Sky Blue....

When all the children in his class were busy singing at the top of their voices, jumping up and down in a state of frantic delight for reasons which he could never fathom, Sky saw something that changed his life forever. While all the kids generated the perfectly annoying decibel around him, Sky's eyes were fixed upon a crow, which incidentally was at the centre of the universe with respect to Sky at that time. The crow was sitting on the scaffolding on the fourth floor of the old red-brown theatre across the road. It was a dark ash-black crow, feathers ruffled by the morning drizzle, old enough to know how to clean its beak on the corner planks, young enough to pull up from a vertical nose dive just five feet above ground. The crow turned, shivered, jumped and then spanned its wings, planning an optimum flight path, as Sky guessed correctly, for the freshly cut fish pieces on the fishermans cart by the old, rusty traffic signal.
The fattest kid in the class, suddenly grew very fond of Sky and almost hugged him unconscious, in a rush of adrenaline, that Sky had inferred in the past, to be a result of shouting too many happy rhymes all day long. Gasping for air and wailing his arms, Sky managed to get rid of the choking arms, which seemed hell bent on loving Sky to death. He arranged his glasses back on his flat, freckled nose, looked outside and could not see the crow. He felt his heart grow cold, grow wings and start flapping.
There it was. Turns out, the crow couldn't even get close to the fishmongers cart. Seeing an experienced right hand, holding a large scaling knife, the crow had decided against being the last action crow. Sky felt as if the crow would have succeeded if he was watching. He felt a connection to the poor scavenger. The crow flapped hard, airborne it turned vertically once, yawed a bit and then sky caught a glimpse of an orange, pinned in it was the crow's beak. Zoom out. Sky saw a child, crying himself silly, complaining to the fruit seller and pointing at the crow. Sky leaned closer to the window with a sigh of relief. He could almost taste oranges and they never tasted this good.
The crow flew upwards, in small clumsy spirals. It flew up till it could carry the orange no more. Then it glided down, smoothe, continuous, fluid on the transformer fins jutting out at unorthodox angles on the pump house roof top. At this point in time, the teacher, tired of all the happy faces in the room, had made a dash towards Sky, keen to make him join the chu chu train. After a couple of awkward tugs, she had given Sky a dirty look, the one a nun would give to a junky, and moved on with her bunch of kids, who acted like they were doing anti-depressants.
Sky looked outside. There was a wisp of smoke near the transformer. Sky ran to the window and craned his neck outside. Medium in size, on the ground fluttering and burning, thirty feet away from the classroom window, was something that he would call a crow just a minute back. Sky leaned forward. He could see an orange, as if blackened by a firebolt on one side, lying on a shallow mudpool, white-black feathers all around it. Sky leaned forward some more.
Not many people know that Sky was born on the day of Autumn Equinox. On his birthday Cirrus Minor was closest to Earth than it ever was. He was destined to be the greatest poet ever. His poems could have ended religions or started revolutions.
Sky lay on the ground at an impossible angle. A thick, black-red stream from beneath his head crept towards the drains. Three stories up, screams tore the happy songs that were echoing the hallways. The heavens cried, the raindrops fell on Sky's open eyes. Sky was having an orange dream of flying on blood soaked feathers.

......bye bye blackbird......

Just for the record, I am the one who loves her the most.
She could never see that I was always with her. I was the old ragged toy she always had. The type of toys which can not be broken or torn, that only grow shabbier by the years, which would only remind her that once upon a time she was young. Many moons have passed since then. Change has not left her untouched. I have waited as time taught me. She lived frivolously with her harem of beasts and holymen. Every night, I had bled, her laughter bellowing in the hallways, the whole world shifting out of joints. I have run out of lives.
The angel wings tattoes on my back are gone. I have shed my skin and grown plastic feathers. Thinking of jumping to a bloody death is death still. At such a junction, the mind crosses over. The body adapts. I had jumped off the rooftops after her, taken a tumble down dark, bottomless holes. I have evolved. Come next fall, I would soar towards the heavens. My chest feathers are aligned, eager to taste speed. Wind would talk to me. She would whisper her ancient names, the ones which the sky never called her by.
Her farewell was cold, prompt and spotlessly clean, bordering on insanely subtle. I never had a chance to tell her that I dont want to let her go. She never turned back, not once. Now that she is gone, I do not want to see her again. The last goodbye is the hardest.
Just to set the records straight, I am still the one who loves her the most.

