PATIENCE

Its another once upon a time story. Have patience and keep up the good work, it will get you through the distasteful stretches in life.

A pot, sand and a green plastic stem,
Brought home from somewhere, left in mayhem-

Source unknown, mysterious perhaps,
Sat on a window sill, by double pane glass.

Come summer, come winter, it didn't feel a thing,

For no roots, no leaves, untouched by spring.

Once it lived in a world of class,

Now stares at it through panes of glass...

Oh !! What do we know,

Wood, plastic, hope, despair, home and spade-

Everything in life is so man made !!

Hours and hours, he would sit and glaze.

Down and beaten, until these days-

When beside his reflection, he found as he pried,

Signs of life on the other side !!

A green so green, he felt a bit green,

Not mean, not lean, just neat and clean.

Two worlds on rubbles, no love for bubbles,

No strain on the strings and hence no troubles!!

The more they shared, the more they cared,

Feelings layered and a story flared...

Sands in the pot felt a strong clench,

As the fresh sprout roots of plastic entrench.

Nights grew late, with tales so great-

They'd both relate and cross correlate,

Of sands and scalpels, of songs and lore,

Of losses, of judgement, of candy and more...

With words they played - all day till late,

In joy of meeting this true soulmate.

So far, so good, we've done the happy part.

I'm forced to finish with a weeping heart.

Creators destroy and the destroyers create,

When it's hard for them to make worlds conflate !!

Thus love subsides to the wills of the wise,

But what is life, without risk and sacrifice ??

Behold !!

The brave soul arose, from the plastic instead !!

Transcends the double glass, clearing the shed,

Meets his Tulsi, fulfills their dreams,

"A heroic legend", the garden screams !!

Tears of joy makes way for laughter,
Fairy tales end in happily thereafter...

Oh !! What do we know,

Wood, plastic, care, passion, love and suede-
EVERYTHING in life is not man-made !! 

A FUN TAKE ON GENDER EQUALITY

Today I handed over another million dollar apartment. It's weird, the last time I wrote something here, I was in the exact same situation!! This post however, has nothing to do with it. I'm sure you will enjoy this.


So, curtain rises..


ACT 1

SCENE 1:

{an urban spoiled brat enters a posh and classy shop that sells leather goods. As he walks in to the shoes section, a lady with a kind face - an employee at the shop, approaches him}

Guy :   "Do you have anything in black ??"

Lady:  (with a welcoming smile on her face, takes a pair of black shoes and shows it to him) "Sir, these shoes were made from the fin.."

Guy :  (outright, interrupting her without a second glance at the product) "That's too black.."

Lady: ".." (smile toned down, still cheerful)

SCENE 2:

{guy tries out another pair, in front of a mirror}

Guy:  (looks a the mirror, displeased, his tone turns pessimistic) "A little more black ??"

Lady: ".." (expression changes visibly from cheerful to exclamatory, wondering what he wants)

SCENE 3:

{a different pair of black shoes in his hands}

Guy:  (takes a closer look at the shoes) "Umm.. a little less black ??"

Lady: (nods, probably thinks: Oo .. this is going to be a long night..) "Black.. "(clears throat, looks to the ceiling)

SCENE 4:

{another pair in front of him}

Guy:  (walks towards them, rolls his eyes, condescending tone) "Not blaaack, just black"

SCENE 5:

{a parade of several shades of black shoes along one side of the isle. An out-of-focus pair of orange shoes sits in the foreground, atop a glass pedestal}

Guy:  (doesn't even bother to look at those black ones, walks right down the isle, eyes locked on target - picks up the orange pair) "I'll take this one" (walks away with those)

Lady: "Bu.. but.. that's not black.."

Guy:  (stops, gives the the confused / frustrated lady a classic over-the-shoulders-stare-down) "Who said black??

***   END OF ACT 1 ***

Now, I would call this guy an ass. Well, the actual word that I might use wouldn't be restricted to just "ass", but you get the point.

Visualize this whole setup, put yourself in place of this lady and feel the frustration first hand.

ACT 2:

SCENE 1:

{a husband and wife are seen seated side by side on a sofa, facing the camera/audience, halloween time. now think of yourself as the wife in this act.}

Wife : (a gorgeous blonde with a cheerful face, enthusiasm burning bright in her eyes which reflects clearly in her body language) "I'm picking up the couple's costumes this time.."

Hus  : (each time the guy opens his very mouth, annoying levels of condescension breaks loose. add to it a corrective tone ) "She wants to pick up the couple's costumes this time.."

Wife : (smile fades and gives way to an "I'm upset"-look, but brings back the smile instantly - that's her identity, the smiley face. Seems to me like she is used to being treated this way and the smile is a coping mechanism) "We're getting a Tom and Jerry costume.."

