SMALL-TALK.

You know you’re something like a vague puzzle
When you’re drinking wine,
I just don’t know how to talk to you ,
Sometimes in the night,
Sleeping between a memory and a dream,
I see you, down and under and a gleam...
But i know memories are good...
They’re good yeah...if you don’t deal with the past, baby...

So lets just roll down, together in each other,
Lets just roll down, together forever...
Cause baby, you mean the world to me,
The world, yeah...with rains of vengeance,
Lets just roll down, together forever...

You know where this takes me today, early morning,
And your hands seemed so good yesterday,
When you poured me the glass of poison...
The way you talk, it makes me sit and wonder,
If we’re there still, it makes me sit and wonder
If at all, we were ever there-
And the questions, the answers, the hatred...
I can’t take it all...no...nomore...
Wherever you go, just leave your address,
I don’t want to seek you out,
You make up my world...
My world yeah...filled with poison...

So lets just roll down, together in each other,
Lets just roll down, together forever,
Lets just roll down, all the way,
Where we dare...
Lets just hide...yeah hide...from the sunshine...

- Sid.

Dreams Inc.


I walk past the ninth stone when the world sleeps with whores,

Enchanting are the lights, when the dead marries a tomb,

I kiss the dark and the groping pills, when vision is lost in the haze,

Rising from the ethereal blues the night sinks in shame...

You lie in your bed with cigarettes and love, stuck in a misty storm

When your soul dangles from the roof of life, and strokes your lost pride...

I smile again inside the burnt cage, with a little spilt rum,

When I find you staring back at me through the tilted and glossy mirror,

You clutch the silence, you keep the vows, over a quick and painless push,

It was six in the morning and the bed was cold, when breakfast and death was served...

On a stingy night, you had felt the moon, and brought the glaciers down,

You played the music, you swam the seas, the day the seas were dry...



So I'm on the road holding hands with killers, and trying to light a fire,

Or I walk the greater lengths beyond the purple sky where enchanting are the lights...


- Siddhartha.

THE BOY.

lets start with a short story.

quite a long time ago, in the island of guadara, an unheard place in the midst of the great Pacific, there lived a boy. small and beautiful as the island, there seemed not a worry in the world troubling his innocent mind. embracing the warm summers and icy cold winters, with a music in his heart and a dance in each step, it was as if he was born out of the mighty Heavens, probably when God was in a jolly good mood...

smooth and easy was his world...happiness was unbound, and life couldn't be better. till one day he became curious. "what lies beyond the seas?"he asked himself. with not a soul to talk to (not that he was even aware of companionship), he could only ask so many questions to himself. and till today he could answer all. but this was different.what lies beyond the seas?how could he say?his world comprised of this small island. this was all he knew and all he needed to know...till today. 'cause now this indormitable desire of knowing the answer began to haunt him...in his sleeps, his nightly walks. the strong winds began to tempt him and lure him into the great Unknowns...unable to contain himself anymore, he finally set out in a pretty, little raft he had made for himself...in search of his answer. he finally set out to seek the unseekable, to know the unknowable...on an everlasting quest to feel the unquestionable Truth.

he still wanders in his pretty, little raft, braving the stroming seas and romancing the lost winds. he still seeks the unseekable and tries to know the unknowable...he still wants the Truth.

well, aren't we all? with a belief that refuses to die and hope that keeps the flame forever burning, aren't we all living the dream? the dream that is in truth the undying reality...

the boy lives on hope...that someday he will succeed in his quest. and so do we. its hope which beautifies the dream. the hope of a meaning.

after all, life is just a broken snatch of a vast dream lived by the Mighty One.

the demise...

A lazy, windy afternoon right after the 2.50 p.m. classes, at the green benches. And nothing better if accompanied by the occasional guitar strums and jhalmudi. That was an ESSENTIAL part of college for us and even though I missed my classes at times (in other words, bunked), I would never really miss out on the ‘green sessions’. You see, that was the elixir of our college life. Even the advent of a stupid ‘CCD’ could not mar the fun of green benches.

And then, we are not the only ones. Through the years these green benches had become such an inevitable part of Xavier’s – from random lazing hours to sweet guitar tunes to the tense, nail-biting wait for part 1 or part 2 results.

I guess the green benches had seen all, tears of joy and sorrow, ringing laughter and of course the mending and breaking of many a heart (it would have been gross injustice not to mention this).

