two

1.
Sometimes the world seems so beautiful  in its happiness ...in its sadness ..saturated with feelings..turning of  history...the century old instincts of man ....so bright in its sunlight..so compassionate in its shadows .....
that not being able to share it with anyone is such a pain....such a pride....such a restlessness....

There are other moments too..when you want to be alone....not met anyone.."don't give me the eyes"...your face heavy....your identity confused.....your ego hurt....self esteem low....

and it keeps rotating between these highs and lows..for me.....and i am always living in these moments...the other moments are just ignored  as dull ....uninspiring....

And i don't know if that's okay...


2.
There was always a  war going on the beach.

There was a lonely boatman always on the water on his lonely boat thinking how wise he was and how mature not to have participated . in such meaningless wars.

Then one night he felt envious of all the life on the beach...he felt he was as good as dead...

He got drunk and took a sword and landed on the beach and declared " I want to fight"

Someone asked "On whose side?"

"Any side"

Someone came forward and pierced his heart with a knife saying " We don't need any lunatics".

Then he woke up and realized that he had been dreaming. Devising this story in his mind for long .....he realized he was neither the lonely boatman nor one of  the warring tribes....he was the dream of the boatman of the tribe...and the dream of the tribe of the boatman.....

and his shirt was indeed stained with blood....


(only if life cud pass on these whims...lol)

Mirror

Love yourself?
Why wont a mirror suffice then?

Stolen dog

Like Freedom

From air to air we go
we feed on crystal clean air
and make fruits and delights of imagination
the sweetness of bread
the beauty in an half seen smile
the smell of childhood
are gods we worship unknowingly
The door seems open at times
We wait saying
"One day..one day.. not yet"
Let the distance ..the fog in the view
the absence the clean air
turn into ripe fruits
Forever sweet and for ever free
In memory the smell
the song to guide us through the days
we pass waiting for
One day..one day
We shall surrender everything
And return to air.


(Does this sound too prophetic?...which is an odd tendency in me.....thats why i dint post it for years...
anyways....it represents a recurrent philosophy or idea in my mind)

Earth , rain , river , flood and elephants

The valley is alive with its first rain.
The river is mad smashing the pristine banks,
carrying ants snakes.....flora from distant mountains
Chill and shiver ..the swaying paddy fields.
It will ..it will merge the drying ponds
The fishermen who smoke rolled tobacco leaves
Are casting their  net from  elephants .
Smoke is rising from a  village
hidden behind the bamboo bushes.
Where women are lighting diya 
On a banana leaf with vermilion and mustard oil
And setting it on the water


And the light from the diya falls on her eye
Her feline aborigine eyes


And damn I don't have my camera
And if I have it ...it wont focus


(This is a dream)

All Of Them Left

From Randomz

Winter in a small town

There was a small house on the other side of  her lawn.A pretty house -she thought one winter morning - painted light blue on the outside with a balcony facing the rising sun. There was  an old wooden chair on the balcony and two pots growing "pudina" and Holy Basil.But the first thing that strikes your eye were the marigold flowers.Golden yellow, turmeric yellow, burnt yellow marigolds filling up the terrace, the small lawn,

& the balcony.Voluptuous marigolds.She had a name for the house in her mind " The marigold cottage" ..she called it.

The house belonged to a certain Mrs Banerjee who had  terminal illness.She never saw Mrs Banerjee although she wanted to.She hoped she would find her basking in the sun one day on the  balcony and  she had rehearsed in her mind what she would say " such a pretty house ma'am...and lovely marigolds"  And if the conversation moved ahead she would confess " I wish I would own a house like this when I grow old ...to live alone in  a house like this with all time and all the books that I want to read...sitting on  chair lust as you are sitting now".But as it  happened Mrs Banerjee never sat on the chair and these words were never spoken.

All she could see were the servants and occasionally a doctor coming and going out.

With the arrival of January the winter was at its peak.It would remain foggy till noon and then for a few brief hours the sun came out .She would stay inside most of the time on holidays..asleep or cooking or talking over the phone to her boyfriend who seemed so distant now.Everything felt distant ...a distance intensified by the fog by the silence all around.At night she could even hear the mist gathering  and falling from her tin roof house as if it were a light drizzle outside.Sometimes while returning from work she felt she had reached the end of the world.And how she wished a sunny morning ..to wake up and look at the marigold flowers glowing in the sun- the mist sparkling on the petals.

