but I'm still laughing. Is there any truth to randomness or is it just a fling with a twisted sense of humor?

A Ballad For Crazy Jane

2009-10-12T03:16:00.000+05:30

All memories fade and again I'm left with the day,
And something out of the blue will remind me of you.
We loved the fights feeling this time it must be over,
Feeling this time it'll finally run its course.
Oh, maybe you'll find another,
Or Someone else to take my place,
But there is nothing close to the way I feel,
Whenever you shine through the haze.
I'm forever inside you,
And I'll right my wrongs to find you,
And I'll see you again,
And this time our story will happily end.

[In C Sharp Minor or E minor. I don't remember exactly. Made up words for a tune which was only in my head till the time my fingers stretched out on the blackfield. Never a good idea. Improvisation is the mother of all fuckups.]

The Price Of Chivalry

2009-10-06T02:53:00.000+05:30

You know you are really screwed up when you find yourself sitting alone at a bar on Saturday evening, drinking orange juice and pretending it was a very weak Screwdriver. They banned smoking in bars, pubs and other public places. It didn't seem to work very well. The place was smokier than Auschwitz.

I'm no politically motivated, right wing, religious zealot but women and bars are two things that were never really meant to go together in the first place... at least not in this country. It just spells trouble. Guys get drunk and try to get into some random girl's pants and girls are more than willing till they end up changing their minds half way through all that jazz. Blame it on the booze. Alcohol is a very powerful social lubricant, the effects of which, most men and even more women seem unable to control.

Women have this terribly bad habit of chatting up strangers. They'll walk up from the other end and try to make small talk. Dressed in blue, she did just the same. I didn't want to talk. It always ends in tears and I'm not the one left crying. First reactions are directed by human politeness. Be as nice as possible... use the bare minimum number of words. Give binary answers...hopefully she'll get bored and get lost. Didn't work...she took a seat and tried to initiate a conversation about the decor.

I could have killed myself out of boredom. I could have payed the bill and went on my way. But I didn't have a place to go to...at least for a couple of hours. You dug your own grave by being nice to this lady... now sleep in it. I bought her a drink... at least this'll keep her mouth full for a while...she'll talk a little less nonsense. The orange juice, the secondhand smoke and the rant was giving me a headache. I went to take a leak. Trouble doesn't take too long to show up. When I came back out, it was waiting at the counter.

A drunk man bothering a lady inside a poorly lit bar is a common scene. Leave things to their own devices. Don't get involved... the cops will take care of everything. I have never been rewarded for my chivalry. I lost a couple of my teeth to it and also got thrown into a lockup the last time I tried it on for size. The cavalry always arrives late. The innocent bystander is left to take care of things. In the end you always have to do something stupid because there is no one around to do something smart.

I did something stupid. I asked the man to quit bothering the lady. If people find out that you are sitting at the bar, drinking fruit juice, they usually take you to be some sort of a retard. He got smart. He threw the first punch. I didn't have any intention of fighting back. I wasn't drinking or drunk. It hurts a lot if you are in your proper senses. Things went from bad to worse. It finally ended with the crash of an empty beer bottle.

I really don't understand why they cant serve beer in pitchers. Makes life a lot safer. A beer bottle smashed on the left side of your gut is hardly any way to start an evening. That bit finally broke some of the idiots on the sidelines out of their stasis. They stepped in and restrained the damn bully. Both of us got detained till the cops showed up. For the first time ever, a girl saved my sorry hide. The dame previously in distress, stood up for me... told the cops everything. I was set Scott free but with a gash as wide as the Grand Canyon spurting blood all over my favourite shirt. It always ends in tears... at least for someone or the other.

After all that trouble, I was left with this...

The Misanthrope

2009-09-24T17:37:00.001+05:30

"So that is what hell is. I would never have believed it. You remember the fire and brimstone, the torture. Ah! The farce. There is no need for torture, hell is other people."
- Jean-Paul Sartre

I have had just about enough of it. Just because I'm a misanthrope doesn't mean that I cant have a normal relationship or be intimate with someone. People have to get their definitions straight. A misanthrope is a person who distrusts or dislikes humanity on the whole. Its not compulsive. I don't hate everyone. There are 4 that I like, 9 that I respect and 3 that I absolutely love.

The entire course of our lives are either spent in transit or trying to make sense of the randomness. We keep looking for that light of meaning in the darkness of mere being. Those who fall to the futility of the task, drag on through to the end of time like a drunken cripple. Those who refuse to give up eventually meet a similar sort of fate, although slightly more blissful as a result of their ignorance. To them, the well doesn't seem too deep because the water level is just high enough.

To you and probably most, my heart is cold, empty and silent. To you I may seem incapable of love. Fuck it I say. You will try and debate it all and I will keep telling you "Life's but a walking shadow...a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing..." I am right. I know that. Even you know it but you are just too scared to admit it. Because there is no exit...because then all that you worked for, lived by and dreamed of is nothing but colourful empty spaces.

I have derailed your train of perfect thought. You realize that if you see the world the way I do then all that you perceive is nothing but fleeting columns of cigarette smoke breaking into random patterns. You turn a little pale. The red blots through to the surface a little later. You stop talking. Silence uncomfortable. I break a sweat. That temper of yours is rising...

Yes, I am a misanthrope. Live with it. The day you stop trying to change me and love me for hating everyone else in the room other than you is the day I will stop hating everyone and everything and for the first time in my life, I will admit to my weakness....that I am in love with you.
- 24/03/2009

Optimists have shorter life spans than cynics, pessimists, absurdists, nihilists and communists. I used to be a mercenary before I became a misanthrope. I am not that bad you know. What you have to understand is the possibility and look beyond all the bullshit in the spaces between us.

Switches

2009-09-13T17:22:00.000+05:30

People say that I have the social skills of a corpse and I make too many esoteric references to comic books in a day. They say that I behave as if the third barrier really exists. They say that I only run after things that run away from me. The last bit didn't make any sense to me at all. Why run after things that are heading in my direction? No fun in it I say.

Anger is held inside by a twisted rusty wire, some voices and a rip chord. Pain is invisible, shifted out of sight and swept under the carpet. Hatred has nothing left to hate. Fear hides behind scars and clenched fists. Empathy is blind and Sympathy was killed in action. Trust has been executed for high treason and Love died of loneliness. After all that bloodshed and bickering, can I say that I am in control of my emotions? No. The switches are.

There is something clinical about the many switches in my head. They don't listen to me and go flip-flipity-flip. Negotiating is impossible and fighting against their injustice is absurd. I tell myself that I have to learn to live with them. I may learn. I may live longer for it. A cloud breaks into tears and a switch flips. Surreal tentacles of fear drag me back. The switches cannot live forever. The switches are mad. The switches will leave only charcoal to defend.

Another switch flips. A quiet voice speaks. She says "Don't worry about the people. They are all as mad as you are. They just don't know it yet."

Great Expectations

2009-09-10T02:29:00.000+05:30

A Consigliere in the Commie Mafia died a little while ago. I have some of his blood running through me but we didn't share inclinations. Opposing sides. Don't really have anything good to say about him. A megalomaniac by choice. The old man always wanted to go out with a bang. Guess no one was listening.

Death is an inconvinience to the living. Makes a mess of things. The living will never be able to rest until the dead is a smoking pile of ashes or six feet under. They feel as if they have some sort of moral obligation to the dearly departed. They'll cry, wail and breakdown. In general, they'll pretend as if it was never supposed to happen. They'll keep pretending that 'inevitable' is a word Morpheus used too much in The Matrix and that it has nothing to do with life or death. Sad really. The inevitable is inevitable because it is inevitable. Cant escape it....by definition.

I took a flight from yesterday to today and little steps into tomorrow wishing that it was going to be alright. We all know wishing is one thing that never works. The question of being good, bad or religious is as imaginary as the Easter Bunny or solar powered singing blue aliens. I'm getting the fuck out of here. Heaven is a club for the privileged and hell is already full. I ain't going to get through either one of them. They don't have seats for the faithless.

An Elegy For R...