Hus   : (instantly shoots it down, like he is the rope that ties down the kite she is) "Pirates of The Caribbean is so much better.."

Wife  : (she's not finished yet, a creative woman, this one) "Or a Mickey and Minnie"

Hus   : (can't believe what she just said) "Do people even sell those !!"

Wife  : (fighting hard to stand her ground. defending one's creative side - always an uphill battle) "We'll make our own.. And it won't cost much on clothing either, I'm a size two" (winks!!)

Hus   : "She means size 4, she's a bit fat, you see" (points at her with an expression not many women would stand)

Wife  : (with a broken look and a yielding tone, intends to be sarcastic but doesn't quite convey it) "Or may be we could go as the characters in that anime you were reading ??"

Hus    : (a sigh of relief, or disbelief, happy nevertheless) "..Ah .. Ok !!"

Wife  : (pissed) WHAT ??

***   END OF ACT 2 ***

Now I could play this from several different angles, but my point here is that, once YOU play the part yourself, you will FEEL how bad it hurts, being the two female roles that I suggested. At this moment, you, as any regular human would, despise the male characters in these ACTs.

I suggest you amplify those feelings, coz it's about to get real interesting.

So what has all this got to do with gender equality you ask??

These ACTs were a "re-enactment" of two popular ads on Indian television (one of Lavie, starring bollywood actress Kareena and the other, of Pepperfry furnitures) with genders exchanged. The links are right here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yVTlSIjJrc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYQUfDGu3SA

Now, the feelings remain the same, only the guy becomes the girl and the girl becomes the guy. I'm sure if you are a hard core feminist, you would loose your mind right about .. now.

Keep a clear head and think. You can argue that there may be a few mean / condescending women here and there and that there are ten times as many men who are so. That's not my point.

Why is it OK to degrade men in public television, hurl offensive / sexist comments at him while the world is watching, but when its a woman in that hot seat, its a serious offense ??

More to the point, why haven't the self proclaimed protectors of female lifestyle, the Feminists, raised the issue of "wrongly portraying women as shallow insensitive creatures" in these two ads ??

I'm curious, did they choose to believe that these characters do not represent / mock the manners and behavior of real world modern women ?? ( following the genuine path, very unlikely )

Or did they not to bring it up because they are done fighting and believes that the world would love and appreciate women if they didn't make so much of noise ?? ( following the non-violence path )

Or (this shall be called as following the feminist path ) do these ads actually portray the garden variety modern woman in her natural form, showcasing her native manners and behavior as familiarized to us by the global television; and that it is so realistic to their own lifestyle that the aforementioned protectors of feminine lifestyle FAIL TO REALIZE the fact that IT IS IN-FACT portraying women as shallow insensitive creatures ?? 

Pen in your thoughts..

  

Goodbye My Little Girl

[ inspired by a youtube video that I had watched several years back || written on the occasion of the first million dollar smart home that I had been handling, being handed over to the owners || today I felt like a 50 year old man, marrying off his young, beautiful daughter to a new family ]

So here goes..

Parting tears brimmed in her sparkling eyes, as the party train stole her, from my trembling arms.

At once a cold breeze drifted down from the tall branches of the eucalyptus trees, smearing the scent everywhere. It ruffled up my hair as if on purpose and ran through the rusty street rustling the leaves.

I stood there for a while, freezing in the light of the cold night, nothing but the silence and an empty alley behind me. Shaking, moved and completely unsettled, I walked back three steps into the numbness that is, this evening has become, for me.

I felt the soft air as I walked into the dark, leaving a faint humming in my ears and spinning out little vortices as I move by.

The silence being torn by the soft wind - in itself is quite something - one may let the mind wander to ease off for a little while - after all its been a tough day. How complicated can the contraption be for the subtle movements of a butterfly wing to spin out into a venomous whirlwind..

In fact, I am standing in the eye of a hurricane.

The painfully vivid picture, of her sparkling eyes came into my mind again.

How did I let her go! My mind filled up with a million memories- my little girl, my princess!! Her first cry - in that adorable little baby voice of hers, how she used to call me dada, her first baby steps and the shy little smile that followed, the time we took her to the park where she had her first ice-cream, when she licked that pink strawberry scoop and it slipped off the cone into the grass and she cried, showing all the baby tooth and rubbing those chubby little arms against her little eyes..

My vision blurred. I felt weightless for a while. Cold breeze spreading the numbness around me, I turned back for one last glimpse- and across all the miles and the music that fills the separation, I saw her; and she saw me- and I heard her heart speak to mine, in a voice more damp than the ocean in her eyes,

"I'll be ok now, daddy, you can let go..."