And then one morning Mrs. Banerjee died.She woke up to the sound of cars and people shouting.She rushed out in her sleeping gown and caught a glimpse of a frail old lady being put into a medical van.How frail were Mrs Banerjee's limbs with just the skin clinging to the bones ...eyes shrunk into holes.A bangle that seemed way too large for her hand -was still in her arms.The dead body was clad in a loose cotton night gown and wherever it touched the  body -it gave the impression that it were a skeleton inside- not a human being.

She came back inside  if only to avoid all those people staring at her. Lest she might seem callous to what was happening around her which she was glad to be though.All that she wanted to remember about her  winter

 recourse were the marigold flowers and the beautiful house and the hope of meeting a motherly old woman one day in the balcony.Selfish ..selfish she was she thought as she sipped into the black coffee she had made and so be it.

After an hour or so the commotion had died down.She opened the window to see the marigold cottage locked.

Remorse came suddenly.She should have talked to the lady..dying alone in an empty house.Should have talked or showed some concern when they took the dead body away.Now there was nothing to be done.Nothing could be done.How many times she had felt like that she din't know.She remembered a school incident when a boy had proposed and she had refused saying " OK thanks for the chocolates and flowers ...and stop shaking you idiot and get lost". Later when she saw the cherub faced boy all turned red  and crying she had felt like she was feeling now.During the recess she went up to the boy and tried to say sorry(and she was quite conscious that she always looked ugly whenever she felt sorry) the boy had replied "fuck off you bitch".She smiled as she remembered  it.Then she looked at the house again ..and remembered  

"to live alone in a house like this with all the time and all the books that I want to read",...and then ......and then to die alone like Mrs Banerjee.

It was the coldest day of winter.She closed the window.

With Mrs Banerjee's death all the marigold flowers died within a month.Maybe due to the lack of care or the  passing of winter. Spring came and then the summer rains.The lawn became covered with grass and weed . The wooden chair caught fungus.The blue paint of the house weathered into a bleak white.

The window that was closed that morning was never opened.She had left the house and went back to the city.

During autumn Mrs Banerjee's son moved in with his family into the house.They painted bright yellow and put on lights everywhere on the terrace ,the balcony the lawn.At night it felt like there was a festival going on.

The nearby house was again taken by a university student.

By the time of winter the Banerjee family had cleared the lawn and planted the marigold flowers again.

And in December the terraces were again full of flowers.

Even bigger and brighter than last year.

Fever

Nausea and headache ....and weakness.....

how calm accepting and unassuming they have made me.

As if I am finally ready to go home.....seek love in the eyes of people

come what may ..i am not preparing....i am not going back into my shell

all resistance is given up..along with all high brow intellectualism....

oh after all these days ..i think i am loving kolaveri D

Mongoloid Electronics

Worm holes to Seoul &  Tokyo
Start at the Meitei village
Secret routes lead to black markets
Cheap Akai VCRs &
Sony sound systems
Hidden beneath
an incomprehensible tongue
A closed community with
free licenses to miniskirts
and promiscuity

A church looms in the distance
Where teenagers wed
with a band that plays Guns n Roses
With Electric guitars
Pioneer amplifiers

While we listen to sad Tagore songs
On an old Philips radio




(dedicated to the time I grew up in a small town called LALA in Assam.And I dont mean offense to any community.Its just a childhood feeling I am trying to put into words.)

Dream

Your fingers are still so frail
With the skin peeling off every winter

Baarish

How long can you discover new things?....the internet is almost exhausted....of course there is that idea and those books..and that singer ..that are yet to be explored...but i feel reluctant already...

Occasionally you find something that strikes you...something without a long preface..and you keep it in your basket to be relished again and again ...

So its not new things ...sometimes an old melody that you once liked..feels so haunting again...and you turn back to it again...and again...

there are so many of them ....and below is one of them definitely

Reaping The Harvest

Winter is knocking at the door
Ants are busy gathering the last crumbs of the mad summer
The frogs have mated and are digging now for hibernation

In search of a home...they are now
The gathered honey and wax
The years harvest to be locked inside  hearts
To peep  through the furrows at the meek daylight

Or the cold cold breeze
Drying the concrete
Scratching the frail skin
On bitter cold mornings

Reaping the harvest now
A dead telephone
An empty mailbox
And a frayed blanket

To sleep alone.....

