Remember? Do you remember? Do you? Remember?
Insistent.
Constant.
Annoying.
Do you love me or do you not?
You told me once but I forgot.
Vases that give the impression of being made up by once-shattered-and-then-put-together-again-glass… With millions and zillions of veins running through them…
For nothing can be sole or whole
That has not been rent.
Do you remember?
Do you?
Do…?
Too many choices…
Saturday or Sunday?
Black or white?
Turquoise Cottage or TGIF?
Train or plane?
Levi’s or Pepe?
Your place or mine?
Some choices are easier to make, than others.
Do you choose to remember, or not?
Poor Orlando! When he was betrayed by the Russian princess, he went to sleep for a week. And when he awoke, the Russian princess was a hazy recollection. And he was free once again.
Must you die for a little while in order to live again?
Must you sleep for a little while in order to forget?
Do you want to forget?
Do you need to forget?
Some dance to remember
Some dance to forget
Why do you dance?
Oh. Wait.
Let me alter that.
Do you dance?
With the LIIT and the martini and the Marlboro and the madness and the melody and anyone-who-happens-to-walk-into-your-arms??
When you wake up the next morning, do you remember the night before?
Really?
And if you remember, do you want to forget?
After such knowledge, what forgiveness?
Adam and Eve fall with knowledge… Yet, somehow, “knowledge is power”… Who said that? I forget… It doesn’t really matter…
…hee spent his whole life trying to forget…
…drank away her memory…little at a time…
…never could get drunk enough…to get her off his mind…
…until the time…
Oh, that epiphanic moment!
Is it a moment, really? Or a process…
Has it ceased to matter?
Are you just a cynic tonight?
Or are you reborn, renaissance-d?
Have you found the poetry in the pain?
And are you willing to immortalize it in the landscape of your mind?
Markers of memory…
Parades and festivals and national holidays and commemorations are meant to remind us.
Do not forget.
Do not forget: your history, your people, and your family. You are made up of them.
Do not forget.
Do not.
Don’t.
Did you really believe them when they told you "The Cause?"
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame,
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain,
For Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.
Gooseflesh in a tiny monument at 6:00 AM.
The strains of a song that take you back to a gushing river in the mountains.
A drink that tastes of argument.
Phrases that hold coffee-and-cigarettes-on-a-cold-winter-day.
A face on the street that tugs at your memory.
Lilac sheets that dream of bedtime stories.
Anthems that make you feel like you are part of a movement.
The fragrance of freshly mowed grass and a vision of garden treasure-hunts.
A date equated with a howling mob.
The shirt that that will unbutton the touch of betrayal.
Dimples that make you see dead Prime Ministers.
Staircases that lead to ancestral homes in faraway-small-towns.
A loud noise that rips your consciousness into the smithereens of a series of bomb blasts.
The past is past, and the past is present.
I am you, and you are me.
We have remembered, and we have forgotten.
Chronology collapses.
How long till the world will be completed?
How many times will history repeat it?
And what shall we do with this deceptive glimmer of memory?
Drink to it, he said.
Anyone for an LIIT? Or perhaps, a Margarita?
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance
I hope you dance.
Monday, December 17, 2007
Tuesday, October 09, 2007
You're just a cynic tonight...
B.A.S.E
Don't you see the charade is over?
Do you really know her, sweetheart?
Do you really know anyone?
All the messages and the letters and the conversations in the world are not enough for you to believe you have the key to her mind. Well...maybe you do believe you know what's going on inside her head as she looks at you.
Think again.
Oh, innocence!
Haven't you figured it out yet?
This is her playground...my playground...your playground...their playground...
Don't expect life to turn into love-fest simply because the time is ripe for you to fall in love.
Integrity?
What's that??
There are the fairy tales, and the blockbusters.
But this is the real world.
This can't be happening
Too many secrets.
So perhaps you'd rather not know. At all.
All right, then. I suppose ignorance is a valid choice.
But you don't need to go looking for disaster to find you...