Flowers and tears

So many words left unspoken, die . . .
As the grief sets in late, after the bye;
Need a shoulder, just to bend over and cry.


Sincere tears withheld in pain-
Masked in happiness, doped in smiles.
Search the faces, look for the eyes-
So much for cliched  perfunctory slys!


Sinful creations, with glorious glitch,
We are no more than the textures we stitch.
Lie to your self, put up a brave face,
Withhold  the subtext with blabber and slays!


Its only just a matter of time
Before you break, at the last words you hear.
The mysterious, chained self, new to himself,
Seeps out for once, beyond the weak knobs,
For a second or two- no more can afford,
So he's played along and dramatized for the fun.
A treacherous plot, a well entertained suicide . . .


After the bye, it sets in late
Look for a shoulder, yourself u hate.

Frictionless

                    "Whenever you feel like the crackly white walls and the crazy weird trees by the side of the road have gained a feasible personage and that they are prying at you with their cranky wonky eyes, that is the time you should realize that your life, for long, was a mere hallucination - where the plot had lost its priority, to a surreal hope of an alien presence, and now that it is gone, you are back in the real world where loss is the truth and gain is a myth."

                She was unassailable to local lovers. He was no local lover, not even a lover for that matter. A loser may be- nothing lost and nothing to be lost. Ha! That might be an understatement- a misleading understatement- one that might sound convincing enough, for you to stack your cards against the loser. As an act of mercy or say, common courtesy, let’s call it ‘him’. He welcomes us to a world of lost love.

                The two of them were friends. If two people talk to each other, they are by default and by general definition, friends. The two friends talked about the leaves and the twigs, the fresh sprouts, yellow flowers and the fruits, and at times about the wind. The dew, the sky and the crimson sunshine was left untouched to everyone’s surprise. Time was poignant, swift and slow. Lusty seasons blew past them once each time, poking the cobweb of informal dormancy with splendid sparks at times...

                Moths and beetles grew old and died but hopes will live forever. With smiley faces and profound tweets, it’s time to say goodbye. The wind blew at once, for one last time, this time hard, with all its might. Fellow wing-mates took off to be back, to buy some time from timeless stands. It’s true in fact that excess is bad- it masks the self with a condensed self. The breeze set in, disguised as hale, hysteric leaves shivered and swayed, rusty foliage rose with dust and clogged the silence with obscure frost. But once again they talked of nothing but the leaves and sprouts and fruits.

                With pain in the heart and smile in the eyes, they parted in snow, in style. With pointy beak, streamline and wings, she blew beyond his influence lines. Unspoken words waited to die, and so they did in recent past. But hopes, my friends, are made forever, and forever they last regardless of whatever. Favourites of dusk are spoilers of night; think for instance a cloud at night. Pearl and jade priced at par, shines and glows in respective clans. Keep them close and view from far- the white queen stands as the merchant’s pride!!

TRUE STORY

300 metres of road extending in front of you.
frilled by trees golden and brown..
textured asphalt marking its presence from beneath the rusty foliage
its been a while since black rubber last kissed his feet
not even the commonest barking animal is seen around anywhere

you, are standing there, pointlessly gazing at the whole beauty that nature has painted over there, on that dirty piece of canvas, over all that had once existed there, including the textured artificiality. you are not a poet, just a typical human, lets say man, marking his presence through his physical existance at present, for ur thoughts have let left you times ago, in the meadows unseen and pleasures forbidden.

the point is, somehow, man has lost one of his intrinsic properties. explore the wilds and u will find it, the thing tht was irradicated from human civilisation, in its deadliest best, in the animal kingdom - the ultimate factor that decides the leader or the head of the clan- its nothing but Individuality.

the present situation is that man owes his existance to friend circle and groupism. his world is surrounded by friends who guage him by the gang he belongs to. and he himself marks his presence as the representative of a group of men, to whom he owes years of branded slavery, and to whom he lost his brain, thought and nature permanently in the bargain he fought for - the mazy bargain where they throw you with Golden Peanuts on your eye, each time you care to get a better view.

by the way, mutation is real, moreover, its been claimed as one of the laws of nature. there's no reason to disbelieve it. or if u do, I invite you for a face off with me. back to the 300 m road- considering my natural instincts, i would have walked alone right through the middle of it, observing each and every single detail of it- through all the intricarte microfibrils of tenderness within which beauty found for herself a place to condense into a honeydew sleep; and would preserve them in memory with the same care and tenderness with which they were created.

trust me, loneliness is bliss- you just dont know it, or you dont care to.
but did u notice what the man did? his real self centrifuged out of him and started floating.

even while being in the midst of what could be possibly the star-studded centrestage of the paradise conferred to loneliness-personified, by mother nature herself, he is craving for a companion, a friend or his love. and that exactly is what I would define as insecurity. loneliness is a conservative girl, so reserved in her feelings that you just can't know her unless you deleberately want her.