You lied

Show me extremity
While I sit safe in front of my laptop
Give me a conclusion
And a  lesson in every story

One minute poetry
Shock values and
Blurred outlines
Photography

Spend the night with the Devil
At your own will
And then ..how sad..
That you could not resist

All those years in exile
You tried ?
You hedonist
You lied.

Life

There are birds that have not returned home
There are waves that never reached the shore
There are children that never found a grandmother
There are songs that were never sung

There is a home never to be reached....

Hold on
Hold on
Hold on!

Dizzying past

Slip through satin sheets of memory
Make love with the snakes
Fall into the morass

Look ..look for vanished empires in the desert
Freedom in the strange folk songs
Dive in the beauty of a masked face

Long ..long decisively
For what cannot be found
what cannot be owned
what cannot be touched

One curtain after another unfurls
Entices with a glimpse of the  beyond reach
The chiseled unknown ..unspeakable

And keep distance
Err the proximity makes it all fall apart

CRIME & PUNISHMENT

CRIME:

drink too much.spend too much.indulge ....indulge....and indulge.I want everything.Tonight I take revenge on life for all its injustices.

PUNISHMENT:

wake up with a guilty feeling..identity crisis.who am i?where do i belong?the Bengali  middle class?...what about bargaining with the green grocer-er?..oh pain at looking at the father at the shop denying his son a Cadbury Bournville cause its too expensive....pain at looking at colleagues oh so concerned about changes in the payslip...

Mad Season

The pessimist"s wife is in love with her optimist yoga teacher
His indifference falls apart   when he sees them dance together

In the most secret and dark corner of this world
On a wretched day he had showed her
His insane smile
That he called
"home made pickles from 1989"

And thus stripped of that pride
Where will he hide?

Living

1.Living

Two dogs were fighting over a piece of bone
And when one could keep it long enough in its mouth
In a pensive mood he would lecture about canine compassion.

2.Come tell me how you live

Are you the weight lifter?
Or are you the swimmer?
And how many times have you been raped?

And at last what price did you pay to make someone listen to your story?

Kehta hai dil

jaise yudh me jane se pehle ek sipahi akash ki taraf dekhta hai

jaise nayi naweli dulhan subhe  apne kamre ki khirki khulke dekhti hai 

ek chota sa angan

jaise naye raste bulate rehte hai dur desh ke lorry  drivers ko

jasie ghar chor ke boarding school jane pehle ki hichkichahat

jaise sagar ke samne khare dil ghabra jata hai itni azadiose

jaise adhi rat ki bechaini suraj ki kirno ke liye

jaise chourahe par koi sochta hai..ab kis raste jaon

kehta hai dil

lakho kahaniya shuru hone ko hai

kehta hai dil

sare manzile intezar mein  hai

(do u remember the Star plus soap Kehta hai dil..." aj rat das baje "KEHTA HAI DIL" sirf star plus mein..or something like that..whoever voiced those schedules had an epic voice..suddenly remembered it)

Camouflaging

1. Survival Strategies

Never show an ounce of sincerity
And if they ever catch you
keep a mask ready
turn around and face the crowd
and say politely

"I think u are mistaken dear
I am just the joker"


2.The distance

proximity
like a  mollusk on your skin
Its blind innocence
Its slimy caress
Its beautiful shell
swallowing you inside a jelly filled bubble

better the roads
better the dirt
better this ugly skin
the comfort of
camouflaging

Love Story

Together Wendy we can live with the sadnessI will love you with all the madness in my soul                                                     Bruce Springsteen



the duduk is the instrument i was looking for....

and trees want to walk

the desire of the eunuch to make love
the dream of light of the blind
the depravity of the dumb to see people speak
the ecstasy of life in the eyes of the dying

a koel's cry in the ear of a crow

the hope of the insane to be accepted in society

and even trees want to walk
the dogs want to speak
an ocean of depravity
screaming ''me me me'

this stark inequality

Change

Change...everything changes...but change is an enigma...a mystery to the infinitesimally small being.The mind wanders at the change of season..at the change of day into night.As if all of these are the workings of someone beyond our knowledge and understanding......

An image comes to mind where it is eternally daylight...eternally summer .and all of the people are known to u....reason tells us that such a place must be a boring one.But it has security.Like home.

