Funny when a song you already know suddenly comes back, all piping and relevant to your life? A few lines from Green Day's 21 Guns...
"When you're at the end of the road
And you lost all sense of control
And your thoughts have taken their toll
When your mind breaks the spirit of your soul
Your faith walks on broken glass
And the hangover doesn't pass
Nothing's ever built to last
You're in ruins
One, 21 guns
Lay down your arms, give up the fight
One, 21 guns
Throw up your arms into the sky, you and I"
Wednesday, October 6, 2010
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Klutzy little thing called...
It's always the same vicious cycle, taking the plunge into a new well only to discover that it's not the one you would like to hop around in. Does she mean the words she says, or do they come from a dictionary picked up late this morning?
Of what point is the journey when the horizon can't be seen? Living for the day sounds nice, but then, tomorrow also happens to be one.
This is not your first, but it shall be your last. The little babe with the diaper and arrows is no friend of yours. Admit it, you have made mistakes, but they can be undone.
Like Old Clint told Sister Sara, everybody has the right to be a sucker once. But you have been there, done that far too many times to count.
This time, you call it quits.
Ends.
Of what point is the journey when the horizon can't be seen? Living for the day sounds nice, but then, tomorrow also happens to be one.
This is not your first, but it shall be your last. The little babe with the diaper and arrows is no friend of yours. Admit it, you have made mistakes, but they can be undone.
Like Old Clint told Sister Sara, everybody has the right to be a sucker once. But you have been there, done that far too many times to count.
This time, you call it quits.
Ends.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Know Everything
So you think you know everything, through words absorbed from a media of letters and flickering images.
So I think I know everything, through warped conclusions drawn from sordid incidents in my life.
You are the blue of the sky, I am the scorching sun you sweat under. In a world where only grays exist, both of us are right.
And our worlds will never unite.
There shall just be you and me, never a trace of we.
So I think I know everything, through warped conclusions drawn from sordid incidents in my life.
You are the blue of the sky, I am the scorching sun you sweat under. In a world where only grays exist, both of us are right.
And our worlds will never unite.
There shall just be you and me, never a trace of we.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
Waiting for Ms Reaper
It is not the first sprint, but the last lap that counts.
Far away, in the distance, she waits for me,
Even as I inch my way through, as slow as can be,
A lot of love's in her cold embrace, I know,
And in her skeletal arms I can rest, forever more.
Oh, how I long for the end - to melt into sweet nothingness,
It's what I was born for, since life's first caress,
But the road there, I'm afraid, is what I fear,
The pain, the misery that separates my love from me.
Okay, enough of this... I tire already,
How long do I bang on this cage, wanting to be free?
But then, I could be wrong, sooner may be the end,
Maybe she's right here, at the very next bend.
My mistress eternal, Death.
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Mr President... NO!!
Our Honourable President A P J Abdul Kalam visited the European Union Parliament at Athens recently, where he recited a certain poem for the benefit of all the hapless attendees. For those who have missed out on it, here's an excerpt:
Beautiful environment leads
To beautiful minds
Beautiful minds generate
Freshness and creativity
Created explorers of land and sea
Created minds that innovate
Created great scientific minds
Created everywhere, why
Gave birth to many discoveries
Discovered a continent and unknown lands
Ventured into unexplored paths
Created new highways
In the minds of the best
Worst was also born
Generated seeds of battle and hatred
Hundreds of years of wars and blood
Millions of my wonderful children
Lost in the land an sea
Tears flooded many nations
Many engulfed in ocean of sadness...
A pity, huh?
This isn't funny in the slightest. Wondering if a signature campaign would prevent our long-haired friend from committing similar atrocities in the future.
P.S.: Looking at the brighter side, now I know that my poetry ain't the worst!
Saturday, April 28, 2007
The Road to Ill-Fortune
(Ah, this one's turned out to be quite a crappy piece of fiction. But after having spent nearly four of my working hours on it, I did not have the heart to flush it down the loo. SIGH! There go my dreams of becoming the next Stephen King...)
He walked down the country road, a basket in his right hand. The sun was in a little too bright a mood, and the heat was making him dizzy.
