permeation
Warm winter reaches its zenith, though the mercury disagrees with me. May be I have a fever. That thermometer has not been seen in a while, touch wood. Try as I may, I am not able to focus on work. I knew this would happen, when I took that vacation. I am not exactly longing to be elsewhere either. And the times are hard in the industry. Time to call yourself a resource and mine. But, I am either on or off. Just two states. There is that listless restlessness creeping in. I can see the end of this coming some days or months later, yet, if I have to trust my own judgment and ability to avoid self fulfilling prophecies, it is very clear -- it could end in a patented, rock bottom -- something that is good for work and nothing else -- just a launch pad to the next rock bottom -- as in, back to the very foundations of existence. I am not too far up the building right now either. Rock bottom, is not bad. It is self feeding and rather nice. You can become a perfect machine. Things become simple and clear. Let me not elaborate further. I observe, that the writing has become predictable and monotonous, history just repeating itself and precessing towards a dead beat. There is nothing I want to write about, despite the best of encouragements. Ironic. And, my perennial source of inspiration is something I am unwilling to explore any further. I intend to see the end through, if at all it is coming. Lately, I have been more willing to let the connections go idle until necessary... seems very natural. Thoughts of wanting to do something, to learn and to try are now tiring. Sleep is about the most enjoyable thing at the moment.... who knows? may be this is another transformation in progress...
Black Alluvium
The Brahmaputra. Also known as the Tsangpo on the leeward side. The flood season is over. The banks are sandy and the river is silent, except for the occasional murmur as the waters eddy around the sand deposits or debris hidden beneath. No Dolphins today. There is haze and mist adding to the surreality with the midday glitters on the water. The sky and the deceptive dark flow are hardly discernible. We make our foot prints among the many left earlier by Rhinos and Elephants on this gray dusty bank, and just like them, we are unable to reach the water from the sandy cliff. More than 300 meters away, a solitary Elephant sounds off a warning and continues to graze and play with the sand. It blends in easily. The fine dust kicks up readily and sticks on to the shoes, clothing and the camera. There is no wind. There are numerous perfectly conical and identical holes on the ground -- entrances to the underworld. The shifting sands, the moving river, the animals, insects and us... nothing stands here for too long, except the plants. And the movements are all measured and very slow. In this desolation, with its sheer volume and width of about 15 kms, the river appears pristine and primeval to the eye. For now, everything is calm and sleepy. I am, without choice or protest, in sync. The memory is flooded with information and all the thinking has to come later.
snow
It is true until it is said.
Merry Christmas.
[+/-] my favorite version of the Carol Of The Bells
Layer upon layer, over the years, beautiful as it may be, snow has got deposited and in the eternal winter, it sheaths what lies beneath. The sleeting ice needs to be broken. Lets try. Friends were made and friends were lost. The harder I tried to hold on, the farther they went. I am on the lost list of some too. It is almost silly how easily I fall in love and try ever so hard to convince myself to let it go. Or make friends and then having to let them go. Lately, being on guard all the time has turned boring and tiring. So what if some don't like me? So what if anyone doesn't like me? What if I do like something? They are just opinions. They change. I am too old to be trying to find a best friend, as much as I would like that. Also have to consider how many people I have prevented from reaching there. Now it feels like friends have all but disappeared. Sometimes I wonder at the very idea of a friend. It is not true that there aren't any friends. There are enough who would answer a cry for help and who have my respect and trust. But, If I let myself go, I end up in this mad needy state that feels most unhealthy -- I am just becoming more and more of a deviant, in ways I hardly foresaw. But for that, there is an enigmatic freedom, mostly random and feeble and ephemeral, in which there are things to wonder at, in every degree of the tri-dimensional compass. Easy smiles. The ungot and the lost are something to be tried for, with zest sans fear of failing and sans the compulsion of possessing. Say, what do I do in life outside of these words? I write in a different language -- to communicate with machines. I program, and contribute a little in the designing.
Merry Christmas.
[+/-] my favorite version of the Carol Of The Bells
Dawn
More than 6000 kms and two weeks of travel by land came to an end 2 days ago. Apart from the minor cold feet before setting off, the rest of the trip just happened. Planning and backpacking like this to new lands, my first solo, proved to be everything I thought it will be -- it felt not too different from any other day. If you are like a stranger at home, you are always home. Best foot forward, economize, minimize and discard excess. Far away friends, thieves, friendly strangers, refreshing professionals, hidden sanctuaries, long meditative silences, book, unnatural cold, fog, mist, moon, sun, flora and fauna... You have to be there. You move on when the time comes and preserve what you need and go back again or elsewhere when the time comes.
Looks like Eco-tourism is a necessary evil, for ecology.
