Clandestine Affairs

The slit-to-be on my wrist is not too far a reckoning,
Dramatic pundits might cherish the tone and wordplay,
But some of us have destinies to fulfill, darker shades
Of maroon. Have taken a toil on a decommissioned mind.

Where did I go right anyways? Often the urge to turn
Myself up rises, but fades like a note of a Harmonica.
You should have stopped me from this rise, from this
Exquisite phenomenon of my undiluted passions, perhaps
You wanted a spectacle.

Shed not a smile when all this is over, in essence never
But linearly so. Quite the titular emotional joyride this is.
I am not embarrassed enough to proclaim that my passion
Is divided between minstrel harlots. They know the price for
Having me.

Like Wagner's operatic affairs, I too believe in the grandeur
Of a tragic affair. Fall we must, to the basest of my temptations.
Could you pass the syringe now, this is too much revelation for today.
I must continue feeding the blackened veins.

................................................................

I must, I must, I must. Like the rhythms of a spider's legs, I must.
Soon I will be consumed, my innards drained of what made me so.
Lines will follow, grammatically correct, their punctuation intact.
The exclamation being the one among many coarse enough to jest.
Standing at the end of a particularly long sentence, like a purple veined
Erection among an orgy of man and women.

In the quiet arrogance of my heart I am delighted with the outcome, the
Sentences and lines taking up dreams to a place riddled with reality. Perhaps
You mustn't compete with me, I will obliterate you with passion hitherto unknown.
Ergo I shall love you.

You will assume I am heartbroken, post hoc, ergo propter hoc. Quite the 
Deconstructionist you are now. The fall shall come, brilliantly cloaked
In a sharpened razor resting upon my wrist, or maybe my addictions shall
Do me in. Either way, I shall hold you responsible. You will be delighted with
The adulation that shall follow.

Did you notice the change in the tone as the words progressed? Such is my
Life, a broken paradigm of what could have beens and what should have beens.
The slit-to-be on my wrist is not too far a reckoning.
I must, I must, I must. Like the rhythms of a spider's legs, I must.

Remembering A Fallen Teardrop

"There are many types of monsters that scare me: Monsters who cause trouble without showing themselves, monsters who abduct children, monsters who devour dreams, monsters who suck blood... and then, monsters who tell nothing but lies. Lying monsters are a real nuisance: They are much more cunning than others. They pose as humans even though they have no understanding of the human heart; they eat even though they've never experienced hunger; they study even though they have no interest in academics; they seek friendship even though they do not know how to love. If I were to encounter such monsters, I would likely be eaten by them... because in truth, I am that monster."-  L, Death Note Rewrite.

Thus says 'L' in Death Note, a Japanese anime manga I've been addicted to since quite some time. Though the series is about a supernatural notebook that allows the beholder to kill anyone by writing their name in it, it essentially deals with the moral decline of its main protagonist, 'Light Yagami'. Furthermore, the cat and mouse chase between the brilliant yet aloof, L and the equally brilliant yet cold, Light Yagami, is the most interesting interaction I've seen among two characters in some time. During the course of the series, we see an inevitable moral decline in both the characters, more so in Light as he holds the ideals of justice close to his heart and the pen to vanquish evil close to his hands. Deduction and an amoral commitment to the task at hand makes both the characters almost indifferent to people around them, their purpose being a purpose, nothing more. Watching this reminded me of the social experiments I indulge in and how they alienate me from reason and emotion. The last one shattered me completely, in fact, I'm still reeling from the effervescence of its birth, love and now untamed melancholy.

I, perhaps, for one, loved too soon and too much. Perhaps I did not even love a woman, it may have been an ideal for my long repressed intimacy issues. But retrospection is useless, to have loved and lost is better than to have never loved at all. Again, I emphasize. I did not love a woman, I loved an ideal, a fixation which arose from the perverse and the divine. It's over now. Shamefully, for me; depressingly for her. I could get her back, of course I could, I am a man after all. I possess what is needed to drag her back in my world. But I choose not to. Like Light of Death Note, I choose to suffer and burn for some great idea; but unlike him I am not aware of what it is. What is amusing for me right now is how I manage to see 'her' even in animated cartoons. It seems as if she is everywhere.