2009-08-24T01:47:00.003+05:30

So I think you know what you must do

Please don't tell me you don't have a clue

Theres a look on your face that I want to knock out

Break your face and give your lips a pout

Don't think you can hear what I'm trying to say

And I don't think you care so fuck you anyway

You should know that its time for you to go

Your eyes are dead and your brain is too slow

I'll put flies in your soup just to hear you complain

If you must know truth, you are driving me insane

Its never going to work out with so much delay

And I don't think you care so fuck you anyway

All I want is to see you in terrible pain

Wipe you out and away like some dirty stain

Creep up your side and put a gun in your mouth

Wave you goodbye as I send you down south

Hate you so much that I wish I could cry

Please keep your mouth shut and lock up the lie

We can wait for the day when you wont be around

Disappear with not even a trace to be found

Packing up, moving on, no more games to play

And I don't think you care so fuck you anyway

And I think now you want a little something to say

Your words are cheap and I don't wanna pay

Your sad silly smile is beginning to crack

You should know that I'm not comin' back

Break a leg and then go back and pray

But I don't really care so fuck you anyway

[Not exactly quality stuff but I'll record and retake this one when I'm good and ready. What was in my head when I was writing? Don't ask, wont tell.]

Dead Fishy Blues On A Sunday Morning

2009-08-16T14:52:00.004+05:30

Sunday, 10:43 A.M

Me: What the fuck?

Syko: What?

Me: No. Nothing at all you blind twit. You killed my fish.

Syko: No I didn't. I fed him like you told me to and he just flipped over.

Me: Thats because you gave him a few drops of bleach for dinner.

Syko: Thats not bleach. Thats liquid fish food.

Me: You fucking moron! Liquid fish food? You ever seen fishes enjoying soup, have you?

Syko: No. Why would I give the fish, soup?

Me: Arrgh! You fucking idiot. Whats wrong with you?

Syko: I am a little stoned. Thats about it. No biggie.

Me: No biggie? You just killed my fish!

Syko: Yes. He looks really dead. Sorry mate. I'll buy you another one?

Me: No point. He was getting old anyways.

Syko: I'm really sorry mate if it made you feel bad. Please don't go berserk.

Me: I wont! I ain't insane.

Syko: Good then. I'll roll another joint or something. You want a hit?

Me: No

Syko: Ah well. You got anything to eat Sammy? I'll be real hungry once I smoke up.

Me: Oh yeah. I got loads of food. Even some apparently liquid food. Want some of that?

Syko: Does it taste good? Not like that French voodoo you eat?

Me: No no. The flavour is to die for. You'll love it. Wait. I'll get you some. You just keep at your drugs.

[Some people just don't care about labels. Jazz, Punk, Whiskey, bleach or soup....its all the same as long as the bottles look nice. Anything in it, by default, is food.]

Sunday, 11:56 A.M

Syko: Its raining.

Me: I know.

Syko: What do you want to do about it?

Me: Nothing at all. Just laze about and feel sorry for myself.

Syko: But its raining really hard....

Me: So what?

Syko: Don't you want to go soak in it?

Me: I'm hydrophobic.

Syko: Don't you want to bury Mr. Fish?

Me: Bury him?

Syko: Well...its raining and I thought it'd be rather appropriate.

Me: Sounds like a plan. Get the cigarettes.

[Mr. Fish was buried in the rain. Some great genius should take the responsibility of inventing waterproof cigarettes. They'd come in real good use in situations such as these.]

Observation Reports

2009-08-12T18:40:00.005+05:30

The past week, I took a bit of discarded advice and had some fun. I observed...

Dr. Anirban Biswas. Specialist in women and other diseases.
-Sign outside clinic(4/08/09)

"How do you fit 4 prime ministers in a car?"
"2 in the front, two in the back."
"How do you fit 5 prime ministers in a car?"
"2 in the front, 2 in the back and Rajiv Gandhi in an ash tray."
-Arbitrary bad joke(5/08/09)

Do not sit on steps. Allow Old person/Children to travel alone.
-Sign on Metro escalator(6/08/09)

Life is precious. Don't give up. Try once more. Try us.
-Suicide Clinic Jodhpur Park(7/08/09)

Electricity theft is a crime. Do not be a hooker.
-CESE Signboard(7/08/09)

Determination of sex of foetus is punishable by law not practiced here.
-B.P Poddar Hospital(7/08/09)

No Smoking Penalty Rs. 200.
-Metro Station(8/08/09)

Infurno: Furniture shop in Alipore
- (9/08/09)

Trinamool, *Padma phool.
Before election, Beautiful.
After election, April fool.
-Pre-Election communist propaganda graffiti(9/08/09)

Ladies are requested not to have children in the bar.
Special cocktail for the ladies with nuts.
- Notices on Ladie's Night. Lounge in Bhawanipore(11/08/09)

No loud horns specially in late night.
Please be kind as we are in deep sleep.
-Sign outside Hungerford Street Home(11/08/09)

Run DMC....I want to pee....**pepe-choda.
-Writing on the last page of Syko's notebook(12/08/09)

*padma phool(bengali) - translated, lotus flower. Party insignia of the BJP.
**pepe-choda(bengali) - translated, stands as Papaya Fucker. Still trying to figure out what it means.

Taking Chances

2009-08-10T02:00:00.002+05:30

'Cause it feels like I've been
I've been here before
You are not my savior
But I still don't go
- Massive Attack (Dissolved Girl)

I was thinking a little harder than I usually do. I'm not exactly going anywhere....making no headway at all. I'm stuck and I have somehow become subconsciously happy inside my static shell. Yet I feel thoroughly unsatisfied. Am I going to die inside this shell, alone and with almost nothing to miss? No way. Ain’t nothing on this planet that can kill me unless I want to die. But JUST living is the same as dying. Who am I going to miss when I leave this planet?

Something in my gut feels like it’s trying to claw its way out through my throat and dance on the tip of my tongue. He is ready to part my lips and use my voice as his own. I can feel him scratching on my insides. Maybe it’s my demon. The Haitian always said I had two. I know better.

This is something much deeper. Like sad thoughts on the happiest of days. Can you not know the fact that you love someone? Can you know and not tell for some unrealistic reason that only you can think of? I ask myself these questions and then I ask myself....What are you gonna do about it? And then I hit the glass ceiling. I can feel something or someone slipping away and somehow its making me feel a bit down at least thrice a day.

I'm going to take a trip deep south. It’s going to be a bit risky. I know. I feel like taking a chance. No. Somehow feel compelled to take the chance. Don't exactly know why. Don't exactly know what’s making me tick. All I know is that if you never try, you'll never know. Thats what I'm hanging off and wishing for the best....and we all know wishing never works.

I need a partner in c(rhyme). I need someone to watch my six when we manage 34 grands and a way into Belarus. We’re going into Chernobyl baby. We really are! I ain’t kidding. I really ain’t. Give me a year and we'll be out of here. I promise it will never be a bad day in Bosnia. I promise to let you wear my shirts and I promise that if you ever come to me running and crying, the first thing I'll say is "Who's ass am I kicking babe?"

Damn it! I'm losing my touch. Seems to me that the happier I get, the crappier I write. Have to get back into my groove.

Hospital Blues

2009-08-03T11:18:00.002+05:30

In their jars the snail-nosed babies moon and glow.
He hands her the cut-out heart like a cracked heirloom.
- Sylvia Plath (Two Views of a Cadaver Room)

I was in a hospital for nearly two weeks and this is all I have to say about that.

Cracked bones, dislocated joints, broken nose, bad leg....I could go on and on with this list but there ain't no point in crying about how badly I got fucked over. I took a look in the mirror and it was bad too. Not that I was a George Clooney before taking the damage but I looked like Harvey Dent fresh from his acid bath. They smashed the shades on my face and its a miracle that I'm not blind right now. Bad things happen. Have to get over them if I want to keep my head straight.

People these days don't usually buy blood. Friends and family are always willing to part with some to save a life. Thats the story with other people, not me. I had to buy blood to save my own life. What the fuck does that say about me? They refused to let me go home because there wouldn't be anyone around to help me get out of bed every morning.