To imagine that today was the last autumn afternoon..the autumn of 2011..never to come back again....lost in the distant horizon with the slowly fading daylight...the mild cold breeze..and realizing.that so much  is going to change in the coming days.The mind is unusually troubled at such a thought...is reluctant to let go of the ways of summer.Is at apprehension of loosing itself and the small nothings it had gathered and the sentimentalities that have come to define it....Because wasn't the summer a change after winter?...now its winter again....and all that u learnt and the blankets that u gathered to provide ur fragile heart a home..are about to be replaced..

and it feels like i am powerless ...unwilling to let go......

its like a threshold that  has to be overcome to be at peace again with the winter...

and the mind already knows the sights and smell of whats coming...like meeting an old friend after a long long time....and u are uneasy about it... because its like falling again into the past..into the abyss of time gone by..to gaze at the face of it and to realize that life has not broken new grounds ...its again the same..the same.....to condescend  into admitting it to some one from the past...to whom u shud have moved on...
moreover its winter...and brings the smell of drying earth ..only to push you into sea of subliminal lives you have lived....that of a carrot growing under the cold earth...in the night while the frost drip down its leaves..that of an owl hooting from some tree...in the dead of the night...the sound of  gathered frost falling in droplets...to see an vision of purity like the times at nursery school and falling into a reverie looking at illustrations of  rhyme books..."Hickory dickory dock..The mouse ran up the clock"

LORD NOT AGAIN...NOT AGAIN

so lets order the drinks..and make it easy...and look out at the future ..of hundreds of summers and winters to come...and share the memories we have had together...and we know each other too well....to have a lot of talk ...

 ur silence at early morning....wrapped with the ashen gown of fog and like a mischief in my heart an image of walking alone on a distant hill ..listening to "piya basanti re "....wud be enough.......

music always accentuates a feeling...and the inner working of mind can fit any music to any imagery...
for me its the x files theme with this..

Some favorite poems by Indians

1. The Moment by R. De L. Furtado

They woke up in the attic
And saw the hesitating drop
On the tip of the icicle
Hanging from the eave.
'It's four O'clock' , she said
And withdrew her out flung arm.
Under the moon the stillness
Covered the slender cherry tree ,
Oblivious and alone,
Beyond that stalactite of glass.
A world of bloodless phantoms
Touched with silver and snow !
" I shall make some coffee", she said
And threw away the blanket
And tip toed into the dark.
Then: "Drink and don't say thanks".
They looked at the icicle again
But the drop was not there.
How pale the substance of memory:
The drop, the warmth, the cherry tree,
The slow beating of their hearts -
It all ended like bits of glass.

2. Travelers by Deb Kumar Das

We flew the wide-upon plains; the night before us
Flying on a broomstick
With twinkling stardust shaken from the brush.

Les cremona; memory
Of quiet mirrored evening
With faces lit by slow candles of autumn

And we remembered too
Lazy walks down crisscrossing shadowed piazzas
And quick fingers quivering on a zither.

We flew again into quiet country
Where leaves flirted with the frowning twilight
And rivers gurgled in the arms of quiet hillsides.

It was again
A remembering and a forgetting:

Old little whispers             New little words

Old little laughters             New little birds

Old whereafters                New fires to set alight.........

And into the night , the night.
.
3. Because Her Speech is Excellent by P.Lal

Because her speech is excellent
Give songs; but if you wish,
White roses.
White is her element.


Roses have prices when not on trees,
And white are scarce; instead,
She took love.
She said the summer would never cease.

The poignance of her eyes, her words!
Sun grappling with blue skies,
Apples, birds,
Apples and birds, apples, birds.


4. Another View of Grace by A.K.Ramanujan


I burned and burned.But one day I turned
and caught that thought
by the screams of her hair and said ' Beware .
Do not follow a gentleman's morals

with that absurd determined air.
Find a priest.Find any beast in the wind
for a husband.He will give you a houseful
of legitimate sons.It is too late for sin,

even for treason.And I have no reason to know your kind
Bred Brahmin among singers of shivering hymns
I shudder to the bone at hungers that roam the streets
Beyond the constable's beat.'But there She stood

upon that dusty road on a night lit April mind
and gave me a look.Commandments crumbled
in my father's past.Her tumbled hair suddenly known
as silk in my hand, I shook a little
and took her behind the laws of my land.