I will burn for her, immolate my soul for her and perhaps find peace in the recesses of the aftermath. Perhaps. I use the word perhaps quite often, it is because I know nothing definite. I do not even know if my raison d'etre is definite, fixed. I have aged by more than ten years in the last one year, you can see it in my face, the lines etched from grief and perhaps, some wisdom. I am no longer the master of my own choices, the only choice I have made is that of destruction. The trajectory of a great fall is always proportional to its rise. The rot and fire, the burning flames within, the putrid mix of acid and alcohol in my belly, the drugs in my bloodstream, and the mighty fall. All celebrating an idyllic winter, a dying lover's last breath.

In a land far from yours,
Far from the rights and wrongs,
Away from the mighty and the weak,
Forgetting promises, smiles and sorrows;
Let us meet, forever and for once, now and then.

I will love again, but not the way I have loved you. I refuse to forget or even, forgive you. I vehemently refuse the solace of your waiting arms. I can afford to do that, for some nights you come to me, in the gentlest of my dreams, in the stormiest of nights and in the burning tears reaching out for my lips. You make love to me, forgiving everything, your body rhythmic against mine. We become one, the heat of your legs my solemn refuge. Love me even if I do not love you back, make me cruel and unworthy of your fuck.Then there are days you don't come and I rage against myself.

October, and possibily November

There is chaos and anarchy in my eyes, mutually inclusive exclusions forming divisive methodologies to create personalized accounts of mythical tales, illusions within seclusion. A very painful sort of rage with an innate desire to alienate myself from one and all rises within me. Simple words cannot do justice to my state as my emotions swirl with complex intentions, only to create fissures in my mind. Curiously, a denial of life is so strong within me that I long to welcome ruin with open arms. Reach the very abyss of existence to find a lowly corner of sordid happiness. The paradox is that isolation is the right of the mighty, the weak cannot have it. Society engulfs the weak completely, it insidiously creeps inside the weak man's life, his thoughts and even his emotions. My thoughts and emotions are so overwhelming that I feel crushed under their weight. By my own logic, I am weak.

It is a sad confession.

Groomed For Silence

I have lost my memory for now, lost the names
And images of the ones that were once loved.
Curiously or rather not, I remember you; everything
But your name.

I know your name is unimportant, for we never said
Much to each other. We were lovers, my dear, and
Often words used to fail us. I remember the taste of
Your tongue and flesh. Often, maybe always, I was
Insatiable for you.

The days pass in attempts to recall, perhaps even
Create an identity; and the nights in love and
Longing. I only sleep to dream about you and to
Think of my hand as yours, as it violently caresses
My starved body.

I remember the tender of your thigh, the mole on
Your hip. But i digress, evocations to your unusually
Slender form will not serve my purpose. What is my
Purpose then? To make a mistress out of a lover;
Pshaw! It's time to regain the universe.

I remember, i remember the look in your eyes
When you held me close to love me. Infidelity
Has its scars. I, unfortunately, remember the astute
Barrel of a gun against my beating heart. Shame
You missed. My dearest, I forgive you all. I forgive
The look in your eyes.

The broken pieces of language that I strew around
Are not by chance; they allude to the fascism of my
My spineless heart. I think the word 'fuck' would
Do some justice to the tragedy at hand here.
Perhaps.

Let me die in this lie, let me bury you alive. Do Gods exist?
They do, in my heart, in the pit of my belly; they do. Would
They be generous enough to give me a chance, a lifetime
Of lucidity, in Lucy's arms. I feel bellows of silent laughter
Raging against my womb.

I don't think I am reliable anymore. Delirious, delusional,
devastated, devoid, demented, and finally, desecrated.
I am out of D's now, perhaps I will die now. You shouldn't
Have shot me in the heart. I must confess, I don't remember
Much. Apologies.




