Fables of Desire

It has been the most eventful of winters. The sun has started to peek its bright nose out from under the foggy clouds and I can feel the warmth revive my pores. I am having one of those great times of my life, when everything is going at this fast yet lazy pace, when everything seems blurry, but perfect and nothing really seems troublesome anymore.

 I know it will end soon, in a week or two, but in the meanwhile, I am going to bask in the soft sunrise as I drink mint tea and revel in the art of savoring time. I write a lot of poetry when I get into a mood like this. I absolutely relish and blissfully indulge myself in poetry at such times.

The poem that I am posting here is a short excerpt from my daily journal, one that reflects this mood of mine, when even the things that bothered me so intensely in the past year seem just mildly bemusing but there is still the intensity of  desire woven into the words. Always.

I feel that strange pull of desire

Again amalgamate with the fire

That lights up the flames of my being,

My subsistence, my expression, my core.

I want you, yet I do not want you anymore.

I need to be, yet I need not be near you,

Your sweet intoxicating perfume.

You are so familiar to me and yet not quite

As much as I would like.

If only I were a vision in dark molten blue,

Rallying through the midnight sky

Trying to find you, traces of you

In the ruins of my elusive sleep.

Tangled beams of my daydreams

Mingle with the ripe uncertainty

Of not knowing if I want you too.

I feel like I do, then the seasons change,

The seasons of my varying emotions.

Devils playfully rage with Angels,

Angels of sleep and Demons of fire,

Rage away under my skin,

As I try to decide or understand

Why I can no longer stand

To allow myself to want you,

Although I do, I really do.

 Do enjoy the rest of the pleasant days before the ruthless summer starts to burn us into oblivion. I love that line from a LDR song called 'Gods and Monsters'. It says that Life imitates Art. Let us all try to make it so. Too-d loo. 

 

Silent Noise

 People have funny ways of disappointing us. Some do it willingly, some do it because it’s their natural state, some do it because they have no other choice, some do it simply out of love and yet there are those, who disappoint without even knowing it.  I wonder what it would be like if we could all see in a straight line, in the format of a table or a chart, the amount of times that we have disappointed someone and never known about it or the times that we have gotten so very disappointed and never let the person know, or even uttered a single word. What would it be like to see that? I am sure that many of us would rather not. However, I can’t help but wonder what its outcome would be to my psyche. Would I be sad? Motivated? Angered? I just do not know. I guess one could say that I do not know myself well enough, but consider this: How much do we really know about ourselves? 

The human mind is an abyss of undiscovered depths. Do you think that the universe and its unanswered magnitudes are the deepest, most unattainable secrets of our human lives? Try the human mind and the ability to be human sometime. After all, one could argue that everything that we do know of and believe is a product of the human mind. The only thing we know for certain is our own being and at the very depths of our being, in the midst of all our emotions and experiences, at the very heart of it, dwells this small sliver of disappointment. 

We can all deny it and most of us choose to do so their entire lives, however, there is at some point, in some way, an echo of sadness in all of us. A tiny piece of sadness that resides in every single one of us. We carry it around with us, unknowingly, every day and every second of our lives.  It has been passed down for generations and eons, burning through our veins, pouring into our mind, defining and illuminating certain aspects of our lives. Yes, we carry it in us every day. Some days, it shrinks to a size so small that it gets by unnoticed and some days, it expands itself into every corner of our consciousness, spreading its tentacles into our deepest memories and swirling its pain through our unanswered dreams. Disappointment and sadness. Yes, they echo through our endless human lives.

I see fleeting beauty in those traces of sadness that we carry around in ourselves. I find it so very beautiful when the rain falls as tears roll down, as if the universe mourns your sorrow too. I feel its beauty in the crushed photos and souvenirs of lost times and memories that reside in my diary. I feel the full force of its loveliness when I’m surrounded by an overwhelming silence, silence so loud that its voice can be heard with every breath on a stuffy Saturday afternoon. I can taste it in the whispers of old songs and melodies that recall those lost traces of my life that I had buried deep inside.  

I felt it for the first time when I chased a train right up to and beyond the platform, a long time ago and I don’t believe I have ever found so much beauty in sadness as I did that day. I had never felt such power of my being before. In that moment, when I realized that I could feel so sad and so strong at the same time, something within me changed. It made me see, made me aware of myself. I sometimes wonder if I had ever really felt my feelings before then. It broke through my walls, my chains, my barriers. Sadness and pain do that better than any other emotion.