“Stick to the main road, Juan,” his mom had told him, “Don’t venture into any of the paths that lead into the forest. It’s dangerous... and there are wolves around!”
“Yeah, Yeah,” he had said, before running out of the house with all the enthusiasm of a six-year-old. Now, two hours later, he was tired - and he had almost nothing to show for it.
There were hardly any berries on the roadside trees, and even if he found any, they would be around just because the berry-pickers before him had found them worthless.
Just four in his basket now. After toiling for two hours. What a waste of time, thought Juan. But still he walked ahead — because supper depended on him.
Two more hours went by, and he still handn’t reached the ten-berry mark. “Can’t take anymore of this,” he thought, letting himself collapse under a tree.
He kept staring at the road. It stretched on and on like an infinitely-long serpent, to the very point that the horizon seemed to eat it up. And all the trees by its side were bare, preyed upon by the sun and the ones who had come before him.
“Might as well give up and fall asleep under this tree, forever,” thought Juan dejectedly. Just a moment before he saw the small path that led into the forest.
Should I? Should I not?
In that fateful moment, Juan made the biggest decision of his life: “Mom said don’t ... but bugger mom and bugger her idiot instructions. I’ll just pop in for a minute.”
The trail
The entire landscape seemed to change the very moment he entered the forest. There were more berries, and they weren’t spoilt like the ones on the main road.
Of course, the berry trees here had more thorns - which jabbed into his hands and made them bleed - but who cares about a few scratches when the pickings are so good? “And bugger the sharp rocks under my feet too,” reasoned little Juan, ”If the extra berries in my basket come at the cost of a few sores on my feet, that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make..”
And he continued to traverse the forbidden path, which had now started going uphill.
A few miles into the forest, Juan noticed that the berries were now found to be aplenty. And even as the boy’s basket grew heavy with fruit, the rocks under his feet grew sharper and sharper. Time to turn back, Juan’s inner voice told him, but no - he just had to have a little bit more.
So he walked and walked, even as the trees around him seemed to grow denser with each step he took. The sun, which had been bearing down on him for so long, was getting dimmer now. And in the distance, he could hear wolves howling. But still he walked, the basket in his hand starting to glisten with redness.
The path had become a mountain trail now, and one wrong step would mean a quick but gory death. But the berries were all that mattered now. Anyway, with the moon so high up in the sky, it was too late to go home.
Much too late...
Then, from the shadows, he saw two creatures emerging. They could have passed off for wolves, if not for the shreds of cloth that still hung on to their hides. Grotesque creatures, not much taller than him, but with fangs and claws that promised to tear him into half.
“Who are you?” he asked.
No response greeted him. The werewolves just stood and stared, their figures forming awful silhouettes against the midnight moon.
“Who are you?” Juan asked again, breaking into a cold sweat. After what seemed like hours, one of them growled: “We are the ones who came here before you. The berries in this forest belong to us ... empty your basket under the ledge and you can go back with your life.”
Juan looked under the ledge and... lo, he couldn’t believe his eyes! Hundreds, thousands, millions of the red fruit lying under the shadows ... all gathered by the two villains before him.
“No,” cried the boy,” I won’t do that! If you want my berries, you will have to fight for them!”
“Gladly,” said the two in unison, even as the greyness around them assumed a shadier tinge, “Now that you have asked for it.”
With that, the creatures leaped on Juan — their teeth gnashing with hatred. And even as he felt them pile up on him, the boy realised that death could be the only way out of this mess.
They were stronger and wilder, but Juan was desperate. He wriggled and squirmed in the realisation that it was his life — not wild berries — that mattered... and with each bite, each scratch he took - Juan felt himself becoming more and more like his werewolf assailants.
If he got out of this alive, he knew, he would be stronger than ever before. But the catchword, unfortunately, was “alive”.
It was time he showed some initiative. Suddenly, Juan pulled himself together and kicked the first wolf on the shin. And even as the monster grimaced, Juan shoved him hard, sending him plummeting to his death... hundreds of feet below.
This seemed to surprise the other, and even as he stood distracted by its friend’s plight for a split second, Juan rammed a stone into his skull. And the battle was done.