For the illusion of clarity, click here. I am at a loss to explain this deviance, ah! another adjective close to my heart, and since i am at a loss; I'll leave it.

Scholars' Altar

I am a research scholar now; your idiosyncrasies
Craving my universe of thoughts; ebbing away
Reality and its sensory distractions: yours truly
Is a crazed lover, espoused to you mere being.
I am tempted to oust romantic inklings from
Our cerebral, oft-clumsy rendezvous; but what
Shall be the state of your flowing femininity then?
I confess that you are not the only subject of my
Prying heart; for love exists only to satiate art,
Perhaps only to inspire and inflict painful rouses of
Affection and tenderness; seemingly curious in the
Beginning. Other forms have come and gone; and
Perhaps newer shall arrive; but none shall rival
The passages of our history, cocooned in silver
Yarns of memory. I must finish my thesis through
Our entangled arms; love's gaunt victorious after all.

In Defense of the Delhi Boy

Ah the perils of a social conscience! Here is a meek defense of my favorite specie in the zoo: the Delhi boy. He has been defamed and criticized here by a fellow blogger and a citizen of this nation. My heart stirred with emotion and I set out to frame a noble reply for my brethren but the keyboard fried midway as my copious tears fell on its old school circuits. As I started writing, two men of significant stature came to my mind; the English poets Sir Philip Sydney and Percy Bysshe Shelley (husband to my former love, Mary Shelley). See we Delhi boys have read our literature, no? Both these men wrote because they ardently believed in poetry. Shelley's A Defense of Poetry and Sydney's The Defense of Poesy inspired me to write for what I believe in: The Delhi Boy.

Dear fellow blogger,

I refrained from calling you a 'madrasan', not only because I did not want my future offspring to 'sprout coir' but because I was raised in a city where people come from all over India. Delhi has people from Maharashtra, West Bengal, Bihar, Punjab and the many states of North East India. Like a vast sea, Delhi takes them all in. Like a mother, she raises them to be men. Delhi University, the melting pot of the many states of India, revels in giving an identity to one and all. You can read that here. When you came here two years ago with ' a bucketload of expectations', perhaps you had already committed your first mistake. Your expectations were in fact preconceived notions about an identity of a city and its men. When you compare us to an 'ignorant, chauvinistic oaf with the intelligence levels of an autistic 3 year old on crack', you not only display profound ignorance but also insensitivity towards autism and drug abuse. 

Who is a Delhi Boy? Is he the one who is born and bred here or is he the 'immigrant' who has accepted Delhi as his home? Neither you or I can answer that question. We are all children of one planet and all boundaries are man made. I would have never ever bat an eyelid after reading your post if your angst was against men in general. But why stereotype us? Men are uncouth and crass all over the world. Why single out Delhi's men? Delhi is unsafe not because of its men but because of the indifference of local law agencies. Women are unsafe in Delhi because the law is lenient and not because Delhi's men have more testosterone. I support you completely when you talk about safety for women in Delhi. I have a working mother and many female friends who go out in the city every day. Of course, I want them to be safe. But bashing men just because they belong to Delhi is a bit harsh.

I finds bits and pieces in your write-up amusing. Your humor stems from racism and ignorance, the very two traits you accuse Delhi men of possessing. I honestly did not understand what you meant when you said 'your mother’s voluptuous shaved Punjabi bosom'. Women have hair all over their bodies. its variance depending upon genetics rather than geographical locations. As a woman, I'm sure you understand that having unwanted body hair is a mere cosmetic anomaly and nothing more. Of whatever insignificant knowledge I possess about the fairer sex from 'the countries south of the Vindhyas', I believe they are more voluptuous than their Punjabi counterparts. You can read that here. Show me a man who shares his girlfriends' bra (unless they are into kinky sex) and I'll gift you a SUV. Are Delhi men really ignorant if they can hold a conversation about something as women centric as Fendi? I think not. 