5.Enterprise by Nissim Ezekiel

It started as a pilgrimage.
Exalting minds and making all
The burdens light.The second stage
Explored but did not test the call.
The sun beat down to meet our rage.

We  stood it very well, I thought,
Observed and put down copious notes
On things the peasants sold and bought.
The way of serpents and of goats,
Three cities where a age had taught.

But then the differences arose
On how to  cross a desert patch,
We lost a friend whose stylish prose
Was quite the best of all our batch.
A shadow falls on us - and grows.

Another phase was reached when we
Were twice attacked, and lost our way.
A section claimed its liberty
To leave the group. I tried to pray.
Our leader said he smelt the sea.

We noticed nothing as we went,
A straggling crowd of little hope,
Ignoring what the thunder meant,
Deprived of common needs like soap.
Some were broken, some merely bent.

When, finally , we reached the place
We hardly knew why we were there,
The trip had darkened every face,
Our deeds were neither great nor rare.
Home is the place we have to gather grace.





6.An Introduction by Kamala Das

I don’t know politics but I know the names
Of those in power, and can repeat them like
Days of week, or names of months, beginning with Nehru.
I am Indian, very brown, born in Malabar,
I speak three languages, write in
Two, dream in one.
Don’t write in English, they said, English is
Not your mother-tongue. Why not leave
Me alone, critics, friends, visiting cousins,
Every one of you? Why not let me speak in
Any language I like? The language I speak,
Becomes mine, its distortions, its queernesses
All mine, mine alone.
It is half English, half Indian, funny perhaps, but it is honest,
It is as human as I am human, don’t
You see? It voices my joys, my longings, my
Hopes, and it is useful to me as cawing
Is to crows or roaring to the lions, it
Is human speech, the speech of the mind that is
Here and not there, a mind that sees and hears and
Is aware. Not the deaf, blind speech
Of trees in storm or of monsoon clouds or of rain or the
Incoherent mutterings of the blazing
Funeral pyre. I was child, and later they
Told me I grew, for I became tall, my limbs
Swelled and one or two places sprouted hair.
When I asked for love, not knowing what else to ask
For, he drew a youth of sixteen into the
Bedroom and closed the door, He did not beat me
But my sad woman-body felt so beaten.
The weight of my breasts and womb crushed me.
I shrank pitifully.
Then … I wore a shirt and my
Brother’s trousers, cut my hair short and ignored
My womanliness. Dress in sarees, be girl
Be wife, they said. Be embroiderer, be cook,
Be a quarreller with servants. Fit in. Oh,
Belong, cried the categorizers. Don’t sit
On walls or peep in through our lace-draped windows.
Be Amy, or be Kamala. Or, better
Still, be Madhavikutty. It is time to
Choose a name, a role. Don’t play pretending games.
Don’t play at schizophrenia or be a
Nympho. Don’t cry embarrassingly loud when
Jilted in love … I met a man, loved him. Call
Him not by any name, he is every man
Who wants. a woman, just as I am every
Woman who seeks love. In him . . . the hungry haste
Of rivers, in me . . . the oceans’ tireless
Waiting. Who are you, I ask each and everyone,
The answer is, it is I. Anywhere and,
Everywhere, I see the one who calls himself I.
In this world, he is tightly packed like the
Sword in its sheath. It is I who drink lonely
Drinks at twelve, midnight, in hotels of strange towns,
It is I who laugh, it is I who make love
And then, feel shame, it is I who lie dying
With a rattle in my throat. I am sinner,
I am saint. I am the beloved and the
Betrayed. I have no joys that are not yours, no
Aches which are not yours. I too call myself I.