Looks like Eco-tourism is a necessary evil, for ecology.
Game
gentle slide downwards, gravity takes over,
the field of vision narrows as the momentum increases,
there is no fear of the impending,
there is a quiet desperation none the less,
the effort has to be made...
have to stop,
what's the point of not stopping?
ok. just stop.
done. that was simple.
bored; of nothing in particular.
there isn't anything worth reading,
nothing worth saying;
Is it possible to be content, just like that?
there is a vague memory of such a thing... sure...
let the beats bounce off,
let the beats pass through,
let them get absorbed....
be content.
done.
now, go play.
the field of vision narrows as the momentum increases,
there is no fear of the impending,
there is a quiet desperation none the less,
the effort has to be made...
have to stop,
what's the point of not stopping?
ok. just stop.
done. that was simple.
bored; of nothing in particular.
there isn't anything worth reading,
nothing worth saying;
Is it possible to be content, just like that?
there is a vague memory of such a thing... sure...
let the beats bounce off,
let the beats pass through,
let them get absorbed....
be content.
done.
now, go play.
expedient cryptography #.25
If I may say so,
simple substitutions and imaginary numbers,
smudging brush strokes, surreal coloring,
phonemes, borrowed words, appellations,
but great old wine in different bottles;
tastes no better than it started;
age has done it no good,
not possible.
begin with a magnum opus,
where do you go after that?
recall the good and bask in the memory,
but it is done. what next? then again, why next?
there has never been a next, has there?
They say what goes around comes around.
Sure. Always respected it. Let everything go.
Just like that. Time after time. No fighting,
absolutely works. It comes around,
just so that you can send it around, again.
Let me liberate myself,
acknowledge the imperfection,
on yet another scale,
one just as less a whole as another.
Followed the book: I threw it out.
I wrote a book, I threw it out.
simple substitutions and imaginary numbers,
smudging brush strokes, surreal coloring,
phonemes, borrowed words, appellations,
but great old wine in different bottles;
tastes no better than it started;
age has done it no good,
not possible.
begin with a magnum opus,
where do you go after that?
recall the good and bask in the memory,
but it is done. what next? then again, why next?
there has never been a next, has there?
They say what goes around comes around.
Sure. Always respected it. Let everything go.
Just like that. Time after time. No fighting,
absolutely works. It comes around,
just so that you can send it around, again.
Let me liberate myself,
acknowledge the imperfection,
on yet another scale,
one just as less a whole as another.
Followed the book: I threw it out.
I wrote a book, I threw it out.
noise
quasi peace, whithering truce;
flawless regenerative formula,
a perpetual machine, inert;
solve, unwrite the question;
first hour capillary tunes,
frictionless loops, sans punctuation,
aggregated monotone; fractal expanse;
scripted end, unpretentious execution;
blurred moon, diplopic eyes,
muffled sounds, dreamy tones,
enter the dark room,
wait...
[+/-] metal birds
flawless regenerative formula,
a perpetual machine, inert;
solve, unwrite the question;
first hour capillary tunes,
frictionless loops, sans punctuation,
aggregated monotone; fractal expanse;
scripted end, unpretentious execution;
blurred moon, diplopic eyes,
muffled sounds, dreamy tones,
enter the dark room,
wait...
[+/-] metal birds
Comet Binary
Arc maker for the mystery night,
dusty white player in the void,
evaporating in the eccentricity,
false freedom in the lonely ellipse;
a crude and scarred simple composition,
fragile to the touch of life light,
fleeting bright passes of death life,
exaggerated spells of life death;
an abomination of creation,
by only the innate nonacceptance;
chanced, transverse tiny sparkle from afar,
beheld a shrapnel, too close for comfort;
identical, small, probable, prime,
perfect undisturbing multiplying divisor--
all and then some more, is one;
but a parallel, it is not.
dusty white player in the void,
evaporating in the eccentricity,
false freedom in the lonely ellipse;
a crude and scarred simple composition,
fragile to the touch of life light,
fleeting bright passes of death life,
exaggerated spells of life death;
an abomination of creation,
by only the innate nonacceptance;
chanced, transverse tiny sparkle from afar,
beheld a shrapnel, too close for comfort;
identical, small, probable, prime,
perfect undisturbing multiplying divisor--
all and then some more, is one;
but a parallel, it is not.