I had two visitors during the time I was there. My father came on the first day before I woke up. He only came in because the cops asked him to. Never showed up after that. My brother would come visit twice a week. He got me books, pencils and other stuff that kept me alive for the time I was stuck in bed. He is a nice kid. Asked me to stay out of trouble. Sounded funny coming from someone younger than me. That reminds me. Have to grow up.

I had to stay in the hospital longer than a guy who had a liver transplant. I couldn't walk on my own for ten straight days. A couple of cracked ribs and internal bleeding will do that to you. The grand finale arrived a little later. I got a stupid fever. Having been knocked out and left to soak in the rain for a while, it was a pretty natural thing to happen. So they kept me prisoner for some more time till I was cured.

There was this one pretty nurse though. I don't like chatty people but she was nice. She pulled out the glass splinters from under my eye. Every night she would skip her rounds to come and talk to me and I was always willing to hear her rant because it was at least better than listening to the guy in the bed beside me making weird noises while vomiting blood. She got me cigarettes after I convinced her that I really really really needed those little white basterds to survive. There still are good people on this planet. Go figure.

Hospitals suck. Period! I am never going into one ever again even if it means that I will die an overwhelmingly elaborate and excruciatingly painful death. I found out the hard way how costly repair works are....costlier than Beamer headlights. A big fuck all bill that I had to pay by myself. The damn Nazi never parted with a dime. Bad things happen, right? Cant help it.

I'm finally back home with a crutch for company and a bottle of yellow pills that keep the pain down by keeping me asleep through the day. It feels nice and normal again to be sitting here, staring into the blogger window and filling it up with my self centered rant. Time I go to sleep....again.

Sisyphus Sam

2009-07-16T01:59:00.003+05:30

Battle not with monsters lest ye become a monster and if you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.
- Friedrich Wilhem Nietzsche

I have finally decided to go back to the hedonist that I used to be....exactly to the creature I used to be. Devoid of all morals and caught up in the futility that only Sisyphus could comprehend. I am just a number, a name, without any consequence or existence. I am a circle, endless by construction. I am what I am and damn anyone else who thinks that I need help.

I will be no more in a certain number of days. I will disappear. I will be just a footnote on the epic pages dedicated to how alienated this life has been. I wanted to say so much and yet I find that the last two people in the audience are deaf mutes. They are numb, dead, inert to the concept of respose. I am a brother to dragons, a companion to owls. My skin is black upon me and my bones are burnt with heat.

And then I will be no more. Death comes for me, beating her black wings. She raises a storm in which I drift rudderless and numb. I have decided to give up. When the pain becomes unbearable, even the most rightious souls must do as the Devil asks. I am a monster now. Devoid of all that makes me human. Devoid of pain, love, sorrow and the brunt of rejection.

How successful has my life been? The realist in me and Julia says that I am a total faliure....that I am only barely alive and something less than a man. I cannot love, I can only hate, exude emotions as pure and ethereal as mercury....always flowing and never constant. I used to love the way I used to keep morphing every afternoon....I was never the same as I walked the hours of the day.

Someone introduced to me to the the man I used to be. I always liked who I used to be. I never thought I could go back to being that way. I tried my very best. I killed what I had become and shed the skin of a slithering snake. Good intentions are only as valid as the raining sky of the monsoon. They disapper with the arrival of Autumn. It is winter now and I have been left alone to carve my way in the snow. The crown of illusion that I used to wear with certain misconceptions fueled my hollow words has finally fallen off. There is no hope, no redemption, no love for me in this world. I am Sisyphus, revelling in the futility of my task, pushing the rock uphill only to watch it crawl down and into oblivion. Camus said in his closing lines that "The struggle itself...is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

Happiness is a myth. Sisyphus was never happy. It is all just a trick....an illusion, something to make us believe that we are masters of what we are and not some insignificant scratch that the universe will never even notice.

If you think that there is no God, only random existence, join the club and question no more....be on your way and give your own meaning to the self....a case in which I imagine that you will be happy knowing that you have never been a slave to anyone, not even the most powerful mirage know to humankind. If you think there is a God, I wish you luck while you wait for him at the alter of the many misconceptions and the all devouring abyss.

When I looked for good, then evil came unto me: and when I waited for light, there came darkness. My harp also is turned to mourning, and my organ into the voice of them that weep.
- Job 26:31

2009-07-09T00:44:00.004+05:30

I was busy having adventures up in the True North....have been out of touch with the wrong side of the world for nearly two weeks. I came back a few days ago and found out that the world didn't exactly hold still while I was away gallivanting on some mountain trail. Here is what I have to say about the headlines past.

On the decriminalization of Homosexuality:
Slippery ground I'm treading on....prefer to keep myself neutral when it comes down to this point. I don't really have anything against homosexuality. Being absolutely hetrosexual, my system only fails to compute the idea. The thing is that most (straight) people say that homosexuality is unnatural (that is it does not exist in nature) and therefore should be labeled wrong.

As per that logic half the things we do on a regular basis are quiet unnatural....like cooking, voting, atom smashing and religion. They dont exist in nature. I don't see them birds and bees waging holy wars or driving cars to work. So I guess if homosexuality is still to be looked down upon as unnatural and something Jesus fucked up, I suggest we stop writing books and start walking the streets naked. Clothes are unnatural considering that Gorillas don't wear scarfs and Eagles don't have Aviators.

On Michael Jackson:
The kids of the the world are finally safe....Wacko Jacko is dead. The guy might have been the largest selling solo artists in the history of recorded music but I still fail to gather even an ounce of respect for him. Child molesting creep who went from Black to White. And here I thought people wanted on purpose to belong to minority communities and bask in all the overhyped attention they usually get.

The people on this planet are entirely confused in their opinions. They depend on the media for it. Sorry basterds. The very same people who labeled Jackson as a kiddy hugger a few years ago are now swarming the streets, playing Smooth Criminal 82 times a day on their boombox and crying their hearts out on national TV as a tribute to the dead man. What the fuck is wrong with this planet? I thought pedophiles were supposed to be considered criminal scum and not some King of Pop. Damn....this is why I must hate pop!

True North Travelogue

2009-07-07T01:12:00.003+05:30

Up there at night, when the velvet dark was a little clear on some odd days, the fabric of the sky shimmered with a million glittering bullet holes. I never met the moon up there. I missed it. I really did. The wolves must have been missing it too. I met one of the lonely ones on a a drive in the dark. Eyes flashing cold razor still in the off glow of the headlight. Slightly breathless from her climb uphill with taut nerves and stiff tissue hidden deceptively under the cover of soft grayish dull fur, ready to react to my potential hostility. I was too much in awe of its presence to make any sudden moves other than blink a couple of times. She just tilted her head a little, frozen flaming gaze fixed on me and somehow I was ready for her to howl at the moon. She never did howl....the moon wasn't there. She blinked and I skipped a few beats....and just as suddenly, she disappeared....headlights illuminating nothing but the dark.

A chance encounter with her flaming eyes I guess. I wanted to follow her into the valley down below. The bike made too much noise. No point dancing with the wolves without having whiskey and mystics for company.

Road Trippin'

2009-06-23T19:22:00.000+05:30

The world is unfair. Everything ends in a tangle of words and tears. Every relationship which doesn't end in tears, ends in death. Everything falls apart in the end. Welcome to my view of the world. The corollary of this view, which I keep forgetting is that one must grab every chance of happiness that comes along the way or prepare to face involuntary, unconscious self destruction.

Basking in the glory of isolation, boredom, rejection and all of the above is not exactly my style. When the going gets too cramped with empty spaces and monosyllabyes, its usually my cue to make a silent exit. Set off for the true north. Get my brain serviced somewhere along the way while buying petrol and cigarettes.

I got it all ready. I got a bag, a toothbrush and a comb. I got a bike to take me for the ride. Its 1800kms up the hill and back. I'll probably grow a funky beard half way through the trip and find someone to play football with. The thin air will do me good. God knows I need the time off....time off from this place and people who choose to leave me to rot. I know when I have been abandoned good and proper.