It is very easy to run away from sadness, avoid it, bury it and chase it to the nether of our minds. I would rather face it, confront it and love it as the child I never wanted, then loved and then lost. It seems more natural to me to carry it willingly and conclusively, like a battle scar, proud and evident than to bury it somewhere or run from it for all of time. It is a part of all of us, just like our happiness and our love for our close ones. Do we tell our heart that we love it and our kidneys that we hate them based on their functionality? No, we do not. It’s the very same thing. We need and love our kidneys just as much as our heart. We need our sadness just as much as our contentment. One would be so useless without the other. One would be so incomplete without the other.     

The Playlist

It’s been months, it’s true. I don’t mean to sound cynical, but I doubt if anyone’s out there listening to my ramblings anyway. *tap* *tap* Are you there? Do let me know if you are.

It has, however, been one of those extremely tiring phases. You know, one of those chapters of your life that make you feel like you've been hit by a bus (emotionally) or drained to the last drop (physically). I don’t want to go into the gory details here (believe me, it would be nothing more than a pity party), but it has been rough, yes, definitely.

It takes considerable effort to bring yourself up to that stage where you can leave the world to its own vicious self and just sit back, switch off, put your headphones on and listen to some summer tunes.

So, yeah, let’s talk music. There is obviously nothing I could say about music that hasn’t been said before. We all have come across those lines: ‘Music is an escape’, etc etc. However, the way I see it, music is anything but an escape or a drug or any other similar metaphor it’s labeled with. In fact, I find music very revealing and evolutionary.

I have discovered more things about myself than I ever thought possible through the music I listen to. It especially has an uncanny way of letting me know the precise state of mind that I am in. I might want to listen to Moon river and pretend I’m Audrey Hepburn singing longingly into the night sky one day, and the next day, rock out to some 80s tunes (while wearing neon socks and pretending that my hairbrush is my mike, of course).  Today, I’m in the mood for some doleful Lana Del Rey as I watch the incessant Bombay rain pitter and patter onto my window pane. Such is the power that the tune and the lyric have over me. It’s like a mirror and the reflections are who I have chosen to be for the day.

So, to sum it up, when I’m stuck in one of THOSE aforementioned phases for a while, I come up with a great playlist, that helps me face reality in a way that makes me not want to punch it in the face. Those crafty singers with their crafty songs.  All at once, I’m handed over my demons for confrontation and reflection and I don’t mind it one bit. I brood on the songs and let them show me things I have conveniently chosen to overlook (which is the root of all my problems in the first place)  and I’m then filled with the freshness of tomorrow and the willfulness of the past, longing to make the today count.

No, it’s not a Playlist. It’s a lifeline, an opportunity.

So, I thought I would share my playlist for this monsoon with you. I hope you love the songs and find that the music soothes your soul too, and takes the edge off, far far away. 

Warwick Avenue – Duffy

Pawn Shop Blues – Lana Del Rey

Cherry Wine – Nas ft Amy Winehouse

Girl You’ll be a Woman Soon – Neil Diamond

The Reason – Hoobastank

Again and Again – Jewel

I Need a Doctor – Eminem ft Dr.Dre and Skylar Grey

Tiny Bubbles – Don ho

Cheers (Drink to That) – Rihanna

National Anthem – Lana Del Rey

You – The Pretty Reckless

If You Could See Me Now - The Script

Swallowed In The Sea - Coldplay
Ready or Not - Bridget Mendler

As you can see, I don't have a specific genre. Don't you think it's a lot better that way? I so hate stereotypes. Enjoy. :)

What? Weight. Wait.......WHAT?!