(All poems taken from The Golden Treasury of Indo Anglian Poetry Published by Sahitya Akademi)

aCID

Inside each stone
There is a drop of acid
Lucky them who took antacids

Unlike us who kept it
to burn a hole into ur soul's surface
now  all it does is  to leak through my eyes
and spill in the most wretched  places
at the  unluckiest of times

Home

The afternoon nap is always nostalgic.I always wake up with the feeling "where am i?'.Everything seems out of place.Bad mood ..meaningless bad mood. Don't want to go anywhere ..don't want to do anything.The need for some visually pleasing emotion springs up.Like a cat cuddling up in your lap.And just like that every image turns medieval in my head...old wooden furniture and appliances.....a rusted kettle..smoke coming out of a hearth ....worn out cotton gowns...a drowsy lazy dog walking by..a shepherd bringing back his herd of sheep from the pastures...all of these in the pale light of dusk-the time when the sun is setting and the street lamp is not yet lit.And in that pale light just a look at the lonely street that goes round my building is like a dive into a sea.Its uncomfortable and uneasy but still you swim through it. As if all of the brightly lit reality is a dream...all of these people around me-friends and acquaintances seem unknown.The places and people where I belong seem to be
lost in that pale light....they call me...but i cant find them.I am left in misery like a baby who has not yet learnt to speak is thirsty for water.

And I wish I were in home like in the old days when I was at school and our home was full of people.Someone will light a lamp in my room, make a cup of tea, pull me up, and sit close and switch on the TV..
Teach me when to go to sleep and when to wake up ...talk about healthy foods and health concerns at the dinner table. Pull me back to life.

Elderly Woman sitting in bus in a small town on a winter morning

There was such an expression of peace in her eyes.Of a life going on smoothly- surrounded by people who have known her and respect her.An old hand bag in her hand.A steel box containing "pan betel nut lime  zarda ".She was knitting a sweater for some grand child.Talking with the bus conductor who  is saying" didi ..i kept a seat for u".She smelled of some Ayurvedic hair oil she used everyday...Imagine her nights with her children away and old age insomnia ...when she would wake up in the middle of the night and put some oil in her hair..Her mornings when she would take cha with muri..talking with the " masi" about local affairs.
Her afternoons when she would spend hours at ceremonies at " Thakur ghor"..Her evenings when she would see Ekta Kapoor soaps at the Tv and talk about them to the girls at home.She never feels anything wrong or changing in the society.She only cares about the well being of her children and grand children.

there she sits at the window side seat.Morning light playing on her off white shawl , sparkling at the tips of  the knitting needles...falling asleep at the frayed ends of soft wool.

Goodmorning Grandma...


(There is a song called "Elderly woman behind the counter in a small town" by Pearl Jam.But it describes something else.But the title brought this to my mind)

Take me somewhere nice

the rain clouds came and went away
and each day brought to my eyes a darker shade
of my mind
and in between those shades
and the weight they bestow
a glimpse of an approaching winter
made me turn towards my right
as if u were there by my side
 i said ''can u smell the approaching winter?..another year has passed.."
but you were not there..


a civilization just vanished into air
but nobody would believe me
each day i feel -
i don't know these faces  around me

wont you
hide me in your clothes, love
lead me by the hands and
take me somewhere nice


(inspired by take me somewhere nice by mogwai....and yeah its cheesy)

and u kno that nothing lasts forever....but u dont wait for life to prove that to you..u just indulge in a hedonistic
betrayal of all promises....what are u then called?...what?


by the way i am  back in facebook if any one cares

http://www.facebook.com/sandipan.n.choudhury

cant you get rid of ur dreams of womanizing, dreamer

and all of these ideas are for me ..for me only

Transition generation

I  am and now
and now mtv  and family
and now forgetting is  at the speed of light
and now selfishness  is justified
and now pass all the questions that u cant answer
and now cool cool cool down
have a beer at the bar
and now do what u like
do what u like


and now and then
a brooding afternoon calls back
rain in a 1980s movie leaves me drenched
and now and then i sacrifice myself
and jump into the ocean

you tell me -its just a light drizzle
and now forgetting is so easy
and i know nothing is forgotten

rain drops keep falling on my head

every now and then i feel whatever i am thinking or saying is already history.and they all are running past.my 'now' is years before.and i know nobody is listening.

then why this desire to tell about this drizzle when i am already drenched.

the jaws of life....

If at the end of the journey
at the very moment you choose to collapse
leaping  into  to the surrender of the greats
whom you have followed and revered
cause the journey shud end like this
in failure and sacrifice
in spite of all those sweet selfishness
that you tried to learn

if at that very moment
instead of feeling calm
there is a  twitch in your limbs
and you feel
"i shud have  been in the hospital"

From Scrapbook Photos

if u have played nfs underground u will kno that u cud roam through the city freely in career mode.

i used to feel that  that was the best part of it.. running away from the lights..the city..

and everything was so perfect....like if u cud runaway to the mountains , the mountains would also be that beautiful

gorillaz amarillo kind of reminded me of that imagery

the mountains are waiting

the full moon has come

i got lost in the highways

but dont ask me where i been 

or what i have done

The Machine

The machine is psychedelic.Its purpose is obscure.It was found at the abandoned military camp at the end of the barren fields.