lies

my mind plays tricks on me. lost between this world and the next, i am blind. all my senses live off signs. my instincts long dead, caste long shadows at dusk.
but the signs foretold a lie, exactly as i wanted to hear it. the lie, grew up, with nutrition from my imagination, strength from my desires, heart from my dreams.
she grows. faster than moss on damp walls, quicker than blood smudges on a soldiers knife. she grows tentacles, teeth, talons, birth-crack. she takes the throne.
desire for dream, dreams for desire. my lie and I are one. sharing the same twisted time and space, we make each other stronger every passing moment. she slips and falls hard. angry, she gets up and swings hard at my glass palace. the castle shudders. thin cracks run across like mountain springs. she runs for cover. i take the throne. the day it crumbles, i shall find peace in my glass shard tomb.
mechanical butterflies would rise from my remains and plague the world with lies....

....departures.....

Rough day at office, as usual. The day passed me by like a haze. Very late small scale shared lunch. Moments respite to sharpen social skills as they say. Last moment version releases, a sweaty bus ride home.
Just had a chat with Sreemoyee. She is off to her sister's. She was happier than usual. I remember I was miffed with her! But I don't remember why anymore. When I sleep tonight, Orion would light her windows.
On a dim lit screen in front of me, the clock ticked past another minute. Evanescence sings softly. Sleep beckons with open arms.

....home....

Home again? I don’t know really. I feel homeless at times. I guess it is but a fault in my system. I get confused. I claw. I falter. I laugh.
Where do I belong? I should be home right now. Home is the place where ma and baba are. Or is it? Remember when you were about a 3 and ½ feet high and your parents would take turn holding your hands on a weekend movie trip. Was that not more home? “More home”. I laugh again.
We party hard every other weekend. Friends meet. In their new homes. And yet again if I did not meet them in the past, would I even be here. Was that day that I first met my hot headed friend not home enough? “Home enough”. I laugh once more.
Home is where my heart is. Cursed traveler, lost in a colloid of emotions, my Valkyrie rides on the high cliffs of norsland. I cry foul, I scream myself hoarse, my voice turns bitter. I have lost my way back home. She frowns. I don’t dream anymore.
I have left my home. I can’t remember the road back. It’s lost somewhere in time and space. I look for it now and then. I only see people clogging every vein of the city, not letting me out. My home is in ruins. I crib. I clutter. I sell it to a real estate guy. I get rich and lucky. I die laughing.

bacon fried from strips off my back, and all my bags should always be packed.....

