Weekend

Stairways shake,
Little feet
Run unleashed.

Work & worry
Locked away,
Farewells bidden,
Ways part.

Fallen mangoes
Lie unpicked.
Hope reconciles
Drained souls.

Grumpy faces
Display cheer;
Festoons flutter,
Shoppers surface,
Evening smiles...

Dusk fades,
Last bus
Empties out,
Dogs laze
Under lamp-lit corners.
Bag lighter,
Heart easier,
I stroll home.

Desperado

Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?

You been out ridin' fences for so long now

Oh, you're a hard one

I know that you got your reasons

These things that are pleasin' you

Can hurt you somehow

*

He stands waiting, outside, chewing gum. On time, as always. Impeccably dressed, as always, in a throw-away shirt and jeans and matching shoes, car waiting nearby. He looks the same, that five o' clock shadow, that twinkle in his eyes women fell in love with, that sly smile playing on his lips. A quick hug later, we drive away.

*

Don't you draw the queen of diamonds, boy

She'll beat you if she's able

You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet

*

(A few years ago)

She plays too much of the helpless female with me you know, he told me. We were walking. It was that period between winter and spring when trees look gawky in their half-bloom. The ice was still melting.

But aren't we all helpless? I'd asked in return. The sun peeped shyly from above the clouds. A car drove by, kids in the back seat making a ruckus.

He shrugged, hands tucked into the pockets of his coat, and gave me that silly smile he reserved for moments when he wanted me to know that he wasn't changing his mind.

I don't think she's my type you know, he remarked. If only he'd known. We walked on.

*

Now it seems to me, some fine things

Have been laid upon your table

But you only want the ones that you can't get

*

Dear Ajay,

Sorry for not writing in earlier. Life is just too hectic here, what with one thing or the other demanding my attention....you know how it is.

Just wanted to wish you all the best in life buddy! Sorry for not making it to the wedding. Give the missus my best regards.

Sorry again.

Yours,

V

PS: Oh, she said yes, by the way ;)

I've never sworn so much as I did after reading that email.

*

Desperado, oh, you ain't gettin' no younger

Your pain and your hunger, they're drivin' you home

And freedom, oh freedom well, that's just some people talkin'

Your prison is walking through this world all alone

*

Dear Ajay,

The fridge is all yours. Help yourself! Something came up at work.

-V

I stare at the yellow post-it all bleary-eyed while I brush. He'd pasted it on the spotless bathroom mirror where he knew I wouldn't miss it. Always practical. Always methodical. So unlike a romantic, which he most definitely is.

Practical and methodical. Even with his women. They never could see what he truly is. Thing is he never wanted to show them, if you ask me. He wanted to be very sure before revealing, he once told me. Self-defense, in my opinion.

And he regretted it. Always. After the break-up. Not before.

I knew something was amiss the minute he'd said 'hello' when I'd called up to tell him I'd be flying over for the weekend. Gentle pressing and much cajoling later, he'd confessed.

We broke up, he'd whispered over the phone.

I shave quickly in the dim light of the bulb above the mirror. The razor slides smoothly over my cheeks.

She was not my type, you know, he'd added.

The after-shave stings as I dab it over where I nicked myself. It doesn't matter even if you see it coming. It still hurts.

I felt caged all the time. No space man. Zero freedom, you know. It would never have worked, he'd said with a sigh.

I look at the note again, and make my way to the fridge.

*

Don't your feet get cold in the winter time?

The sky won't snow and the sun won't shine

It's hard to tell the night time from the day

You're losin' all your highs and lows

Ain't it funny how the feeling goes away?

*

(A year ago)

Dear Ajay,

It's all over.

We broke up. I told her yesterday that I couldn't go on with this farce. She cried. A lot. But I hope she gets over me. I know she will. She's strong that way.

So why did we break up? It's got to with a lot of things. It's always about the little things, you know. The bigger issues you can always resolve, but not the little ones. Like the way she folds my books when she reads them and leaves smudges all over the pages. Like the way she has little patience for words and their meanings. Like the way...oh, never mind! Who am I trying to fool here? It was always about one thing. Just one thing. You've known me through all these years and through all these women. You know why I've never found what I'm looking for?

I'm too self-sufficient, A. Emotionally and intellectually. That's my problem. I guess some people classify me as a loner. So why search for love? Why look out for that elusive companion? I don't know how else to put this but there's this void inside me that's been unfilled all these years. I guess you might have known all of this all along.

A void which engulfs my soul when I stand by the sea at dawn with the moan of the waves in my ears, the wet sand crumbling under my feet, the water lapping around my ankles, the breeze flirting with my collar, the salt-spray stinging my eyes, when I see the sea shimmer with a golden gleam and the sky come alive as the sun squeezes itself from under the horizon and leaps out onto the sky above. I would like some company when I see that. Someone I can turn to and smile, someone I can hold hands with right then, someone who will smile back with the understanding of the emotions that run through me at that instant, someone who would travel with me through Life and yet weave her own path. Is that too much to ask? Maybe it is. Or maybe it's too less.