involuntarily, the man desires a feel of having somebody with him anytime -even for an act of joy or smile, he needs company. I would like to ask the man one question- how much can he imbibe into him from the impressively infinite world around him, when he is so absorbed into the bubble which he is in, never out of and never been out of before, in his lifetime??

man was pre-assumed as a social being, and soon later, misinterpreted as the one who he lives in a cloud- a cloud that he carries with him, a cloud that houses several other components of a complete man- a cloud of mass action or literally, an assembly; which unfortunately volatilizes his individuality part by part by channelising himself into a form that is generally accepted. more wield is the part where the third person from the society actually accepts him, whereas stamps the mark of a rebel or a lone-wolf on an independent man. they just dont know the difference. they dont care to.

mutation has lead man to the brink of an optical illusion of stairs leading into nowhere.the man will still continue to laugh and make merry as he has always done, because he doesn't see the outsides, he just sees the insides of the bubble that he is in. and he thinks thats what the world means.

man by definition has become so shallow and subtle. isn't he!

Fairy’s fiction

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Fairy’s fiction:

       Every man is a human and so is every barbarian. What distinguishes these two, is the way they react to things and the things they react to. One such factor to discriminate them is help. A barbarian will not help you if he feels that you would grow taller than him with that help and if it happens so, he'll just ruin you...

(read b/w the lines and analyze)

Friends, comrades, and all those with spears,

Hear me for once, with sharpest ears.

From whence hath principal time began,

I come, the naked horse!

Unknown to world, and unknown of it,

He lived a lonely life.

He raced the wilds, unshackled and strong

No flags, no laurels, no frown.

Exposed he was, as defined he is,

Anodized by circumstances;

Till once he met with, one day at rocks,

A charming diabolic fox!

Nothing so luring has he seen

Than those jaded eyes!

The foxy fox inched in close

To the perplexed naked horse and said:

“Friends we are and friends we’ll live

In this ‘friendly’ world of mine”

With words of enigma, the dude of charisma

Got him christened ‘Black Beauty’

Hemlocked he was, strengthened he felt

He smelt the taste of life.

It so happened, that later in time,

Habitually he met with him.

And then the speeds increased like hell-

Worthless oceans foamed and swelled

Conscience was lost, compassion lost,

But lots and lots and lots were won!
Full fledged he grew in space and time

All he saw were checkered flags

Perfected he was, perceived for it,

For longer days and nights…

But nobody saw the schemer’s hands,

Nobody cried: “Behold, behold”

And nobody knew, the foxy fox

Had foxiest goals in the foxed up world.

The next sun rose with a different smile

All horses ready, all jockeys ready,

And also ready is the gentle fox-

Perfidious within, but still merry merry!

Storms triggered the torrential rains,

Blinding blitz showed up in skies

And thunders wrecked the country side,

To mark the race of nation’s pride!

A gunshot was heard, a rumble heard,

But all we saw was a cloud of dust-

And then we saw a streak of glow

Out came blazing ‘Black beauty’.

For once it seemed none else had a chance

But not so far was oblivion…

He crashed on, into the magical wall

Never seen of before, or after anymore.

The Mercurial Horse was smashed and bent

And curled up into and invertebrate.

So there he falls, the horse naked

Defined as exposed, anodized of purities.

All his titles and all his charm

Sublimes beyond all reclaimations.

All he heard was galloping from far-

All his opponents, grey, white and black

Churning the pre-churned clays on the way,

To touch the un-churned with an un-classy sway.

An undeserved forfeit, a death for the valiant!

The sobbing martyr, groaning in pain-

Victorious losers dragged him through streets

In the midst of the town they gathered round

Turmoil crowned and crowd profound

The foxiest fox now swirls his wand

Before the eyes of the swooning knight

Emerged lions with eternal might

From each of seven opponents bright

Surrounds the tethered goat to fight

“Behold what a pretty sight!”

Hectored and tortured, heckled along,

The martyr dies a second death!

Sleep deprived, self pitied,

Isolated from social eyes,

Leading a loony disharmonious life

Lives the horse, in shadows of night.

What goals he had, what dreams were seen!

He barely stands, no might within

A long faced ass in silent tears

No trophies of pride, no loud cheers…

And there they coalesce, the ‘he’ and the ‘I’

As defined before, in everyone’s eyes.

“I never did this for fame or attention,

All I did was to chase my passion-

I hate basking in the glory of gone years

So friends, comrades, and all those with spears,

Fire me as an offender

Mark me as an outsider

And hang me as a dictator,

For I am, I was, what you thought I was.”

-Vivek S V