Beauty is subjective. Everyone have their own ideas about what’s beautiful and what looks good. No problem. What does bother me though is that it doesn’t seem that subjective. It seems like everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE, is running after a particular image of beauty that is defined by certain parameters which are not only affecting our day to day lives, but also wrecking the things and people that are most important to us. I am willing to bet on everything that is dear and near to my heart, that every single one of you have always had this particular ‘image’ of beauty befuddle you and push you or someone you know and/or love into an abyss of self doubt and depression. We all feel inadequate. We all feel unhappy at some point about the way we look. It doesn’t matter if we are thin, wispy, athletic or curvy. We all have always had that evil little voice that has been viciously programmed into our brain whispering that you’re either just not good enough or you’re too thin or too fat or too much or too little or whatever. I must point out at this moment however, that when I say ‘we’ I mostly mean women. Not that I believe that men don’t go through any of this. Of course they do. We live in a very unconditionally judgmental, rigid and egocentric society and I’m sure that several men go through it too. Believe me, I know. However, the reason I say that women are the focus of this particularly unpleasant and sticky problem is that they are much more influenced and affected by it. Their entire lives practically get defined by it: Whether they want it to or not.

Nothing is ever good enough for anyone and I think it’s time to admit it. The thin ones complain that they’re too skinny, the supposedly ‘fat’ (I hate that word) ones complain for supposedly apparent reasons and even the ones who don’t seem to have any problems and allegedly seem to have more than their fair share of that particular image of beauty that we were talking about earlier (C’mon, we all know what that is – your super ‘perfect’ hourglass figure ranging within the 6 to 0 size range or any other similar kind of absurdity we all come across incessantly) are unhappy about some blasted feature of themselves. We all care a little too much. We all obsess and mope about something that we shouldn’t be so unhappy about no matter what. I’ll tell you why: Because it bloody doesn’t matter!

It doesn’t matter what your attitude towards life is; it doesn’t matter if you are a cynic, an optimist, a realist, a mystic, religious, atheist or an agnostic: at some point in our life, we all criticize ourselves, we all define ourselves by what everyone else thinks and sometimes we go to the point of hurting and torturing ourselves. It does not change the fact that our closeness to the so called ‘just what the doctor ordered’ image of beauty that has been bombarded onto our psyche from different mediums since before we could even speak, just doesn’t matter. Different religions, cultures and communities have always believed in different versions of beauty. However, we forget that beauty is the most vague and elusive of all the abstractions. The sole problem with beauty is that we humans have tried to classify it, in our obsessive need to classify and stereotype every single thing that has ever lived, moved, subsisted or not existed.

I will bury myself and never surface if I ever again hear someone who is perfectly fine, complain that their hairline is abysmal or their ‘love handles’ (seriously) are ugly (hate that word too). Why can’t we just look for beauty everywhere? Why try to fit it into some narrow pigeonhole? I see beauty in the glint of sunlight shining through someone’s hair. I see beauty when someone spontaneously bursts into uncontrollable laughter. I see beauty when someone stumbles, then steps back and in an incredibly unassuming and good natured impulse, has the ability to laugh at themselves. I also see beauty in an impeccably designed pair of shoes, in a gorgeous colour or in an extraordinarily amazing texture. Why should I define beauty within the boundaries that are set by the world? I have never believed that I was born to live my life on anyone else’s terms but my own and why should anyone else believe otherwise for themselves? How are we ever going to be able to love, respect and accept anyone else if we can’t give ourselves the same consideration first?

So for all those who think the glass is half full, here it is: You are beautiful, no matter what your size, shape or whatever it is that you consider so purportedly horrible or contemptible about yourself. And don’t you dare let anyone else ever let you think or even tell you otherwise. We all have those qualities unique to ourselves that make us interesting, beautiful and absolutely delightful.  Our world is much more vibrant, beautiful, varied and exciting than any particular classification.  It’s great and very important to be healthy, but I doubt if today’s obsession with the way we look and the over-hyped and exceedingly stressed ‘weight’ issue can be classified as even close to healthy. I am absolutely sure that there are better and happier ways of getting and staying healthy.
Also, for all those who think the glass is half empty (C’mon, its important as we are all utter cynics at least twice a day): Look at it this way: **** it. We are all going to die someday. Yep, I said it. Meanwhile, let’s just enjoy life. If we simply HAVE to schlep our way through it anyway, why not take pleasure in it? It’s like Joey said during a hilariously droll moment on Friends: “If you’re gonna do something wrong: Do it right. “

Knock on my door.

 I did put this poem down, I did write these words, but I have a firm belief that poems are not written, but they are a gift from the creative expression of the entire universe. This one is especially sweet and very simple...not intended to wow you into a literary haze, but to relate and identify with an emotion so beautiful and genuine that it is rare in today's world of dispensable relationships, insincere faith and general flakiness.