4:00 PM on a Tuesday afternoon, a lone piece of lingerie in an incongruous setting, a photograph someone inadvertently posted on Picasa, a glance exchanged across a table... there are a million ways in which your world can fall apart.
And it will happen, you know.
A lightning shock of tears as you realize, once and for all, that you don't really know anyone at all.
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold... and broken hallelujah
Beaded curtains.
I see something beyond them.
Smoke and glinting glasses; I can hear laughter.
Knowledge is power.
At least I will go on and have a good time tonight.
So life swirls on... and it's easy to get lost in the maze of mojitos, madness and melancholy music.
Looking for a warning sign?
Waiting for a cue?
Look at all the lonely people. Eleanor Rigbys of the world. Testament to the fact that sometimes, there are no signs and no cues.
You wait and wait and wait... Life passes by... BAM- you're sixty-five, solitary, still waiting...
When you get what you want
But not what you need
Every now and then, there is a... moment?
The unexpected message, the headline, the winning catch, the blog-post, the kiss, the friend, the statement...
Secrets dissolve.
Flashpoints of honesty.
Things left unsaid turn into equations. Years are wandered through. Tongues that are tied and twisted finally speak. Dragons are reborn. Promises are made, and kept.
The world sparkles, and it looks like your Broadway musical has finally taken off.
Lights will guide you home
The Caprioshkas glimmer and the sunlight shimmers.
Carpe diem.
It's the kind of moment that will keep you going...
And when crossroads are arrived at, you will remember the hysterical laughter at that table... that stunning music video they aired in 1998... that unforgettable dance... the biting mountain air on a certain morning... your feet sinking into the dewy grass... grapes soaked in honey... sputtering bonfires... the last chapter of that book... the girl staring out at you from the cover of a National Geographic... the way that certain fragrance will always remind you of a certain album...
And maybe...there won't be another Tuesday afternoon.
You're still a cynic, darling.
Just not tonight, it seems.
525,600 minutes- how do you measure, measure a year?
In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee.
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.
...
How about love?
Measure in love.
p-u-r-g-e
Don't you see the charade is over?
Do you really know her, sweetheart?
Do you really know anyone?
All the messages and the letters and the conversations in the world are not enough for you to believe you have the key to her mind. Well...maybe you do believe you know what's going on inside her head as she looks at you.
Think again.
Oh, innocence!
Haven't you figured it out yet?
This is her playground...my playground...your playground...their playground...
Don't expect life to turn into love-fest simply because the time is ripe for you to fall in love.
Integrity?
What's that??
There are the fairy tales, and the blockbusters.
But this is the real world.
This can't be happening
Too many secrets.
So perhaps you'd rather not know. At all.
All right, then. I suppose ignorance is a valid choice.
But you don't need to go looking for disaster to find you...
4:00 PM on a Tuesday afternoon, a lone piece of lingerie in an incongruous setting, a photograph someone inadvertently posted on Picasa, a glance exchanged across a table... there are a million ways in which your world can fall apart.
And it will happen, you know.
A lightning shock of tears as you realize, once and for all, that you don't really know anyone at all.
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold... and broken hallelujah
Beaded curtains.
I see something beyond them.
Smoke and glinting glasses; I can hear laughter.
Knowledge is power.
At least I will go on and have a good time tonight.
So life swirls on... and it's easy to get lost in the maze of mojitos, madness and melancholy music.
Looking for a warning sign?
Waiting for a cue?
Look at all the lonely people. Eleanor Rigbys of the world. Testament to the fact that sometimes, there are no signs and no cues.
You wait and wait and wait... Life passes by... BAM- you're sixty-five, solitary, still waiting...
When you get what you want
But not what you need
Every now and then, there is a... moment?
The unexpected message, the headline, the winning catch, the blog-post, the kiss, the friend, the statement...
Secrets dissolve.
Flashpoints of honesty.
Things left unsaid turn into equations. Years are wandered through. Tongues that are tied and twisted finally speak. Dragons are reborn. Promises are made, and kept.