If I don't make it back within five days or so, there is a slim chance that I drove off a cliff in the dark or something. It might also be that I decided to give up on all the jazz and settle down among a bunch of mountain dingos. They wouldn't know me up there so I guess if I'm nice enough, they wont mind me hanging around. High hopes....I know.

Happy Birthday To Me

2009-06-19T03:22:00.006+05:30

I don't remember being born. It must have happened during one of my blackouts.
- James Douglas Morrison

Morrison didnt remember and neither do I although I'm sure it never happened during one of my blackouts. I have come full circle this time around. I was born on a Friday and at 22 years of age, I celebrate again on a Friday. When I was 16 I used to wish that I was older, maybe because I wanted the cigarettewala to stop shooting suspicious looks at me and pointing indicatively towards the board on the wall that said cigarettes were not to be sold to people under 18 years of age. Now that I am 22, I wish I was that 16 year young kid again, buying cigarettes with a slightly paranoid look in his eyes. Thats the problem with being human I guess. We never miss till we are given the miss and we are never sure of what we want when we have it already.

This time around I guess the birthday wont be any different that the last two years. One of them I spent on the Blank Planet and the other I spent on a boat floating about in international waters. Till now the only people who have wished me a happy birthday are my phone's calender reminder and a solitary IM window on my computer screen. I guess half the people I know don't remember and the rest just don't care much. The last two years of celebrating alone with a bottle of whiskey has killed off most of my expectations and I guess I really don't miss being wished a happy birthday at the stroke of midnight.

Celebration plans this time? I don't know exactly. My new found sobriety refuses to party with either drugs or alcohol. Out of the two active friends that I have left, one has moved to a different state to master business and the other one has always been too far away to be of any consequence in situations such as these. This means that the plan is going to be something like: cook by myself, eat by myself, go out and watch a late show of X-Men Origins or walk a really long way by myself, realize that its too far and that I'm too tired to walk back and fall asleep on a park bench or something(a funny looking cop in shorts woke me up the last time I did it).

P.S: I like my new found sobriety. I really do. One of the two things that I have become sure of after a very long time is that I like the moments clarity which used to be so rare and obscured when I was high on Whiskey or Rum through the day. 71 days of running clean and some hope to get further....best damn birthday gift I ever got.

The Final Act (On Julia)

2009-06-17T04:14:00.001+05:30

My head feels a little light from the smoke, the smell of her perfume and what she had just said. She says she is ready to throw it all away. She says she cant stay with me. Maybe she could....in another time, another life. She could have said something before. She never did. She wanted me to wait for her to call till four in the morning. She always liked it that way. I ask her to stay with me a little longer but I realize how futile I sound. I want to tell her that if she must leave, she might just as well do it while I slept. I shut up half way through the sentence. She gives me a weak smile. I know that one all too well. She is about to say the sweetest 'no' to all that I need or want.

Darkness rolls in on the red carpet of the setting sun. The neon glow and the dread of things to come grows stronger as the colour of the night grows deeper still. There is no denying or delaying the inevitable. Death comes even for the Devil. I wait for it in silence. I watch her pack.

No one spoke and no one smiled. There were too many empty spaces in the night. The taxi is waiting and the meter, running. She kisses me goodbye. Her lips are cold. I try to get a fresh grip of myself. I put on my bulletproof mask. I go over all of it inside my head again and again. I try to find out where I went wrong. She never told me where I did. She kept saying that it wasn't my fault. She kept saying "if you were only a little older....". I try to make sense of it as she walks over the threshold and asks the driver to open the boot. I try to scream at the unfairness of it but I cant. She walks out of the scene like straying colours. I feel something breaking inside my head....shattered into a million glistening shards, light as funeral ashes in the wind. I try to reclaim a little bit of myself with each move I make. I try to keep up that huge Cheshire cat grin on my face but finally, after hours of trying to reassemble myself, I fail. The mask falls off. I am the ghost of a smile now.

Little dark girl with kind eyes
when it comes time to use the knife
I wont flinch and I wont blame you,
as I drive along the shore alone as the palms wave,
the ugly heavy palms
as the living does not arrive
as the dead do not leave
I wont blame you,
instead
I will remember the kisses
our lips raw with love
and how you gave me everything you had
and how I
offered you what was left of me
and I will remember your small room
the feel of you
the light in the window
your records
your books
our morning coffee
our noons and nights
our bodies spilled together sleeping
the tiny flowing currents
immediate and forever
your leg my leg
your arm my arm
your smile and the warmth of you
who made me laugh again
little dark girl with kind eyes
you have no knife
the knife is mine and I wont use it yet
- Charlie Bukowski

Thank You For Smoking

2009-06-12T09:15:00.002+05:30

Finally it happened. The thing that I have been fearing since the day I started smoking. No no no....this is not about how fucked up my lungs are or how many people I have put into jeopardy with the so called 'second hand smoke' or how my life is turning out to be as smokeless as a cheap cigarette. This is more about how I nearly burnt and asphyxiated myself to death last night.

I was sweating like a horse, feeling ignored, a little excessively restless and I was listening to Art Tatum play the St. Louis Blues. I was air-jamming to that song too. A bit of Porcupine Tree later and still feeling thoroughly ignored, I decided that sleep was the best way to get over all of it. I followed my usual rituals. I SMSed everyone good night, logged out of the IM, drew the curtains back in place(I am averse to the dawn and I usually go to sleep at the same time that she chooses to appear), lit another cigarette and dived into the lone mattress which I fondly call my very own improvised bed. I usually cant fall asleep very fast. I toss and turn for an hour or more before I get the ticket to Neverland.

This time around there was no tossing or turning done. I must have fallen asleep as soon as I hit the sheets. The next thing I remember feeling was an overpowering sense of being stuck in an oven with something burning next to me. I tried to ignore it as a one of the many nightmares I keep having but it was not to be. The smoke finally managed to crawl down my throat and kick me out of my dream. I woke with a good and proper kick start. The room was dark and I couldn't breath. Every square inch of the room was engulfed in thick, pungent smoke and somewhere on the bed there was a big smoldering hole. I had cuddled up and went to sleep with an active cigarette and it had left a crater on my bed, now glowing orange red.

As much as I liked looking on at that burning meteorite crater on the mattress, I had to douse the flames or risk sleeping on the cracked up floor for the rest of my natural life. I drew back the curtains and opened the door to flush my space of all the smoke it had gathered over the hours. I also told myself that I should learn a lesson from this entire fiasco.

Lesson 1: Never go to bed with fire

Lesson 2: Never set bed on fire while sleeping

Lesson 3: Never fall asleep while smoking

Lesson 4: Buy fire-proof mattress(if such a thing exists)

Lesson 5: Quit smoking(???)

Scars

2009-06-08T17:22:00.000+05:30

All that I got left are my precious scars
I wish I was immune then it wouldn't hurt
- Aviv Geffen

I wont remember. I refuse to remember. What is the point in remembering when all I can end up remembering is a haze of pain and heartache cumulating to the final moment, a kiss from a cold mouth and the taste of sweet, copperish blood seeping from the corner of my lips. What is the point in remembering all that I was and ignoring all that I have been transformed into by those very same things, those memories that I despise. I despise almost everything that used to bring me even an ounce of joy. I despise drinking now, I despise company, I despise questions and I despise the truth. I despise the truth because it never taught me the art of soft landing. I despise the truth because there is none in the many scars that line my skin. I even refuse to remember the faces that gave them to me. Why? Because the refuse the acknowledge their own art and my pain. These scars....the only thing I remember about each of them is how they were born.

I remember breaking a bottle of perfume and I remember being unable to solve a chapter of mental maths. I remember the faint smell of Rum walking into the room. I remember high pitched idioglossia. I remember the touch of cold metal on my skin and the feverish pain that followed. I remember crying and with my back to the mirror, soaking up the leaking blood with a blue shirt. I remember the birth of my immaculate quadruplets.

I remember trying so very hard to spell the word telephone. I remember trying my best. I remember trying to cheat by writing it down on the palm of my left hand. I remember the smell of Rum again and the sight of a freshly sharpened Nataraj pencil resting carelessly on the page of the book. I remember the pain as the pencil scrawled something onto my cheek. I remember looking into the mirror and staring at my new face for hours as the blood flowed out on to the slightly cracked surface of a green wash basin.