After a few long minutes, the victor slowly tottered up. Wolf skin was already beginning to cover his body now, and it would be just be a matter of days before he grew some real fangs.
But the best part was... the berries. So many berries, he thought with some pride, I may need a truck to take them home.
But then came the afterthought: Who wants to go home now?
I am the best there is... the most powerful! Juan let himself know, before throwing his head back and letting loose a loud full-throated howl. Which was just about the last thing the half-werewolf remembered doing before he felt the earth crumble around him, and fell off the mountain to a certain death.
Juan woke up an hour later, and he knew instantly that he wasn’t going to survive the night. “Aww,” he thought as tears welled up in his eyes, “Just one diversion from the road, and here I am. O, if only I hadn’t taken the forbidden path...”
If only I hadn’t taken the forbidden path...
The Real World
“If only I hadn’t pinched that stupid watch...” mumbled Don Juan suddenly. This was the first sound the Don had made ever since he was brought to the hospital with a bullet-ridden stomach a couple of nights ago.
Martinez jumped up and ran to his side, but the old warlord had already breathed his last.
“Hey Dog! Come here fast! Call the medics! I think the boss is dead!” he shouted. Dog brought the doctors along, and they did everything short of thumping the Don’s spirit back into his body — but no — he was as dead as doornail.
Dog turned to Martinez: “Did the boss say anything? About who the empire is going to? Anything?”
Martinez looked confused: “No.. nothing. Something about a watch...” Then, as an afterthought, he added: “That’s weird. They told me the last statement of the dying always makes sense. Why would he go to sleep talking about a bloody watch?!”
Dog just snorted. “Aww... maybe he was just talking in — what do they call it — extended metaphors. Anyway, come off it... we have to go inform the others.”
And even as the sound of their footsteps receded into the distance, a radio turned itself on in the next room: "Chicago underworld kingpin Don Juan was fatally wounded in an encounter with gunmen led by his protege, known only as Senor Oliviera, on Sunday afternoon. The incident had taken the ageing Don, who had just acquired total control over the city after allegedly eliminating two of his most dangerous rivals, by surprise. According to sources, the wounded Don is still in a very critical condition..."
FIN
He walked down the country road, a basket in his right hand. The sun was in a little too bright a mood, and the heat was making him dizzy.
“Stick to the main road, Juan,” his mom had told him, “Don’t venture into any of the paths that lead into the forest. It’s dangerous... and there are wolves around!”
“Yeah, Yeah,” he had said, before running out of the house with all the enthusiasm of a six-year-old. Now, two hours later, he was tired - and he had almost nothing to show for it.
There were hardly any berries on the roadside trees, and even if he found any, they would be around just because the berry-pickers before him had found them worthless.
Just four in his basket now. After toiling for two hours. What a waste of time, thought Juan. But still he walked ahead — because supper depended on him.
Two more hours went by, and he still handn’t reached the ten-berry mark. “Can’t take anymore of this,” he thought, letting himself collapse under a tree.
He kept staring at the road. It stretched on and on like an infinitely-long serpent, to the very point that the horizon seemed to eat it up. And all the trees by its side were bare, preyed upon by the sun and the ones who had come before him.
“Might as well give up and fall asleep under this tree, forever,” thought Juan dejectedly. Just a moment before he saw the small path that led into the forest.
Should I? Should I not?
In that fateful moment, Juan made the biggest decision of his life: “Mom said don’t ... but bugger mom and bugger her idiot instructions. I’ll just pop in for a minute.”
The trail
The entire landscape seemed to change the very moment he entered the forest. There were more berries, and they weren’t spoilt like the ones on the main road.
Of course, the berry trees here had more thorns - which jabbed into his hands and made them bleed - but who cares about a few scratches when the pickings are so good? “And bugger the sharp rocks under my feet too,” reasoned little Juan, ”If the extra berries in my basket come at the cost of a few sores on my feet, that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make..”
And he continued to traverse the forbidden path, which had now started going uphill.
A few miles into the forest, Juan noticed that the berries were now found to be aplenty. And even as the boy’s basket grew heavy with fruit, the rocks under his feet grew sharper and sharper. Time to turn back, Juan’s inner voice told him, but no - he just had to have a little bit more.