The world sparkles, and it looks like your Broadway musical has finally taken off.
Lights will guide you home
The Caprioshkas glimmer and the sunlight shimmers.
Carpe diem.
It's the kind of moment that will keep you going...
And when crossroads are arrived at, you will remember the hysterical laughter at that table... that stunning music video they aired in 1998... that unforgettable dance... the biting mountain air on a certain morning... your feet sinking into the dewy grass... grapes soaked in honey... sputtering bonfires... the last chapter of that book... the girl staring out at you from the cover of a National Geographic... the way that certain fragrance will always remind you of a certain album...
And maybe...there won't be another Tuesday afternoon.
You're still a cynic, darling.
Just not tonight, it seems.
525,600 minutes- how do you measure, measure a year?
In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee.
In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife.
...
How about love?
Measure in love.
p-u-r-g-e
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Confusion: From the Emotional to the Chronological, and Beyond...
Take the time to make some sense
Of what you want to say
And cast your words away upon the waves
Oh… to try and start at the very beginning…
Chronology collapses.
So…which one came first? Laidback Waters? Kakoris? Which week was Shalom? And the second time? Serpico? Has it been fourteen days? Nineteen? How long ago was Hookah? Three-four-five months?
How long has this been coming? A couple of days? Months? A year? Or maybe many years…?
Who can begin to comprehend the connections that bind us and the tiniest acts that change the course of our lives…?
Because (let’s face it), it all began with Calvin and Hobbes (at least it was A beginning if not THE beginning). Lucky that I’m a fan…!
And the Butterfly Effect kicks in for all its worth.
Calvin and Hobbes… an inquiry… a tentative plan… Mocha and a millionmillion questions…
Quick addictions… endless conversations… ridiculous sleep cycles… Aladdin and rain…
A phone call. Is that a local code? Yes.
Run.
When you feel so tired but you can't sleep
Stuck in reverse
Silence.
Except for snatches of Coldplay, Incubus, Floyd…
My own, truly bizarre situation… I was surprised he didn’t walk away. For good.
“Coming back to Delhi? That’s great!”
Hookah.
And yes, Atlas shrugged. In some ways, more that night than any other.
Tumbling through easy conversation and too-many-drinks… Parents and movies and Islam and alcohol and stories… Collapsing onto the Laidback Waters sofa… “You’re a psycho”… Laughing so hard that we had to hold each other to not fall off…
Two statements. Intrinsically bound to each other, and intrinsically false.
I don’t do infidelity.
And marriages aren’t two week vacations.
Can’t help but wonder… who was the “weakness”? Or was it just me?
Hmmm… Anyway, shirt duly pulled down, moment effectively killed. Thank god we’ll always have that!
Bygones, as someone likes to say…
But if you never try you'll never know
Just what you're worth
My pace…?
Fear.
I haven’t felt that in a long time…
Complex webs of nomenclature and explanations to curious friends. And each other!
“Will you go out with me?”
Oh well, what chance does ‘my pace’ stand against the inevitable?
Finally done with controversial terms used to describe our equation…
A love of the transience of everything. Reveling in it.
Really? Always??
Or is that transient too?
The answer's in the looking glass
There's four and twenty million doors
Down life's endless corridor
To echo the “possibility of eventuality”, yes, trying to second guess certain things is futile.
Full Circle.
The irony of it is almost Justin Timberlake-ish.
A heady acceleration and-waitaminute, where are the brakes??
Ohhh…. There aren’t any.
That explains all the freewheeling and spinning out of control…
Cheers to that, then.
As I chase the sun
Of what you want to say
And cast your words away upon the waves
Oh… to try and start at the very beginning…
Chronology collapses.
So…which one came first? Laidback Waters? Kakoris? Which week was Shalom? And the second time? Serpico? Has it been fourteen days? Nineteen? How long ago was Hookah? Three-four-five months?
How long has this been coming? A couple of days? Months? A year? Or maybe many years…?
Who can begin to comprehend the connections that bind us and the tiniest acts that change the course of our lives…?