The machine has rugged robot arms.It is grey colored and rusty.It has something to do with stars and planets.

The machine was part of something bigger.Those other parts were never installed.They lie scattered somewhere deeper into the field, hidden behind dead grass,or in some underground room in the abandoned army base.

The machine has a controller seat-hidden from view.And if u can run it it will make u all powerful.

There in the village at other side of the field a child asks his father" can i go there tomorrow?"
The father says "No -and now go to sleep"

The immense night stands outside the glass window that looks out at the field.Tangerine Dream's " Sequent C"
plays at the back of his mind as he dreams of going to the machine.

The night outside looks at the child sleeping.A gypsy moon hides behind some clouds.The night is insomniac.
The night is high on drugs booze and cigarettes.The night smells of the distant sea.The night knows the machine.It is just some old useless tank.

But the night cant break the glass window and see the machine within the child's dream.

 Its All Over Now, Baby Blue

From Blue

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From Blue

Monsoon






Monsoon has arrived with its armies of grey monochrome clouds.They came marching with fireworks n all.It felt fresh and something new when they arrived.Now after some days their stay has made the whole place stale moist and sad.The day does not seem to pass.The morning, the afternoon the evening -all seem the same pale grey.All the time it is raining.





The grasses are growing madly everywhere.They have covered up the car parking area.Here and there tendrils are clinging to metal posts.Sliding down the walls one even made it through the bathroom window.Then there is the fungus.Leave a sweaty shirt around the corner, tomorrow it will reek of them.

The eggs that the mother insect laid in her nest have all hatched, unleashing regiments of buzzing babies that throng around the sad looking tube light every night.And don't forget the mosquitoes hatching in stagnant patches  of rain water.You cannot dare keep the windows open at night.In the sad damp corners of the room every once in a while you will find a millipede crawling across.Outside newborn snails bite away at the budding twigs of grass.

Train Accident In Malda

From MALDA ACCIDENT

From Pics

From Pics

From Pics

I remember once i wrote a line "if trains would run through our courtyards" ...being brought up in a village in remote Assam even a  sight of a train was something of a wonder to me in my childhood....what it also meant was the inherent childhood dream of bringing things within the reach of my small hands...like "if the chairs were less high...the electric switch board  reachable ....if the trees were less high..or to make a small pond where u could see the fishes under water..and catch them anytime..(dont think its cruel...the fascination of a village Bengali boy with  catching fishes is eternal)...anyway...

just looking at all those villagers come out of their homes to see a train accident reminded me of that childhood dream...perhaps among the unknown faces someone will be so thrilled to look at the trains..,,at the strange news agency vans...

and he will not give a big lecture about the pathetic condition of Indian railways..

and time ..it passes on like anything
life in all its shamefaced moments
passes ....passes ...it passes by
today and now
are just a view from a train window


a shy father looks at his newborn daughter
the mother overwhelmed by it all
moments ..they glitter
moments they fly away
and what seemed stuck
and what would not pass
no one shall remember them


the humid banana leaves
the sly  insects  the on the grass
the mollusks ...even the slow sloth
have drunk  this sweet dew
are too busy to listen to the ones who stayed behind

the rain is soft and cool tonight
this sweet sweet sweet life

I am the Nepali prostitute writing love letters to you in broken Hindi,quoting bad shairs by movie Mujrewaalis to give my love dignity, a name.
You are the client who is missing when I open my eyes in the morning.
I will never know you carry my letters in your wallet,show them to friends on drunken evenings.
You will never know how far the idea of loving you took me.