And all these women, who seemed to promise so much, are content with the tangible and the material. I don't blame them for that. Nobody wants to seek that which can't be sought, that which seeks you out only when you're ready for it, that which I find in the calmness of night looking at the stars lying with my back on the grass. Don't know if that makes sense. Does it?

Sorry to bore you, A. So tell me, how have you been? And how...

*

Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?

Come down from your fences, open the gate

It may be rainin', but there's a rainbow above you

You better let somebody love you, before it's too late

*

"So any chance of you coming back soon?" he asks me.

We're on our way back to the airport. It's raining outside. Soft music plays on the car radio.

I reply in the negative. And turn to look at him.

I can see a thin veneer of disappointment glazing his eyes, as he steers into the parking lot. I can sense the loneliness shrouding his being. And there's not a thing I can do about it.

I remember something he once wrote in an email.

You know how you feel when your finger reaches out and tries to touch a raindrop sliding down the other side of a window? That's distance for you. Something which can never be bridged without breaking whatever's in between.

***

Note: Text in blue - Lyrics from the song 'Desperado' by the Eagles. Title and post inspired by the same.

And yes, this post is fiction. If anyone asks me otherwise, they're going to get it.

On writing

Why do I blog?

I like writing. Simple. It is one of the few things I like doing, when left to myself. And it seems a very natural thing to do. I believe people who don't write -- not even 'serious' writing, just putting down thoughts to paper -- are potentially missing out on a great source of bliss in life. I'd rank writing right after reading as the most influential personality-shaping habit.

Why do I write?

To me, writing primarily is catharsis. Life is not easy, to put it mildly. And at the end of the day, writing is a maze in which I gladly lose myself in. It is rather therapeutic to see your thoughts, your emotions, your pain, your laughter, your days, your dreams, your nights, your nightmares, your stories, your secrets unfold as tangible words on paper while you lift that veil from around yourself, drop your guard, and set out on that rewarding journey of self-discovery which writing most definitely is.

Of course, self-discovery could so easily lead to self-deception, but then I'm trying to keep things simple here. And writing is escape of another kind, a retreat into the metaphysical, a trip into the morbid labyrinths of one's mind. And when I write, I'm at once master and slave, thought and action, light and sound, creator and destroyer, voyager and voyeur ... Writing is the ultimate release.

And secondly, writing is a delightfully creative process. To anybody who waxes eloquently about the pleasures of alcohol/tobacco/women, the standard counter I offer is "What about writing?" You have to feel the rush that comes from crafting a particularly difficult poem, with no compromises made toward structure or substance, paying equal attention to rhyme, meter and meaning, that intoxication which accompanies penning down that perfect story having a plot with enough twists to rival a DNA strand, and an equally unguessable ending, that fleeting feeling of nirvana when you successfully explain a complicated philosophical maxim with a description of its premises and arguments that is as lucid as water from a spring, to know that writing is ecstasy, writing is poison, writing is addiction, that writing is intellectual activity non-pareil.

More importantly, writing is always a journey of the soul as much as it is an engaging exercise of the mind. Music soothes a savage beast. Writing tends to the wounds of the soul. Writing opens the eyes of the soul, so to speak. You start seeing, and feeling, things you never saw, or felt, before. You become sensitive, in the truest sense of the word.

You realize that the beauty of a sunset lies in the way dusk dissolves the stains that the sun bleeds onto the skies after his daily demise.

You hear the sea roar and the shore sigh when you listen to a conch being blown.

You know how it is to hold a raw mango in both your hands and inhale deeply as if your lungs were bottomless, and feel your senses tingle as the smell invades every inch of your body and embeds itself into the fissures of your memory.

You realize love is not just about presents, parties and package-holidays, but also about pain, patience, perspective and partnership; that happiness is sometimes as simple as the smooth, uninterrupted roar of a bike when the engine kicks to life; that music is sometimes about silence in all the right places; that words will never mean what we want them to mean but we will still continue to write; that loneliness is the world's greatest disease and that some tears will never dry.

You see the joy, and the pain, in everything.

You realize that beauty is as much a part of anything as is savagery.

Writing, undeniably, is for the soul.

And lastly, writing is nothing if it doesn't lead you to question constantly, and evolve, your beliefs and the person that you represent. The self-discovery process. Writing is as much submitting wife as it is obsequious mistress, in that it merely beseeches you to be true to yourself, and your words, but you, of course, always have the choice of self-deception, in which case writing is a very useful ego-massage. Either ways, in the shadows of your words, in the turns of your phrases, in the imperfection of your sonnets, in the truth underlying your fiction, you discover your true self, and what it is about yourself that you're running away from.

Write. To discover the joy of wrestling with words. Write. To mark the passage of your time with the ticking of your thoughts. Write. To know how it is to be human and flawed.

Write.

***

This post is a late celebration of a year of blogging, and is dedicated to a couple of very good friends -- K and T -- who made me take my writing seriously.