Palmyrah - Chapter 1
All chapters
Chapter 1
Fresh stationery arrived at the desolate hut. The stained white cotton that clad the bearer, soused in sweat and the aroma of the fresh leaves, announced the arrival. The man came over to the entrance without being called and extended a terracotta vessel containing water. He must have been awaiting the arrival. With a pint, the farmer was off into the mid day sun. His bare chest and back were full of melanin, protecting him from the harsh light. He runs a finger over the eyebrows. The eyes talk of a distance that they have seen and the rest that they have to see. The clear definition of the ribs and chest tell the tale of an existence sans any stocks. He gently pulled up the towel from behind his neck and covered his head and ears and let the towel spread along the shoulders and continued walking in a measured pace. He pulled the part on his head a little to the front so as to provide shade for his eyes. He kept his chin low and the bare feet moved daftly across the hot gravel of this semi arid land. Scattered green shrubs and black trunks of palmyrah palms are the only exceptions to the sepia palette. The blackened monolith was thinking of his own porch and a bowl of rice soaked in butter milk and some shallots to go with it.
The man sat down on his front porch with his back straight. He inspected a few of the leaves. The pale green contrasted against the brown of his own skin. He has to treat the leaves with turmeric and break them to size. The palm and coconut fronds that lined his roof, had an aroma that is only rivaled by the fresh stock of his stationery. A beetle tried drunkenly to enter a little hole in one of the bamboo shafts that ran horizontally atop from one hard wood pillar to the other. The bamboo and the coir that bound it to the pillar have both been weathered into a dusty gray with cracks running across the length of the beam. He closed his eyes. There were sounds of some house sparrows. Cuckoos and starlings too were out there somewhere. The beetle's buzz added a serenade over the postprandial dip.
He woke up as the sun hid behind the canopy of the palm tree that rose out of the horizon. Very little of the day remained.
Chapter 1
Fresh stationery arrived at the desolate hut. The stained white cotton that clad the bearer, soused in sweat and the aroma of the fresh leaves, announced the arrival. The man came over to the entrance without being called and extended a terracotta vessel containing water. He must have been awaiting the arrival. With a pint, the farmer was off into the mid day sun. His bare chest and back were full of melanin, protecting him from the harsh light. He runs a finger over the eyebrows. The eyes talk of a distance that they have seen and the rest that they have to see. The clear definition of the ribs and chest tell the tale of an existence sans any stocks. He gently pulled up the towel from behind his neck and covered his head and ears and let the towel spread along the shoulders and continued walking in a measured pace. He pulled the part on his head a little to the front so as to provide shade for his eyes. He kept his chin low and the bare feet moved daftly across the hot gravel of this semi arid land. Scattered green shrubs and black trunks of palmyrah palms are the only exceptions to the sepia palette. The blackened monolith was thinking of his own porch and a bowl of rice soaked in butter milk and some shallots to go with it.
The man sat down on his front porch with his back straight. He inspected a few of the leaves. The pale green contrasted against the brown of his own skin. He has to treat the leaves with turmeric and break them to size. The palm and coconut fronds that lined his roof, had an aroma that is only rivaled by the fresh stock of his stationery. A beetle tried drunkenly to enter a little hole in one of the bamboo shafts that ran horizontally atop from one hard wood pillar to the other. The bamboo and the coir that bound it to the pillar have both been weathered into a dusty gray with cracks running across the length of the beam. He closed his eyes. There were sounds of some house sparrows. Cuckoos and starlings too were out there somewhere. The beetle's buzz added a serenade over the postprandial dip.
He woke up as the sun hid behind the canopy of the palm tree that rose out of the horizon. Very little of the day remained.
impetus
stream, run dry.
shifting sand dunes.
nest, lost and found,
bird, not yet home.
closet, cleaned.
voided, needs moth balls.
chronicling a traveler,
compounded routines off an ancient tongue,
palatable dexterity.
spell checked wizard's clock,
replaced words and appended hours.
inspiration has run dry,
lost, but not hopelessly...
shifting sand dunes.
nest, lost and found,
bird, not yet home.
closet, cleaned.
voided, needs moth balls.
chronicling a traveler,
compounded routines off an ancient tongue,
palatable dexterity.
spell checked wizard's clock,
replaced words and appended hours.
inspiration has run dry,
lost, but not hopelessly...
infrasonic
A rush to escape through the break in the rain, an over estimated transit, an early arrival and a sight that should not have made too much impact otherwise...
A blackout.
A signpost.
A little too much time to kill. Can't help taking a walk. Can't help fishing in this nothingness, Can't help hoping to see something here, miles from the epicenter.
The sound and smell of the flow warn just in time. The open veins of a city is not where one ought to end up. Cross eyed and confused with insomnia in the dark, a new sensation of revived and mutated home sickness has to be tackled. Bouncing off the base has sent me up a happy high. At this reversal, a buried emotion shoots up and I can't help reaching out in the air, knowing I am closer to the place that I will never know or reach, knowing only the direction and not the destination, shunned, I will be blind, even if the lights come back on...