So he walked and walked, even as the trees around him seemed to grow denser with each step he took. The sun, which had been bearing down on him for so long, was getting dimmer now. And in the distance, he could hear wolves howling. But still he walked, the basket in his hand starting to glisten with redness.
The path had become a mountain trail now, and one wrong step would mean a quick but gory death. But the berries were all that mattered now. Anyway, with the moon so high up in the sky, it was too late to go home.
Much too late...
Then, from the shadows, he saw two creatures emerging. They could have passed off for wolves, if not for the shreds of cloth that still hung on to their hides. Grotesque creatures, not much taller than him, but with fangs and claws that promised to tear him into half.
“Who are you?” he asked.
No response greeted him. The werewolves just stood and stared, their figures forming awful silhouettes against the midnight moon.
“Who are you?” Juan asked again, breaking into a cold sweat. After what seemed like hours, one of them growled: “We are the ones who came here before you. The berries in this forest belong to us ... empty your basket under the ledge and you can go back with your life.”
Juan looked under the ledge and... lo, he couldn’t believe his eyes! Hundreds, thousands, millions of the red fruit lying under the shadows ... all gathered by the two villains before him.
“No,” cried the boy,” I won’t do that! If you want my berries, you will have to fight for them!”
“Gladly,” said the two in unison, even as the greyness around them assumed a shadier tinge, “Now that you have asked for it.”
With that, the creatures leaped on Juan — their teeth gnashing with hatred. And even as he felt them pile up on him, the boy realised that death could be the only way out of this mess.
They were stronger and wilder, but Juan was desperate. He wriggled and squirmed in the realisation that it was his life — not wild berries — that mattered... and with each bite, each scratch he took - Juan felt himself becoming more and more like his werewolf assailants.
If he got out of this alive, he knew, he would be stronger than ever before. But the catchword, unfortunately, was “alive”.
It was time he showed some initiative. Suddenly, Juan pulled himself together and kicked the first wolf on the shin. And even as the monster grimaced, Juan shoved him hard, sending him plummeting to his death... hundreds of feet below.
This seemed to surprise the other, and even as he stood distracted by its friend’s plight for a split second, Juan rammed a stone into his skull. And the battle was done.
After a few long minutes, the victor slowly tottered up. Wolf skin was already beginning to cover his body now, and it would be just be a matter of days before he grew some real fangs.
But the best part was... the berries. So many berries, he thought with some pride, I may need a truck to take them home.
But then came the afterthought: Who wants to go home now?
I am the best there is... the most powerful! Juan let himself know, before throwing his head back and letting loose a loud full-throated howl. Which was just about the last thing the half-werewolf remembered doing before he felt the earth crumble around him, and fell off the mountain to a certain death.
Juan woke up an hour later, and he knew instantly that he wasn’t going to survive the night. “Aww,” he thought as tears welled up in his eyes, “Just one diversion from the road, and here I am. O, if only I hadn’t taken the forbidden path...”
If only I hadn’t taken the forbidden path...
The Real World
“If only I hadn’t pinched that stupid watch...” mumbled Don Juan suddenly. This was the first sound the Don had made ever since he was brought to the hospital with a bullet-ridden stomach a couple of nights ago.
Martinez jumped up and ran to his side, but the old warlord had already breathed his last.
“Hey Dog! Come here fast! Call the medics! I think the boss is dead!” he shouted. Dog brought the doctors along, and they did everything short of thumping the Don’s spirit back into his body — but no — he was as dead as doornail.
Dog turned to Martinez: “Did the boss say anything? About who the empire is going to? Anything?”
Martinez looked confused: “No.. nothing. Something about a watch...” Then, as an afterthought, he added: “That’s weird. They told me the last statement of the dying always makes sense. Why would he go to sleep talking about a bloody watch?!”
Dog just snorted. “Aww... maybe he was just talking in — what do they call it — extended metaphors. Anyway, come off it... we have to go inform the others.”