I remember being told not to fall asleep. I remember being left alone in the house with my dog for company. I remember how the both of us played on for hours till we were so tired that we just had to close our eyes and rest them for a while. I remember the faint sound of a door bell in the distance. I remember dismissing it as just a dream. The dream was real and I was awakened by the familiar touch of cold metal on my skin. I remember how I told myself never to fall asleep again as I tried to seal up a few red dots and dashes with some strange, sticky ointment.

I remember the day when my first board results were out. I remember not being able to anything through the day because I knew I would throw it all up the moment I laid my eyes on the mark sheet flashing on the screen. I remember not being able to score too well. I remember trying to find a way to escape as I sat on the steps near a bus stand, contemplating the many morbid alternatives. I remember being handed a couple of joints by a senior who said it would calm me down a bit. I remember smoking both of them. I remember getting up on my feet for no reason at all and after that I remember not remembering nothing at all till the time I woke up in the ER and looked up at a masked man. I remember feeling a needle being passed through my chin. I remember the pain as I lay there feeling like a piece of garment being sown together by a butcher.

I don't ever remember crying after the first of my many were born. I guess I got used to the pain after all of that. I guess I convinced myself that pain purges, that pain is the way of life. I taught myself that pain is used to remind me of my one true mistake, that I am guilty of being alive. Let the punishment fit the crime is what they say and I say so be it. I have no Saviour or I am still yet to find my Jesus. I pray I will find one....one who will dissolve my many scars and relieve me of the memories and the pain that comes trailing behind them.

On Making A Difference

2009-06-06T13:18:00.001+05:30

A few days back, after an apparently futile conversation, I was asked a question.

"Do I make a difference to you or anything that you do?"

As always I had a tough time answering that one. Although I knew the answer, I just couldn't get myself to blurt it out back then. I am emotionally handicapped I guess and I lack certain expressive capabilities when it comes to the finer points in life. I have the answer now....not an answer....more like an oft repeated story which says more than I could ever express with my shallow, dry and limited vocabulary. It goes something like....

Once a man was walking along a path somewhere near the beach. It was a slightly damp and stormy day with high winds and black clouds on the horizon. Out in the distance he could see a man who was continually walking back and forth between the sand and the surf's edge. To satisfy his curiosity, the man decided to take a closer look. As he approached the sand he could see hundreds of Starfish, strewn along the shore, washed up and stranded. This man who was moving continuously was actually picking up these doomed creatures and throwing them back into the water.

The other person who had come in to investigate was a little taken back by the futility of the task. There were far too many of these creatures to save and many of them were sure to perish. He came up to the man and said, "You must be crazy. There are at least a thousand of these creatures washed up along the entire stretch of this shore. You cant possibly hope to make a difference."

This person looked up at the man asking the question. He then kneeled down to pick up another Starfish and as he threw it back into the ocean, he almost absentmindedly said, "I guess it made a difference to that one...."

So I guess a difference was made. It is only to be accepted.

Acid Trip

2009-06-04T01:00:00.005+05:30

Phase - I
Flow through me unnamed feeling
Like Whiskey through a madman's mind
Flow through me and take me away
To a place of ethereal design

Phase - II
Illusions and voices
Light collapses into the Earth
Neverwinter night has arrived
Darkness prepares for birth

Arriving now the beautiful cruel
Painting paradise in stains of orange and blue
Haunting the shattered remains of my day
Held together with some strange glue

Senses razed to idioglossia
Walking backwards into a wall
Trapped within a borderless colourflow
Of songs that moved you to make a sound
Caught in the radioactive afterglow
Of the light that saved you from going underground

Phase - III
Seven days of falling compressed inside a day
The twenty two hours of orange and blue now turned gray
The trip fades like burning moments in the sun
Like magic bullets from a silent gun

Resonating sounds appearing from a distance
Played in minor by some ragged band
Another heartache is over till we understand

Fallout

2009-05-31T13:34:00.000+05:30

So you leave me too?

Like everyone else

Just a scar you leave me with

In your name stretched across my skin

Another fatality

Abandoner

I'll rest under the sea now

Through a different kind of silence

Sent back to my old cold blood

To my half life of eleven thousand years

Breathing radiation

I am a long division

Slowly decaying into memory

Decaying into lead

Brilliant creature born in the heart of a star

Glowing like moonlit fog

I will decay

Turned cold and grey

Irrelevent inevitable

And finally it rains

To tell me that I am sad again

L'Inconnue de la Seine

2009-05-30T04:16:00.001+05:30

I - Addiction

What is hope?

The catch in my throat?

I choke

We test our powers of observation

As always, we must

Irrelevant we are, to each other

Only a number and a name

A voice on the other end

Always sounding the same

II - Rehabilitation

Hey you there, standing on the wall

Preparing to fall

To become human surplus

Do you know?

They still run the show

Through your highs and my low

III - Relapse

I cant be let out of my cage

I am blinded by your intense gaze

Under my skin, I can feel the burn

This is why I never wanted to learn

That you are the unrequited dream

You are the unattainable

You are the one who makes me sad

The myth never made real

Dressed in all her past fatalities

The solemn hypnotic

L'Inconnue de la Seine

IV - Epitaph

This must be another dream, another lie

Another compartment in my head

Scattered ashes and soul poisoned

Radiation entombed in lead

I must leave now, this cant continue

But I cant remember which door I came in through

A Waltz for Dannie

2009-05-29T00:15:00.003+05:30

What good am I to you when you want to talk and I'm not there

What good am I to you when I'm nothing but thin air

What good am I to you when I don't pick up the phone

What good am I to you when you walk home alone

What good am I to you when I don't talk at all

What good am I to you when you know I will fall

What if you tell me that I'm mad,

when I'm only just a little sad

What if you wake up and I'm not there,

will you be a little scared

What if you stop writing and say nevermore

and leave me stranded on the shore

What if one day you leave me behind

with only stray memories of you to find

Hold on tight to me if you really care

Hold on tight to me if you dare

I know I'm not normal as you would like me to be

Leave me now and I'll float out to the sea

Is there something you want to tell me?

Is something really there?

Am I mad?

Or is it just that you don't care?

Empty Spaces

2009-05-26T20:12:00.000+05:30

What is hope? Is it that feeling when you wake up in the morning and feel a little better than last night? Is it going to bed knowing that you have done something right for a change? Is it the feeling that you have been finally understood and you yourself understand as well? Is it being able to break the ice without scarring yourself with frost? Is it all about having blind faith in the many immaculate misconceptions of a delusional mind? I don't know for sure. I never will.

I have hope. I have gained some and earned the rest in the last few days. But I can never hold on to anything or it may just be that nothing actually wants to be able to stick to me. How can they? How can they afford to wake up next to a creature that changes itself with the direction of the wind? I change. I change almost every afternoon and on most nights....sometimes into nothing more than a conscious but primordial mass and at other times into something like that blue, naked guy with a hydrogen atom carved into his forehead. I am bi-polar I guess. I have happy phases and I have my sad scenes. Sometimes they are violent outbursts of joy or pure terror and at other times I have this overwhelming feeling of drowning into an infinitely meandering loop of sorrow.

I am scared. I am scared of everything other than the things that a normal person should be scared of. I am so full of fear that sometimes I feel that it is crippling me to the verge of not being able to move at all. On most days I feel like Jonny Depp on a bad acid trip in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and on the rest of the days I am unable to feel anything at all. I fail to comprehend the simplest of things and I grow steadily paranoid till the point of breaking down. I start to feel like I'm going under and then finally, I close my eyes and move into the reflective realms of sleep.

I wake up sometime soon after, either cold sweating from a heated nightmare or with a bit of a headache from falling asleep on the desk (I have to stop doing that one of these days). When I wake up I start to feel all better and in love with everything and almost the entire world. I try to hold on to it to the best of my abilities and furiously crush the little bits of sadness left in my synapses like insects during Diwali. I hold on to my ups for a while and then I begin to slip away again. The little insects of sorrow gather together, melding in till they become like that giant insect made up of insects that I remember seeing in an episode of Powerpuff Girls (yes! I used to watch those. I was once a non-maniac depressive kid for chrissake). I fight the huge million armed monster for a while and finally I grow weary. The monster keeps growing itself back like the Hydra. I finally give up and give in to the low. The low takes me to different places with only fences and sad faces. It haunts me till I sleep again.