I was making a wish upon a broken star,

When you decided to knock upon my door.

I was dreamin’ away, but my life so far

Had been an utterly inescapable bore.

But that was before you knocked on my door.

Being in love is a cruel joke they said,

That we humans play on ourselves day by day;

But in my heart I know that I’d rather drop dead

Then watch my reflection in your eyes fade away.

It wasn’t a joke any longer, when you knocked on my door.

There is no going back anymore,

No falling back into my insidious ways.

No scrambling around, no time to deplore

As my mind locks me into a state of malaise.

But that was since you knocked on my door.

I wouldn’t say that I’m nobody without you,

I wouldn’t demean myself to an empty shell.

But you sure know how to complete my view

And suddenly, maybe the orient isn’t below hell.

But would that be so if you hadn’t knocked on my door?

Time may fall and distance may weep,

The strings will stretch too far, too wide;

Yet I let you go as I lull into sunset sleep

I’ll be okay when my tears have dried.

It’s been too long since you knocked on my door.

Maybe wishes aren’t enough, I think,

Marveling at the beauty in your eyes;

Life isn’t blue roses and frothy sea pink,

With its highs hidden as lows in disguise.

Maybe I’ll make my mind up when, once more,

You kick up a stride and knock on my door.

Smile (No, It won't kill you)

As long as I live and breathe, I will never forget that smile. Coal-dark skin, blazing under the sweltering sun, lanky matted hair, dirty feet, filthy hands and the most amazingly beautiful sparkling white pair of teeth under it all. It was a priceless gift that I had been awarded with after I gave her a mars bar lying in the recess of my bag. It was an ordinary day considering that I had bunked my classes again and decided to spend it on a favourite spot at Juhu beach, gazing at the serenity that bounced swiftly to and fro, from the blooming waves. I was the moon and the sea was the sun as it effortlessly reflected its calm understanding and placid beauty in my heart and soul. I sat there, on a rock, nursing my battered spirits, preparing myself for another onslaught by the fast and the furious that define Mumbai like the stars define midnight.

 A tiny pair of grimy hands interrupted my reverie as they tugged on the hem of my skirt, swaying with a plea for alms. I swiped my arms in a waving motion with the usual ‘Haath nahi laganeka’ as I saw her sorry face swarming with disappointment. Remembering the superfluous piece of comfort food that I had smuggled under my mother’s nose, I fumbled around in my bag and presented her with the chocolate bar. There it was. That smile. Brighter than the sun, the sea and the city put together. So sweet and so simple was the moment, that it etched itself in my memory forever. Her face transformed instantly as her eyes brightened and her face split into a broad grin, echoing with unconditional happiness and gratitude.

It made me wonder, have I ever been that happy? I’ve had more comfort and much more opportunities in life than she has or will ever have. Yet, I doubt if I have ever felt that way. It was then that I had an epiphany. We all can be just as happy, no matter how big or small the object of our joy is. We simply choose to be despondent and discontented. We choose to be pessimistic and unsatisfied. The reason for this stigma is probably the fact that being cynical and displeased is much easier than being happy, grateful and fulfilled in what you have and who you are. It’s the easy way out, which is probably the reason why most of us do it. We never consider each moment as something of an entity in itself but just as a passing figment of endless time. However, we forget that each of those ephemeral figments together form our entire existence. If even a single moment was skipped, who knows what would happen to the world as we know it?

Ask anyone who has ever been or is in love. They will talk about a phenomenon called ‘time standing still’. It’s not the time that stands still, but a momentary lapse in our eternal ignorance of how much each and every moment counts. Suddenly, time doesn’t exist anymore but just the beautiful existence of a feeling so exquisite that the moment in which it was felt is suddenly elevated from a fleeting scrap of incessant time to an entity of its own, to be remembered and cherished. Why can’t we revere every moment like that? Why not? Imagine if we choose to appreciate every moment like that.

So here it is: It’s completely your call. Take some time out today, to be you and to be happy being you. For all you know, your problems, your difficulties, the people around you, this entire world might be a figment of your own fertile imagination. Who knows? Do you? Might as well enjoy it.