To those like us, wishing to hold on to these cherished memories, a word of advice – do not go to college anymore. To see the way all those moments of our college-lives have been brought down to a mere pile of rubble is simply sad. The damage is done. As for the people in authority who sat through this, it’s just they never understood the pulse of Xavier’s and probably never will. They are too insensitive for that. The question is, why do the students have to suffer for that? And why does a tradition like ‘green benches’ have to be compromised with?

The students’ voice was never heard. Not even when we, the students, raise our voices against a crime like this. And so at the end of the day, we have to see our fond memories in a heap of bricks.

For all you know, in the coming years there might be a ‘barista’ instead of a canteen, keeping with the ‘times’.

it's all a game...

it takes time to understand this really simple thing...and sometimes, it can take a lifetime...in case the point is still vague, and i'm pretty sure it is, i'm talking about a fight...

a sort of an inner struggle, which everyone at some point or the other has to go through...just that sometimes, the struggle lasts a bit longer...when the long nights seem a bit longer...and you pray for the endless summers(not applicable to tropical, humid climate) because you feel the cold...how vastly strange and meaningless a life would be without any waving emotions...it's just that, there lies a smile in every drop of tear...just as happiness is a shadow of loss...its a world of paradoxes, and paradoxes make up this charmed circle...and it's paradoxes again, which make up you and me...

the cause of the struggle might vary to each heart..what matters is this tiring yet oddly treasured struggle...

and it is then, that we need to understand the simple truth...simple yet very powerful...you see, it's all just a game...and the victory is yours...play along...just play along all the way...

to Ma and Baba...

when someone loans you money, you can say, "Thank You".

when someone offers you a seat, you can again say, "Thank You".

when a traffic cop lets you off without a fine, you can keep saying, "Thank You".

to someone you owe everything to, you can't just say, "Thank You"...

(p.s. courtesy: an old archies advertisement.)

lonesome blues...

Exactly 3 months ago, on one fine morning, I decided that I had enough of it...ever since every morning I’ve been thinking thus. But the point is, does it matter? Completely beaten, tired of the same sick, stale thoughts...and most importantly, craving for something new...it’s like beating your head against the wall, until either of the two gives in...really, come to think of it, are we all condemned like Sisyphus? Till as mr.camus says, the ‘final why’ arises?

Yeah...I hang up my soul to the ceiling above me and try to have a conversation with it. Worth it? at times certainly...when you are too conked up to think rationally(now that can happen EVEN if you’re NOT drunk). It’s like, you let yourself being pinned down and let others rape you emotionally. Maybe this arises from a deep lack of self love. And then you want to put an end to all of this...but wait, not so fast...remember, condemned like Sisyphus? So you can’t. And you yet again keep beating your head against the wall, have absurd, crazy conversations with your soul dangling from the ceiling...that’s a scary thought...was kafka right when he said, “the only meaning of life is that it stops”...life to kafka, some say, was extremely complicated. Nah...life couldn’t be simpler to the dear man. Depressing maybe, but certainly not complicated.

Walking the same street again, and not feeling the same. Instead what you encounter is a bunch of terrorising memories(cherished at some point of time), snatching you away from reality each time you want to cling to it. For me, I don’t even try...they will succeed, they are the stronger ones...the only way I can fight back is to let them do their job, and not mess around with them too much. What’s the use? If someday, they decide to leave on their own, I’ll heave a sigh of relief...but aren’t we condemned forever? A mistaken dream-mistaken for reality...shreds of laughter lace the sky...some moments turned bitter...and the ultimate losing of self...maybe never to be regained again

And then, what made me write all this?

Lonesome Blues.
I fill up this page with some unwanted scenes,
The sparkling wine of music flows, though forever,
When the rains are here, I shall lie to the glory of my lover,
Whose love evergreen shall this mortal soul drink…
Tonight I draw upon the grave sweetness,
The fevered heart receives in shame and pain,
To the merrier moments I plead in vain
To stay, stay and drown these days…
If I were looking for a greater joy,
In the depth of this womb, dark and blind,
It was to end in a futile cry of the mind,
An effort to see through the Greater Ploy…
If I were to swim the strangest ocean,
And I were to sail away with the slow dreams,
Let me hold your hand to go beyond the smallest streams,
To feel the warmth, for the dawn of heaven…

I seek for no answer; is there none?
Tired eyes stare at the unexplained sun,
Of greater deeds lost and undone
In the charmed circle of lonesome blues…


-Siddhartha Chatterjee.