There is no one to blame for the way I am, not even me. My brain has a brain of its own which doesn't listen to me. It is ruled purely by the Id and the super ego I guess. They must have managed to get the ego killed in a crossfire during one of their skirmishes.

Bruce the bartender told me a long time ago that I would risk loosing it if continued to live alone and in isolation as I do. Said that people need other people around to keep them sane and get them through the day. Guess he was right. Guess I was always too stubborn to listen to good advice. The road to damnation is always paved with good intentions.

2009-05-23T03:58:00.001+05:30

I am loosing my grip on reality. Brawling is never a nice thing to do but I felt the need for pain. Pain to remind me that I am still made of flesh, bones and blood. Pain to punish and pain to purge. Wounds heal and bruises disappear but the damage I have done is forever done without the hope or fortune of reversal. I need some sleep I guess. It will set my head straight. I will be silently smiling again tomorrow afternoon, having falsely convinced myself of my innocence. All will be well till I start to recollect again. I know I will. I just wish I was a little normal. I wish I was older and a little sentimental.

Recovery\The Immaculate Misconception

2009-05-12T13:05:00.006+05:30

I had this urge to write music again. I usually have those after I end a prolonged sense of distorted depression. I recovered from it this time without a single pill of Prozac and alcohol. I want to sit down now beside a Feurich and create a melody for this or I can just let it be all acoustic and ask Syko to fill in the gaps.

==========================================================

The Immaculate Misconception

I must have been dreaming once again

I must accept somethings will never change

There is a little boy I saw inside

He used ether to calm his pain

Washed them away with winter tide

Some summer wind and rain

An angel cried last night

I saw her in my dream

An angel lied last night

Waltzing under the moon beam

I cant sleep so I take a deep breath

And hide behind my lying smile

Of acid fantasies and crystal meth

And a Johnny Walker file

Yes I am falling

How much longer till I hit the ground?

This is my own sanity poll

The test for truth

To test if I lost all control

==========================================================

This is probably the most sense I have made in a good number of days. Although I cant remember most of the things I said or did in the last few days, I'm quiet sure Dr. Jekyl didn't kill anyone.

Post-recovery resolutions:

1. will try and end my fascination with whiskey.

2. will not do drugs anymore.

3. will try and be nicer to people.

4. will try and make more sense in print and speech.

5. will make peace with whoever I pissed off in the last few days.

6. will :)

About The Blank Planet And Other Stories

2009-05-11T14:41:00.002+05:30

I'm leaving for the Blank Planet. My ship takes off in an hour more or so. I'm tired of living on this speck of blue among the infinite blackness of space. The Blank planet is grey. I like grey better. If you like seas and oceans and the door to the river then you wont like the Blank planet too much. There are no seas on the Blank planet, only underground rivers that sometime leak out to the surface and into little pools of mud. The air is thin and there are only mountains. Within the tallest peak of the mountains to the north, there lives a happy hermit with a hollow soul. He has seven legs and only just an arm but he is still pretty fun to hang out with. He is a peaceful creature who grows the finest quality of weed that changes from yellow to blue. The orange filter sky is my favourite by far. It looks as if god was having breakfast and had spilled a little marmalade on to the blue carpet of the sky.

The one handed hermit had asked me to get him some vodka in a glass jar and a cockroach the next time I came around. I had been terribly distracted on the way and my brain crossed the instructions to my hands. I tried to take a swig of vodka but I ended up eating the cockroach. The hermit was quiet angry with me after that. He made me sit outside his cave in the bitter cold and would not even sell me his fine colourful weed. I was thoroughly heartbroken after that and I must have half decided never to come back to the Blank planet or visit the hollow souled hermit of the hills.

At the polar ends of the planet the Sirens rest near the door to the river. They tried in vain to wreck many ships by luring the travellers of time with their strangebeautiful songs of ethereal magnetism. They failed because they had been cursed by Spaceman Spiff, eons ago, to be mutes as long as they held on to their murderous intentions and sonic deceit. They can only pretend to sing their songs of serene chaos. They have grown a little excessively ferocious lately and I think they just miss their voice. I was asked once on my second return from the Blank planet, if these Sirens, these mute guardians of the waterways, were practitioners of old magic and the likes. I said that they could pull a rabbit out of a hat if they knew what a hat was on the Blank planet. The rabbits on the Blank planet were over sized too. They would never fit into normal Earth size hats. Radioactive mutants I guess. How else could they grow so big?

Every night there is a war on the plains of the Blank planet. The tin soldiers on one side and the men of wood on the other. The Dryads use water against the metal men so that they may catch rust and decay within days. Time does move faster on the Blank planet. For the soldiers of steel the weapon of choice is fire so that the men of wood are burnt to ashen remains and glowing cinders. In the end there is no war fought at all. Water drowns the fire and the fire burns water into wisps of white air. The only remnants of the battle fought is the haze of steam that clouds the plains. The soldiers vanish into the cloud as silently as they had appeared. They must have signed for peace on all days because it rains almost every afternoon.

There are a few other inhabitants of the Blank Planet other than the hermit, giant rabbits and mute Sirens. There is a famous serial killer who escaped from Madrid. He was once convicted of killing Amadeus in his sleep but all the charges were dropped when it was discovered that Amadeus was an insomniac. The law had tarnished his reputation back on Planet Earth and he took off for the Blank planet when he realized that he would never be able to regain his reputation, the one that he had built over the imaginary corpse of Sargent Pepper. He is now forever of the stars, a man in his late alcohol softened forties who runs a remotely successful circus troupe at the junction where space folds over the remnants of time. He also engages in bit of smuggling from time to time, selling the hermit's weed to big names and green celebrities, making a nice killing for himself somewhere along the way.

I don't have enough cash for a full tank of fuel. With the amount of fuel I have left in the bay I can just about make it there and come back half way between Styx and the Neutron Super Nova. The situation tells me that I just might not be able to come back from my journey to the Blank Planet this time around. I'll go ask Captain Underspoon to lend me some money to buy fuel for my journey back home to Planet Earth. But the problem is that there is not one single drop of fuel left on the Blank Planet. The tin soldiers had used it all up in their futile efforts to set their enemies on fire.

I'm leaving for the Blank Planet tonight. My ship takes off as soon as I find a good bottle of 68' Margaux and some Russian cigarettes to take with me as memories from Planet 3. You know what? There is room for one more on my ship. I could hold on to it if you tell me that you are running a bit late. I can wait. It is a bit too irrational and lonely up there without company to speak of. I need someone to soothe my transit. It would be lovely if we were to be stranded together on the Styx or looking up at the marmalade stained skies of the Blank Planet. I need some one to correct my mistakes and tell me where I went wrong and remind me of better things when I cant remember them myself. A blood debt I'll owe to you. Will you come along and help me make sense of this new world? I promise that it will only be you and I and never I and you.

A Ballad For Ruth Ellis

2009-05-10T15:13:00.002+05:30

The systematic killer returned from the grave

She murdered Mozart in his sleep

And ran and hid away

Twin visions in production

One bent out of range

She must join a circus troupe

On a planet far away

Or risk the yellow changing to grey

Radioactive orange filter sky

Under which the sad angels played

When Shakespeare wrote of Vietnam

A president decayed

Swinging from a length of rope

Ruth Ellis blew her last kiss

She must have been lithium hope

How she loved Mistah Blakely

When you hear me tap on your window

I know you get on your knees and pray

Because you know I don't make sense

Because you know panic is on the way

The wires have now burnt out my brain

There is no rhythm to this madness

Just a long silence you will find

Within the borders of this madman's mind

Another Life(?)

2009-05-06T04:31:00.001+05:30

I'm tired of this century. People became parrots the moment they stepped into the year with too many zeros at the end. I should have been born in the 50's, enjoyed my time in the 60's and died of a drug overdose by the late 70's. The music back then was way better, an entire population was trippin' on LSD, the Beat generation was as active as the HIV in Africa and I probably would have met George Jung in the process.