And even as the sound of their footsteps receded into the distance, a radio turned itself on in the next room: "Chicago underworld kingpin Don Juan was fatally wounded in an encounter with gunmen led by his protege, known only as Senor Oliviera, on Sunday afternoon. The incident had taken the ageing Don, who had just acquired total control over the city after allegedly eliminating two of his most dangerous rivals, by surprise. According to sources, the wounded Don is still in a very critical condition..."
FIN
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Dog Days
It was in the last couple of months that the dogs in my city achieved infamy.
Apparently, a large number of the streeties had decided to gang up and attack a four-year-old human (the name was Manjunath, I think) in broad daylight.
The child was mauled to death and consequently, the city embarked on one of its biggest kill-the-mutt campaigns — exterminating hundreds of dogs, many of which were presumably innocent of anti-human crimes. Experts, who excelled in baiting the canines with fish hooks and strings, were brought from neighbouring Kerala to end the ‘menace’.
Dogs ruled newspaper headlines for the next few days.
Dominating the other columns in the papers were animal rights activists, who claimed that the administration’s reaction was a little too extreme. There were rallies, with activists taking innocent-looking strays into the streets — large signs proclaiming ‘PLEASE DON’T KILL US’ and ‘NOT ME, SIR! I DIDN’T KILL THE BABY’ hanging on their necks.
I am a dog-lover, so I supported the animal rights campaign. My line of thinking went: So, if a gang of men kill a baby - do we exterminate the human race in general? Hell, I even wanted to go and join those people a couple of times.
That was about a month ago, before that fateful night happened.
The Incident
Like I may have told you earlier, my job as a journalist requires me to keep very late hours. And I generally ride home between 2 and 3 am, when desolation and plastic ghosts rule the streets.
Now, I have faced dogs earlier, like the time when I was working with The New Indian Express ... but I would bet my life it wasn’t as bad as this.
When I, mounted on my trusty GLX, turned into that particular Indira Nagar street, a scary sight greeted me. The streetlights were shot, and in the darkness I could see thousands of eyes lining the roadside. Staring at me. Unblinking.
I turned my bike lights on, and saw them. Dogs of all kinds — brown, light tan, dappled, black hairy, hairless — slowly climbing onto the road to block my path. And they were there to the very end of the horizon, which touched the HAL II Stage road.
The mutts were starting to bare their fangs now... their tails wagging slowly, from side to side.
I did the only thing I could in the circumstances— lifted my feet as high as I could, revved up the engine and tried to reach 80 kmph in 2.5 seconds. About the same time as the dogs pounced upon me, gnashing their teeth.
I was scared. Scared shitless, for my life and body. The bike zoomed ahead like a rocketship-gone-insane but still, the hounds from hell were everywhere. And apart from the dogs, there were puddles on the road too — one wrong swerve and I could go down in a blaze of glory.
In those fifty terrible seconds, Manjunath was not just some name in a newspaper. Manjunath was me. Running scared for his life.
At seventy-five kilometres per hour, I heard a bump. I had hit one of my attackers on its rump, and in the dwindling distance I could see it painfully pulling itself across the street. Strangely, I felt no pity, none of my usual holier-than-thou sympathy ... no, this time I was happy with what had happened.
The bastards drew first blood. That mutt got what he deserved.
The dogs were still around. My speedometer needle was fast approaching 85, when — suddenly — another bike came up right in front of me.
Even in the glare of his headlight, I could see his frightened face. The situation seemed to be scaring him too. Don’t have a problem with that but, hey, I am fighting for my life here — GET OUTTA MY WAY !!
Even as I heard hungry jaws snapping around me, I had this terrible vision — of my bike crashing into the other, both of us flying in the air before hitting the ground with a thud ... and then, the idiot dogs chewing on our remains.
Instinctively, I took in a deep breath and closed my eyes tight.
But nothing hit me, save for the wind. I looked around.... now there were no dogs on the scene, just a lonesome truck approaching from the distance. I had reached HAL road. Safe.
I could hear the canines in the distance, trying to get at the other guy ... who didn't seem to be enjoying himself either.
I don’t know if the doggie dearies realised it, but they had just lost a friend.
Post Script
They did it again last night, and the night before. Though I still don’t want them to be killed or castrated, ending up as dog food doesn't seem to be a very attractive option either.
Another day, another dilemma. As usual.
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