Because (let’s face it), it all began with Calvin and Hobbes (at least it was A beginning if not THE beginning). Lucky that I’m a fan…!
And the Butterfly Effect kicks in for all its worth.
Calvin and Hobbes… an inquiry… a tentative plan… Mocha and a millionmillion questions…
Quick addictions… endless conversations… ridiculous sleep cycles… Aladdin and rain…
A phone call. Is that a local code? Yes.
Run.
When you feel so tired but you can't sleep
Stuck in reverse
Silence.
Except for snatches of Coldplay, Incubus, Floyd…
My own, truly bizarre situation… I was surprised he didn’t walk away. For good.
“Coming back to Delhi? That’s great!”
Hookah.
And yes, Atlas shrugged. In some ways, more that night than any other.
Tumbling through easy conversation and too-many-drinks… Parents and movies and Islam and alcohol and stories… Collapsing onto the Laidback Waters sofa… “You’re a psycho”… Laughing so hard that we had to hold each other to not fall off…
Two statements. Intrinsically bound to each other, and intrinsically false.
I don’t do infidelity.
And marriages aren’t two week vacations.
Can’t help but wonder… who was the “weakness”? Or was it just me?
Hmmm… Anyway, shirt duly pulled down, moment effectively killed. Thank god we’ll always have that!
Bygones, as someone likes to say…
But if you never try you'll never know
Just what you're worth
My pace…?
Fear.
I haven’t felt that in a long time…
Complex webs of nomenclature and explanations to curious friends. And each other!
“Will you go out with me?”
Oh well, what chance does ‘my pace’ stand against the inevitable?
Finally done with controversial terms used to describe our equation…
A love of the transience of everything. Reveling in it.
Really? Always??
Or is that transient too?
The answer's in the looking glass
There's four and twenty million doors
Down life's endless corridor
To echo the “possibility of eventuality”, yes, trying to second guess certain things is futile.
Full Circle.
The irony of it is almost Justin Timberlake-ish.
A heady acceleration and-waitaminute, where are the brakes??
Ohhh…. There aren’t any.
That explains all the freewheeling and spinning out of control…
Cheers to that, then.
As I chase the sun
Thursday, August 16, 2007
5 Random Revelations
After TS tagged me last week (the week before?), here goes…
5 Random revelations:
I am a shoe-addict. At last count-ok, actually, I don’t think I’m going to write this down because if K. reads the figure he will never let me live it down!!
I despise champagne. It makes me want to throw up. Ugh.
I honestly think Sidney Sheldon’s books make for great reading.
I believe emotional stability is a habit. I’m sadly out of practice…
I live for Pink-ness.
Hmmmm..... Now that I've got that off my soul, I think I'm going to go get some tiramisu.
5 Random revelations:
I am a shoe-addict. At last count-ok, actually, I don’t think I’m going to write this down because if K. reads the figure he will never let me live it down!!
I despise champagne. It makes me want to throw up. Ugh.
I honestly think Sidney Sheldon’s books make for great reading.
I believe emotional stability is a habit. I’m sadly out of practice…
I live for Pink-ness.
Hmmmm..... Now that I've got that off my soul, I think I'm going to go get some tiramisu.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Everybody belongs somewhere.
“Everybody belongs somewhere.”
“Maybe everybody doesn’t. Maybe some people just get lost…”
“Last order guys! What will you have?”
The table is unbelievably crowded. Shot-glasses, beer bottles, mojitos, other assorted drinks, ashtrays, cigarette packs and the occasional purse.
Where were we?
I don’t even remember.
One long, alcoholic swirl.
With someone, getting with someone, getting over someone, being without someone.
Trying to be someone…??? God-knows-I’ve-read-too-many-identity-crisis-type-novels…
Bring on the tequila, then.
Do you get wasted? Unbelievably, ridiculously, unfathomably drunk??
What are you running from?
Or…maybe that’s the wrong question…
What are you running towards?
There is not much left to say.
You’ve held me together so many times. Without even knowing it.