How I wish....

I could have been casually sipping a Rusty Nail at 30 Pier Avenue on Hermosa Beach in California and waiting for Gerry Mulligan to take the stage. I could have witnessed Miles Davis as he fathered the Birth Of Cool. I could have seen Lennie Tristano, the blind man on the keys, the Bach of Jazz, play the Requiem to the genius of Charlie Parker. I would have just sat by the piano, pondering over a tune and would have smoked all the cigarettes and drank a whole lot of Scotch without feeling grimy guilty about it because it was the way to do it back then. I don't know why but I feel thoroughly depressed when I start thinking of what it would have felt like to watch Coltrane perform at Birdland to an audience who could actually appreciate it.

I wouldn't even mind it if I turned out to be one of those absolutely talentless creatures with limited neurological functions. I would have called myself a hippie, painted an old Chevy with the most robust colours I could find and be happy with it all. I could have been buying consciousness expansion off the streets for two bucks a hit and I would still be happy with my blind, unquestioning faith founded on the words of that pseudo-shaman, Leary. I would have been one of the long haired ones who stood and fought the cops, tooth and nail, at the fall of San Fransisco.

The victim and witness to the end of an era, the end of days, I would have stood quiet still, a junkie by that time, trying to find a new drug to get away from it all. I would have eventually floundered into a Studio 69' by then and would have run into the likes of Scarface or maybe even Frank Lucas. The Acid would have been replaced by the Blue Magic, sending me spiralling downwards into my own version of a 1976 Dante's Inferno. A week before Christmas, after pushing the dragon too much, my chemically happy heart would finally stop ticking at two minutes to midnight and I wouldn't even be able to tell the difference. The post-war dream finally freezes itself in time.

Would I have really liked the way my life would have run its course at a different time and on a far different continent? Would I have been stupid enough to fall for the misleading teachings of Mistah T? Could I have sat down with Huxley or maybe even Bukowski to discuss the intricacies of a 10 year drunk? Would I have liked the Heroin fuelled demise I would have finally met with on the cold floor of a rundown apartment?

I think I'll dream of walking the streets of Harlem tonight(Damn! It's morning already) and in my dream I'll finally run into Lady Day walking about a little aimlessly, trying to figure out the best scale for Easy Living.

I wish I could sleep without ageing a single day.......

Leaving

2009-04-25T18:34:00.002+05:30

I'll be leaving sometime today in the evening. First flight by dark to Bangalore. A new city and a different set of faces with no names to contend with and of course, a new job to screw up. I really have no idea why I'm doing this. All I know is that it is time to get off my lazy arse and earn a living or my ATM statements will take a nose dive towards the dreaded three figure mark. I have enjoyed the comforts of six figures for too long and I have stretched it thin. The ship had been kind to me. It let me be on holiday for nearly five months and they paid well for it. The problem with being me is that I don't actually miss money till I have almost none of it left.

A new city awaits me on the other side of that flight. I don't know the way to work and neither do I know the way back from there to wherever I may be holding up. I don't even know where I'll find a place to hide from the sun, a shelter from the dust and the fumes. Mr. P.V. is no more in town these days and I don't even know another soul down there. All I have is this whitewashed copy of a map in my head and a scrap of paper with the letterhead mentioning the address of the place where I need to be at 1400 hours on Sunday afternoon. I'll have a fight on my hands. Convincing people to part with more money than mentioned is not something I'm very good at.

Hopefully every bit of bargaining, haggling and negotiating(in that order) with the toads in the two piece suits will pay off and I'll be on my merry way to feeding people on dry land for a change. I haven't worked in a while and with my knives willing, I shall have that scary sharp touch that rests dormant within my fingers, ready to come alive with a slash.

I'm tired of this city being just the way it is.... unchanging and constant like Atlas. Nothing new left for me to explore or marvel at. All the wonder has been drained out of it by stalking the streets under the cover of restless nights and mornings spent half dreaming, resting the fever of days past wandering in the blue and the haze. Time to move on I guess. Time again to find a better way to calm down and hunt for a bottle of '68 Margaux to sooth my transit into the floodlit grey of a different latitude. I think I'll manage to live the decent way down there as long as I don't run into any more fights and favours.

Don't exactly know when I'll be able to post again

So stay tuned for the next episode of Amazing Greys

This Is D'Evil Sam

signing off

Headlines

2009-04-22T11:00:00.003+05:30

I steadily keep losing my faith in humanity and the morning news never seems to disappoint.

A lady was smothered to death in her home by three men and a woman and was then hanged from the ceiling fan with a sari. The murdering cockroaches then turned their attention towards the lady's nine year old who had just witnessed the crime and tried to strangle him too. The boy passed out and the beasts left him for dead.

The child survived but I don't know where he is or how he is doing. Hopefully he will live on with the scars of watching his mother being killed right in front of his eyes. They say hope is a beautiful thing....I still wonder why.

The funny thing is the father of the child and the husband to the murdered lady was worried about the 2.5L missing from the locker in his home.

Now you know why I call myself The Laughing Man

Goodnight Julia

2009-04-15T14:25:00.002+05:30

I cant sleep it seems as the colours wash away slowly from my rain soaked dreams. They change their shades to desolate grey and slip away, forced back into the abyss by the sunlight seeping through the haze. I wait then, looked after by an odd little friend. She comforts me with her verses paranoid and lips of ash. The colour of the night in her eyes deceives me, her blackest eyes put me to sleep. Sleep is peaceful, she lets me sleep within an illusion of the half light in her eyes.

I am in suspended animation. I dream again of unnamed colours, magnificent desolation to be found in soft silver deserts. Through the sands I ride on the wind and into a Fata Morgana of words and whispers. The dune castle stands perfectly still, no high tides at the horizon threaten it. The hall belongs to the master of the living ink. The blood on the canvas tries to put the finishing touches to an unfinished portrait. The master has long passed away into the arms of death. The portrait was beautiful unfinished.

I woke with a start and wished for longer days, she was gone, my odd little friend. She had left my side as I slept so soundly in her illusions. She is a drug I sense, to change my eyelids translucent to dark. I need her to rest these tired eyes. Her presence is the night and her absence, the light. She is the pill to kill, the favourite nightmare to put me to sleep. There is no morning now, not even a night. She has left me wandering in a sad but eloquent twilight. She fills my soul with darkness strangebeautiful, enigmatic silence and bitter sweet apathy. I search for her, swimming through sad oceans, drowning in the waters of juvenile sadness and adult depression.

The radioactive skies above me, I fight my demons valiantly. A tin soldier missing a trigger finger, I finally fall in battle like the fading petal of a Rose in Autumn. I see her by the doorway, a silhouette of a memory. I say goodnight Julia and walk into the sunset of eternal sleep, humming a waltz for Zizi.

2009-04-13T02:29:00.018+05:30

I'm shamelessly samshed by all this whiskey right now. I'm celebrating the end of my fever and I don't feel like speaking. I'm going to let Calvin and Hobbes do all the talking for me:

P.S: The last one I love. That was me 4 years ago on a night in May :)

Paradox, Placebos and Prayers

2009-04-12T03:38:00.003+05:30

Faceless names and the cursed sun

Locked away laughter deep inside

Empty spaces and narrow streets

The neon glow and a place to hide

Same as always I stand so still

Trying so hard to fit that perfect bill

On the evening I found the shallow truth

Flooded with darkness deep inside

On the edge I saw the bitter end

Pain washed away by a bottled tide

Near the end I found the hollow man

He asked me never to take a side

III

I pray for the sounds to quiet down

The last kiss to wipe away your frown

Feel the hope begin to fade

With the day's corrosion

My heart weary waiting

Waiting for December

And I did forget

Forget to remember

The Lizard Pt.IV

2009-04-09T17:04:00.000+05:30

(Previously known as 'La Famiglia')

The Lizard never had much of a family. His father was a hardened man who, at the age of sixteen, was left with a very careful mother and a very young brother to take care of. His own father was run over by a speeding taxi on one fine August morning and left to the crows. The innocent bystanders just looked on till the cops came and took the lifeless corpse to the morgue. The next morning, after the smell of breakfast had dissolved into the air, the men in uniform walked in through the doors with the shadows of Sorrow and Loss trailing behind.