Also what is with the Punjabi hangover? It seems you were dumped by a true blue Punjabi man and you resent that fact to the core. It's OK if the relationship ended, why end your morality and intelligence? There are women who are denied basic rights down South and there are women who enjoy freedom in the North. Why say something based upon skewed perceptions rather than statistics? Women are not treated like trash in Delhi as you ardently believe. Any gender disparity is because of widespread ignorance and insensitivity and those are the weeds you should uproot. Spewing poison won't help you one bit. Also, for the record Delhi does not equal to Punjab. 

Ah English, would you really stoop so low and accuse us of not speaking it as well as our western counterparts? Aren't we all Macaulay's children? 'Mere mom-dad' seems so much more cuter and friendlier than my father and mother. Why take the fun out of everything? When I read 'You were brought up on Gurdas Mann and the heroic deeds of Devinder Singh Bhullar', I sat up bewildered. Are all boys in Delhi bought up on a staple diet of these two? Why was I denied the heroism of Gurdas Mann and Devinder Singh Bhullar? I wish my parents could afford these two, I would have been so much more braver. Sigh.

I should tell you a secret, I would've let it all go if you hadn't dragged the lovely girls of LSR and St Stephen's into this thoughtless quagmire of yours. Though 'hollaback' began as an international movement, I know for a fact that many girls from the aforementioned colleges actively took part in the 'Delhi' version of this viral angst rather actively. You can find their contribution here. There are many such initiatives they have been a part of and I hope you'll recognize their efforts. 

I'm so sure that you must have met a Brit who said 'sawth' instead of 'south'. Delhi men know how to pronounce 'south', they say it all the time. From cracking lewd jokes to choosing their cuisine, the word 'south' is everywhere. We love 'your' food, its awesome. Standing testimony to this fact are the many and crowded Sagar Ratna's here. I swear we all wait in a line every time we go there, it's now a tradition. In fact, I often refuse to dine there if there is no queue outside. I feel offended.

You also seem to earnestly believe that only South Indians crack IIT, become writers and journalists , and follow their dreams. I beg to differ. We are passionate about our dreams too. Hence we sleep a lot. Also, what's wrong with wishing you ‘Happy Guru Purab’? I find all of your rants rather inconsistent with any logical personality trait. Please don't write when you are confused. You might not become a good writer then. 

I am angriest at the fact that you misspelled 'Kaka Da Dhaba'. It's where I roll.

Yours,

Delhi Boy

P.S.- Never judge a book by its cover. Similarly, never judge Delhi by 'Delhi Belly'.

Draupadi's Daughter

For Draupadi, a thousand men fell.
For you, my love, a thousand more.

Verbal Stains

Should I conquer you in slow steps

Or a swift stroke of metal suffice?

You are my muse and my sculpture,

The reason of dried blood on my back.

The lines of passions drawn

By your pale hungry nails,

And mistress to an artist above you.

It is my intention to have you

By sleight of hand or otherwise,

Any means possible or even contrary.

I am waging a war on my own self

Unnecessarily to have you at once.

I know it can be easily avoided

For you are not worth a pittance.

However word uttered from my lips

Carries both clout and concealment.

So tell me my dearest

Would you like to come in pieces

Or should I order a king sized bed?

Priestess

I will come to love you
Without reasons or annotations;
The corners of our pages
Folded as if in prayer.

I will suck the pleasure
From your toes;
My tongue, your hostess
For the evening.

I will write notes of love
On your bare back;
My palms steady
In the rhythm of our pace.

I will lose language
To communicate:
My body broken
By your love.

I will plant kisses
With aching gentleness:
Your moist secrets
Quivering like a bow.

I will quench us both
An oasis in sand;
My hands cupping
The folds of your flesh.

I will break your will
To restraint and to shy;
Awaken the desire
To be violently consumed.

I will come to love you
Without reasons or annotations;
A long dark shadow of the night
Inconsolable with your want.

Snip

Little red drops pricked

By a needle; intertwined

With opium from lands

Far away.

Reduced to ash and

Charcoal dust; a fever 

Slowly consuming his

Broken memory.

A once-upon-a-time

Prince; now reduced

And refused words

Themselves.