(not by me. i read it in the blog http://andthenthemonk.blogspot.com/...whoever wrote it ...my regards)

From On the Sunday of Life

Bring your love baby I can bring my shame 
Bring the drugs baby I can bring my pain 
I got my heart right here, I got my scars right here 
Bring the cups baby I can bring the drink 
Bring your body baby I can bring you fame 

We

we, those who stay here
looking at the sunrises
and thinking of tomorrow
on an envelope of atmosphere
history lies in the backyard
and eyes that look out through the window
to golden corn fields of tomorrow
where are we going?
where?
at times peace seemed so dear
that i would have walked the streets naked
with a green flag, screaming "join me"
more closer to the fertile earth
where the earthworms dig incessantly
i would have embraced Satan
i would put human faces to stones

At times peace seemed so dull
that i would cut myself up
to see the squirting blood on your skin
at times i wanted to burn everything
Reality, u fools reality

yet history like a vast unending novel
stays in our hearts
yet to be deciphered
making us numb
stopping our gait

now the rain falls on the hilltops
only to remind you of what you have already seen

curl up the evolution
with my hands at my throat
unable to speak
curl up the poems that say nothing new
only eat its own frayed ends
reminding me that i am alone
with wants and needs like everybody

Do u understand ?
the rats now seem honest to me.

Darjeeling, June 2011

Such green is not of us
Such green and cold
Breeds other people
Not us.

Woes are hid behind the cloud-capped hill
In the silence of the swollen tribal face.
The stones don’t speak, the water is tired
Busy flowing past the stones
   In oblivion with clouds
     Silent , going
      Down the trench.


Some pristine and lonely spirit
Haunts the hills.
Her prayer is said in silence
The vegetation follows
   Heads downtrodden with rain
Intermingling brute hunger with innocence
     Unlike us.

Relics stay, I ask, ―what is that for?
Behind the Old Catholic church
Some romantic and old misery hurts
Like a tribal story, like a bible thing
Appears so desolate
And green green green

Not for us at all!
(Its quite an old poem just thought that it fitted here )

From Darjeeling

(the toy train station...i added too much film grain i guess)

From Darjeeling

(the town)

From Darjeeling

(near the lake in Mirik)

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(some memorial for the soldiers who died in Kargil)

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(the blue umbrella)

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(near Mirik lake)

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(the corn sellers)

From Darjeeling

From Darjeeling

(a view from my hotel room)

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(there is a raindrop on the lens)

From Darjeeling

(Globetrotter..eh?)

the pillows  smell of that dampness
and i am having that old  headache again
there is nothing  to do
the night outside gives the illusion
of an infinite free time

an old excuse
and old refuge
from everybody's eyes

yet tomorrow shall arrive
not with promises
but with a list of "to dos"

for whom?
and where to go?
i shall wait for the night
with infinite free time
with its illusion of tomorrow

and my home feels like this
like a yellow postcard from 1996
like happiness
at half-session declared at school
for the heavy rains
to return home and look lazily at
the black n white
illustrations of a rapid reader book

a home where nobody would be a guest
a home that shall drown with me

compassion was for all
and pity, the more common syndrome was also for all

but love ....it cud not be shared ....selfishly guarded behind closed doors...
doors of wood ..doors of thoughts and feelings

sometimes i think the courtesans(or better say  whores) are a lot better...sharing love(not only physical)....with lots of people....

perhaps in war with the deepest roots of society and the holy family....and consequently capitalism.....etc

Have you seen the world after a storm?
I wish I could stay in that mood for ever

May the eyes open once more
May all the pain find home today
May the dams burst
And let the river flow

From Overhauling

And i have removed all the curtains from  windows
lest the way they sway on certain evenings
when the weather is alright
make me think of you
and make me miss home

but each goodbye uttered loudly
is a more solemn way to say
that its not
but the way the future unfurls
with my hands more numb than ever
i know its a goodbye
and it entices me to indulge more deeply
into a cave i have long known

the only chosen  light at the end
of that tunnel
was you

so now don't bore me
with the differences between want and need
i am in love with the love thats inside of me
and its screaming
 "how could you deny me?
how dare you deny me?"

but some evenings are so lovely
i wonder could it not be
pity ?
err compassion?


 love n equality?

To God

fight with the one who has already lost

the game of dice you set for him

not to kill him

only to make him realize that

he is a looser

ye hawa sab le gayi

karwa ki ki nisha bhi ura le gayi

urte hawa wo wale milenge kaha

koi bata do mere piya ka nisha

samay yo dhire chalo

bhuj gayi raho se chao

dur hai dur hai

pi ka gaon

dhire chalo

samay oo dhire chalo by lata mangeshkar from rudaali

From Overhauling

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