No more time. I can't go further.
Good bye again, as the wind rushes in through the window, the helpless roads wind back once more to the signpost and back into the rain, before heading farther away...
There will be more of these trysts that can't be lived with and can't be lived without.
Strange is a war with no hate and enemy. It is cancerous.
I won't hype it. I won't yield.
A blackout.
A signpost.
A little too much time to kill. Can't help taking a walk. Can't help fishing in this nothingness, Can't help hoping to see something here, miles from the epicenter.
The sound and smell of the flow warn just in time. The open veins of a city is not where one ought to end up. Cross eyed and confused with insomnia in the dark, a new sensation of revived and mutated home sickness has to be tackled. Bouncing off the base has sent me up a happy high. At this reversal, a buried emotion shoots up and I can't help reaching out in the air, knowing I am closer to the place that I will never know or reach, knowing only the direction and not the destination, shunned, I will be blind, even if the lights come back on...
No more time. I can't go further.
Good bye again, as the wind rushes in through the window, the helpless roads wind back once more to the signpost and back into the rain, before heading farther away...
There will be more of these trysts that can't be lived with and can't be lived without.
Strange is a war with no hate and enemy. It is cancerous.
I won't hype it. I won't yield.
Drift
Stop. Stop everything. Just breathe. Just accept what ever your senses bring in.
There is a train slicing through the liquid arrows of October rain. Now it showers, now it doesn't. Now there is a fog, now there isn't. Now the train slows, now it speeds up. The sleeping passengers are gently rocked into a wakefulness. The awake ones soak in the cool breeze. Beauties of yesterday, wake up with hay hair and remain oblivious to the situation, not for a minute. Watch the transformation. Get bored... or pretend to get bored. Look outside. But the attention stays inside. Peripheral vision is indeed more sensitive. Catch the otherwise inconspicuous hints, given to one another, with just blinks and the pause between blinks. All things reaching an acceptable status and the backdrop registered, the play from yesterday, slowly resumes. It is unclear who's who and what they do.It is compelling for an observer. You can't observe and not affect and remain unaffected for too long. Hind sight. After all, you too are playing an observer.
A dreary feeling envelopes and shoves away the rest of the thread of thought. Yet, the rain, the cold and warmth of the beings, stick... like live clay that could take any form from that moment frozen in memory...
There is a train slicing through the liquid arrows of October rain. Now it showers, now it doesn't. Now there is a fog, now there isn't. Now the train slows, now it speeds up. The sleeping passengers are gently rocked into a wakefulness. The awake ones soak in the cool breeze. Beauties of yesterday, wake up with hay hair and remain oblivious to the situation, not for a minute. Watch the transformation. Get bored... or pretend to get bored. Look outside. But the attention stays inside. Peripheral vision is indeed more sensitive. Catch the otherwise inconspicuous hints, given to one another, with just blinks and the pause between blinks. All things reaching an acceptable status and the backdrop registered, the play from yesterday, slowly resumes. It is unclear who's who and what they do.It is compelling for an observer. You can't observe and not affect and remain unaffected for too long. Hind sight. After all, you too are playing an observer.
A dreary feeling envelopes and shoves away the rest of the thread of thought. Yet, the rain, the cold and warmth of the beings, stick... like live clay that could take any form from that moment frozen in memory...
Slipstream
There is moisture in the evening air. A special concoction of cold and warmth has formed and becomes a suspension mixing with those omnipresent living gliders. The rain washed stone slabs of the empty car parking appear fresh and inviting to the bare feet. There is a new sense of elevation as the low hanging rain clouds move away making a distant blue and white visible, the patterns suggestive of some different dynamics way above. There is a small stream percolating into the ground, dispersing, disappearing, to reach a different layer of the world. There is a rustic smell of burned wood and soaked coal...
The qualm sucks away the breath... A moment ago breathing was easy. 'What just happened'? ... everything seems to whisper and bear a curious expression, makes you think you have survived something. That instills a fear. You look around. Nothing. You listen. Nothing. "What is it?..."
With every new breath, with the swaying Gulmohars and the rustling Bamboos, your heart beat synchronizes. You have been sling shot into a different slipstream...
The moon makes an appearance and a slow sleep blankets the night...
The qualm sucks away the breath... A moment ago breathing was easy. 'What just happened'? ... everything seems to whisper and bear a curious expression, makes you think you have survived something. That instills a fear. You look around. Nothing. You listen. Nothing. "What is it?..."
With every new breath, with the swaying Gulmohars and the rustling Bamboos, your heart beat synchronizes. You have been sling shot into a different slipstream...
The moon makes an appearance and a slow sleep blankets the night...
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