At the very silly age of only 24 he decided to get married....a decision he still fails to comprehend. As his designs stood simplified and with the inevitable demise of his dreams bearing down upon him, he felt the urge to try his very best at salvaging what was left of his world. In his despair he fathered two sons....one was a Lizard and the other a piece of dull matter, both incoherent and undesired in existence. By the age of 28, this hardened man had turned into a being of stone with layers of slightly tanned skin hiding the truth. He became an alcoholic and a chain smoker, wearing the mask of a very respected banker by the light of day. The man was a Nazi when it came to his children and discipline. There was a time when he used to enforce his brand of family values with something....lets just say that it was something more than a few harsh words.

The Lizard's mother was a victim of paranoia and routine. She had many unfulfilled dreams and decided to sleep through most of what was left of a day, dreaming of those same dreams, trying very hard to give shape to them. She would lash out quiet violently at an alarm clock or the Lizard, the closest one she could find. She was quiet bored with her life, all the wit and the colour sucked out of her face by the very same man who she had so blindly decided to share a bed with.

She set out on an adventure and decided to have a colourful affair with a Spider who taught algebra for a living. The Spider left her, all tangled up in a sparkling web of flawless lies. She struggled to free herself of it but alas, a few of those fine silk strings still managed to latch on to her fingers and one toe. She was living a half life, slowly decaying into simpler parts, the sum of which was infinitely insignificant in her own little dollhouse of a head. Scared of all forms of reptiles and cold blooded creatures, she did her best to keep away from the Lizard. One quiet morning in August, the Lizard decided to put an end to her fears and took to the ceiling, crawling away from her sight. The road to damnation has always been paved with good intentions.

The Lizard didn't have too many things to say about himself. For him, silence was always perfectly affordable. He wasn't too good at pretending to be a victim and thus chose to highlight all his pitfalls as the source of his uncanny powers. He spent a good five years or so of his obscure life, caught up in a heady daze of alcohol, drugs and insanity. He decided to come clean one bleak August morning but it was never meant to be. He continued drinking, falsely convinced of his immortality and the fact that he could drink, drink for a drink and he never quiet regained his sanity because he didn't have much of it to begin with.

The Lizard has lived a good part of his life on the lines of the Cheshire Cat, eternally grinning from ear to ear and partially invisible.

Of Suicidal Girls and Pseudo-Serial Killers

2009-04-04T13:16:00.000+05:30

Slitting wrists and popping pills are like the IN thing right now. Everybody seems to be doing it and nobody seems to be able to achieve the desired result. They just end up screaming their lungs out on a hospital bed while the doctors stitch them up like a jute sack or shove a plastic tube down their throats to pump the poison out. After last night, I got the feeling that most people don't actually understand what death means. They take it to be too simple, a method to solve a stubborn problem, a way to grab attention or climb up the popularity chart. They fail to realize that life is complicated but death as a solution to it is purely painful and equally stupid.

I wasn't feeling too well. The fever refused to settle down even after I continuously blasted the bug with whiskey and aspirin. Later in the evening, after shooting myself with some good and proper medicine, I began to feel a little better. The delirium was slowly fading away and my senses were well on their way to recovery. Things were looking up....they usually don't stay that way for too long.

3rd April, 7:45P.M. The phone began to ring and although I wanted to ignore that incessant beep with all my heart, I picked it up against my better judgement. Syko was on the other end of the line. He said something like "Dude, you gotta help me out....the cops are after me....Debs slit her wrist or something...." The first two sets of phrases were not very unfamiliar. I heard them too many times to be properly surprised. The third and final part of what he said put me in shock.

My very good friend Syko is a true blue Ladykiller as far as the bluntly literal meaning of the term goes. During our first year in college, he used to date this apparently non-psychotic girl. He lost quiet a bit of interest in her over a good number of weeks and one fine morning in September, he decided to break up with her. It was all turning out to be very simple and civil but that was until she popped a mile long strip of sleeping pills and tried to kill herself out of some semi-retarded reason. The entire fiasco was covered up well by the college authorities and the girl just disappeared overnight. I know for a fact that she still lives. She was just another number on Syko's list of victims. The man can only be defined as a serial killer for the lack of a better word.

Back to 3rd April, 7:55P.M. After managing to get over the initial shock from what I just heard, I tried my best to think of a way to clear up the mess. That feverish feeling began to crawl back up to my head again or it could have been the bad feeling in my gut that something very disturbing was about to happen. I went out to find Syko and I did. He was looking a bit too helpless. He told me that he had broken up with Debs a couple of days back and today, sometime in the evening, a friend of her's had called him up to inform him that Debs had locked herself up in a bathroom and had slit both her wrists.

The insanity didn't end there. The girl's parents had got her admitted into intensive care and had also filed an FIR against Syko on the way to the hospital. Brilliant!!! Damn these over-reactive parents and their psychotic children. Why do they have to get the innocent bystander involved in their blood feuds?

10:45P.M. We were faced with two choices. Go into hiding and become a fugitive on the run or wait for the cops to show up. Neither of these brilliant plans seemed to appeal to my good friend, who was steadily slipping into a stupor. The man finally had blood on his hands and he wasn't liking it one bit. The murderer was feeling squeamish. No more of those easy ways out left now....time to run the gauntlet. During the next fifteen minutes we decided to go visit Debs at the hospital and take it from there. We did.

11:40P.M. It was not a pretty sight. The razor had run its course but she didn't have the nerves to finish the job. The girl was stretched out on a table dressed in pristine white and there were at least a thousand odd colourful tubes running in and out of her. Her skin looked lifeless pale, stretched over an uninspired and saddened face. She looked young....younger than she was. Did she realize what she had done? Did she ever think before she decided to end her life for someone who didn't give a fuck about what happened to her as long as the cops stayed away from him? I was sitting on the outside, looking in through the glass at all the misery and bloodshed and wondering why. I decided to ask her for the answers if she should ever decide to re-join the world of the living. In the distance I could hear her father screaming threats at Syko and her mother breaking into hysterical sobs at regular frequencies.

4th April, 2:20A.M. I just came back to my 300.sq.ft of solitude. On the way back I got drenched in the rain. I can feel the fever coming back to life. All the words Syko had said to her father were in vain. He was still going to press charges against him....a misplaced sense of justice I think. It wasn't going to help his daughter or make her feel any better. Maybe I'll see her tomorrow, as a small footnote or an obscure obituary in the local news and she will have left me with all those questions I wanted to ask her. The cops tomorrow wont pose much of a problem but this fever and all the suffering I have seen is wearing me thin. Much to my surprise, I decide not to drink away the blues, write about it and after downing a Crocin, I went to sleep like any other normal sick man would.

Room #518

2009-04-02T14:08:00.000+05:30

I have had this fever for a while now. The last four days were a heady haze. It has been painful....battling cycles of fever as I tried to find a few hours of sleep in a pool of my own sweat. The fever got way worse last night. The thermometer said 102F. Even that vodka-aspirin fixit didn't work. I was feeling a little helpless, lost maybe but after a very long time. I thought I had managed to forget the feeling of helplessness after all that alienation and isolation but alas, it was still there, hiding around the last delirious bend in my brain. Somewhere between feeding scraps to the cat and trying to stop the bleeding from that nasty cut I got from a vengeful shard of glass, I remembered the last time I had such a bad fever way back when I was an inmate of Room #518. The P-16 chapters were over but as I lay there drifting in and out of delirious reality, I felt gravity acting on my eyelids and as the lights faded to black, I went back to Room #518.

Its 4:00 A.M and the air is slightly heavy with accumulated smoke from countless cigarettes. I see Harry and me sitting slightly stoned or drunk and staring into the computer screen....we were watching all the Bourne movies, back to back. Tomorrow's exam isn't one of the tough ones. Simple stuff....we think we can crack it and decide to go to sleep the next day, after the paper was over and all.