Hey, its 8 in the evening on a Saturday already. I slept like a baby yesterday. No hangovers, not that I had drunk something. No engagements, not that I was invited somewhere. No phone calls, not that I was expecting someone to call.
Its going towards a dull, grey weekend after all, just like the doctors predicted. I had restrictions. Now they are gone. I am only left with decisions to make. Did I mention the endoscopy leaves scars inside the nasal septum? The tiny bulb atop the probe gave me a warm fuzzy feeling inside the head. Like always the feeling was followed by a scar and a world of hurt.
Custodian of Arka Management System, Keeper of Arka range of apparels and accessories, an O+ goddess, has not only taken the pain of giving birth to me but has also taken care of me till now. The ‘suji’ was served, the medicines arranged, she complains of how lazy I am. Her complaining voice assures me. Creator has however spent the day, lunging scornful looks at my time sense, and a tad bit time buying chicken from the market.
It’s official. I am bored. I have run the errands. I have mended the loose ends of my previous ‘messy’ week. So I give a call to one lone ranger in the wild wild west, friend of mine, we rode together. Had a nice little chat with him regarding happy hours, coronas and hangovers. I haven’t seen him for a long time. They tell me he has grown a paunch to give me competition.
A hangover, not that I had drunk something. No engagements, not that I was invited somewhere. No phone calls, not that I was expecting someone to call.
I have a hard disk drive. I have movies. The movies are in that hard disk drive I have. Exact trail of thoughts I had at around 3 in the afternoon. I had read Eisenheim, the illusionist recently. I was drawn towards him. I could feel the pain. As if it was mine. I watched the movie again. Deja-vu. For me the story ended when they saw that Eisenheim himself was an illusion. Made me want to end things just like that, vanish into the thin air. No pain. No anchors. No memories. The movie runs for more than an hour and a half.
A hangover, not that I had drunk something. An engagement, not that I was invited somewhere. No phone calls, not that I was expecting someone to call.
The light outside is dimming out. A clutter of lights in the flats across the street. I grow paranoid looking at my mobile. I think they have disconnected me from the world for not paying bills. But I am on pre paid. What is wrong with my phone? What is wrong with me? Then I get a call. I talk. I hang up. I feel a kink at the back of my head. Too many things were left unsaid. Too many things left to perception. Now it’s too late. I love myself. I hate myself for that.
Hey, its 8:30 in the evening on a Saturday already. A hangover, not that I had drunk something. An engagement, not that I was invited somewhere. A phone call, not that I was expecting someone to call.
My weekend achievements. I can’t mourn. I can’t cry. I can’t feel. I can laugh at myself….

Focus

When the projector is a bit too close to the screen the images get blurred. The picture grows hazy when its a bit too far from the subject. The perfect view comes when our subject of interest is in focus. Neither too close nor too far.
How close is close enough? How far is far enough? In focus. Concentrated. The true vision of what we want. Our focus, properly adjusted to view our very personal points of interest. Or is it too complicated to hold the focal length steady. Maybe its our focus which changes too frequently too randomly. I myself can say that my focussed attempts to find the focal length in most aspects of my life have left me totally confused and dazed.
Imagine this. Your distance this time is fixed. Your vision out of focus. What then? All you can do is change the curvature to adjust to this new focal length. You would do it if you want it badly enough, but in the process you would end up changing whats natural.
Everything now is hazy, out of focus, and horribly indescribably wrong. They sell wooden legs to soldiers going to the front. They colour babies black and white to make their mothers kill them. They put cameras in the eyes of a foetus kept in formalin solution and make a documentary about it named dawn of modern medical science. They cut out tongues while organizing singing classes.
Out of focus. Emotionally, sensically, humanly. I am tired of this hazy, crack-glassed view. I think i will wake up now. Did you vote this year? Did i land too close, or am i too far......

findings on a otherwise worthless Wednesday

i love chilled milk and corn flakes to thaw my sleep. i tend to overcook salami for breakfast. i love to eat my paratha so hot, that it burns my mouth. i hate the smell of corona after momo.

i love my parents. i envy that they managed to go on a trip to leh. i am dying for them to come back with the kukri they promised. i hate the fact that i am enjoying this stint of being home-alone, just like uni days.

i am drawn towards sarcasm. more so if its from a girl. more more so if its an absolutely stunning 'babe'. i hate how that leads to nowhere.

times i listened to 'carnival of rust' - 14 .no of hours i played doom3 - 1 . no of knuckle cracks - 9(left pinky left). no of times i wished things would change - 0.

i think i'll E now.....

Will-o'-the-Wisp

and just like that, she is gone...

calm seas whisper blood

plastic faces skinned and lined up....... a walk down the staircase sodden with smell of charred flesh....... take up thy scalpels....... nip tuck nip tuck nip tuck

i knew it. everything was perfect, too perfect........... where's my katana?