You: my partner in crime, and in walking the dark side of the moon.
You: my strong, pure pillar of strength.
You: more my sister than my friend.
You: the Dragon.
You: with the jokes that only I will ever laugh at.
You: with love that made me truly feel ‘effortless’.
You: with the laughter and the beauty and the literature.
If there's anything to say
If there's anything to do
If there's any other way
I'll do anything for you
I don’t know what exactly it is I set out to write today. This post is going to be a terrible read… Heh.
Playing at charades…
“Hey! It’s been a while!”
“Yeah… Where did I see you last…? Agni, right?” (Actually, I saw you at Climax two weeks ago. But I want you to remember, and I want you to say it.)
“Yes, that must have been it.” (Tsk. I’ve been playing this game longer than you, sweetheart. I know you know that we met at Climax two weeks ago, and I’m not going to correct you. I’m a nonchalance-expert! You lose.)
“Ah. Right. Well. I’ll see you around then? Maybe we’ll catch up later at Elevate..?” (Bitch. Lose that guy on your arm though, and then bumping into you might actually be fruitful)
“Hopefully! Ta!” (In your dreams. You lose. Again.)
Hmmm… It gets a just a leeeetle bit tiring after a while.
Thankfully, I’ve partied a lot with many different categories of crowds these past few years. And many of them are: more fun, fewer games… Less Delhi, if you know what I mean.
I’m still exhausted though…
Even in bits and pieces…it is going to take its toll…
The plan was supposed to be sheesha and restraint, wasn’t it darling? But then…things have a way of happening with us, don’t they?
Oh, well. We shall see…
Is there some idea
To replace my life?
“Maybe everybody doesn’t. Maybe some people just get lost…”
“Last order guys! What will you have?”
The table is unbelievably crowded. Shot-glasses, beer bottles, mojitos, other assorted drinks, ashtrays, cigarette packs and the occasional purse.
Where were we?
I don’t even remember.
One long, alcoholic swirl.
With someone, getting with someone, getting over someone, being without someone.
Trying to be someone…??? God-knows-I’ve-read-too-many-identity-crisis-type-novels…
Bring on the tequila, then.
Do you get wasted? Unbelievably, ridiculously, unfathomably drunk??
What are you running from?
Or…maybe that’s the wrong question…
What are you running towards?
There is not much left to say.
You’ve held me together so many times. Without even knowing it.
You: my partner in crime, and in walking the dark side of the moon.
You: my strong, pure pillar of strength.
You: more my sister than my friend.
You: the Dragon.
You: with the jokes that only I will ever laugh at.
You: with love that made me truly feel ‘effortless’.
You: with the laughter and the beauty and the literature.
If there's anything to say
If there's anything to do
If there's any other way
I'll do anything for you
I don’t know what exactly it is I set out to write today. This post is going to be a terrible read… Heh.
Playing at charades…
“Hey! It’s been a while!”
“Yeah… Where did I see you last…? Agni, right?” (Actually, I saw you at Climax two weeks ago. But I want you to remember, and I want you to say it.)
“Yes, that must have been it.” (Tsk. I’ve been playing this game longer than you, sweetheart. I know you know that we met at Climax two weeks ago, and I’m not going to correct you. I’m a nonchalance-expert! You lose.)
“Ah. Right. Well. I’ll see you around then? Maybe we’ll catch up later at Elevate..?” (Bitch. Lose that guy on your arm though, and then bumping into you might actually be fruitful)
“Hopefully! Ta!” (In your dreams. You lose. Again.)
Hmmm… It gets a just a leeeetle bit tiring after a while.
Thankfully, I’ve partied a lot with many different categories of crowds these past few years. And many of them are: more fun, fewer games… Less Delhi, if you know what I mean.
I’m still exhausted though…
Even in bits and pieces…it is going to take its toll…
The plan was supposed to be sheesha and restraint, wasn’t it darling? But then…things have a way of happening with us, don’t they?
Oh, well. We shall see…
Is there some idea
To replace my life?
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