Between the lines

It is an art. Ironically, it sure is an art.
The ability to draw a page
Around a single word, or an act,
draw lines on it, fill them up with
deep dark strokes and read them.
An obsession it is. To read and reread.
Till the lines become dark enough
to spread grey all around.
Till they run deep enough
to never repair the scar.
Grey hues, scars, tatters.
They haunt.
Pages pile up. Higher and higher.
Shoulders lock in tighter knots,
smiles become strained.
In pursuit of a different art,
one that blurs and numbs sooner
I gather the highest degrees possible
of reading between the lines.

Finifugal

My opus is a maze.

A maze of designs and some notes.
A few high, some low.
Some tatters, a few letters,
scattered everywhere.
I try to put them in a pattern.
But then, art was never my forte.

I have my own world.
A world sprawled across the pages
that are mostly in my head.
A few slink out of my heart too.
The pages, they are black.
Black, velvety black, and shades of it
Then there is white. Pure or off.
No grey though. No colors too.

Their glare is blinding.

There are no numbers, just beginnings.
Neither on the pages nor in my soul.
No numbers between zero and ten that is,
except the obvious one and the scary ten.
I hover someplace in between.

A beginning has an end.That's what the rule
books say. A rule people never break.
Or so they claim. All of them around me.

Push, shove, scheme, ridicule and scream silently.
Promise that this is how it is meant to be,
That end,  "it marks another beginning" !!!

A beginning. An end.
Neatly arranged hackneyed banalities
and cliched truism,feel-good bromides
and platitudes in between.
My home is in the midpoint.
The cobwebs, they say, are my own creation. I , they say,
succumb to my own blows. "Go with the flow", "let it end"
"good things waiting to happen"," let go let go let go".

People slot me into straitjackets of their perceptions
I don't belong there. I am an accident.Unexpected, sudden.
Rules don't apply to me. 

Trust doesn't live in me.

Faith keeps breaking me.

Not even love can touch me.

I am a finifugal.
I fight to ward of the finale.

I refuse to walk up to the sinister end.
End. Period. Climax. Death. 

Elixir of life

It started with a book referred by a friend. "Many masters many lives" by Dr. Brian Weiss. A hardcore pessimist like me, who loves to refute what is deeply ingrained in others through ages, I fell hook, line,sinker for the theory of past life. The idea of me being an eternal soul, residing in a temporary body, it planted itself deeply in my mind and grew slowly and gradually to engulf the more sensible part of me.I started to believe that these people around me, not all, just those who can touch my core, either to destroy or to repair, have all been with me for eternity.

I have never had a dirth of friends. Nor well wishers. My school and college scrapbooks are filled with testimonials of my happy-go-lucky persona. Talkative, loud and giggling, are words that stuck to me eternally. Yet beneath all the mirth lived a different me. A loner. A bit of Insecurity. A bit of stubborn Strength. A friendly soul who belonged to none. Throughout the last four decades, I have lived in this cage of a genial mingler. while my heart yearned to revel, in either it's petulant or placid solitude. From behind the bars of the cage of my preferred masks or the visage of solitude, I reached out and gathered history. I brewed some wisdom, on when to open the doors, and some tricks, on when to shut my heart out.

Strange are the ways of the heart. However much battering it has to put up with, it still retains its power.The power to spot that guiding light, to sieve that priceless anchor. From amongst the debris and dump-yards of meaningless liaisons formed en route. My heart is no different. It picked and placed in it some souls, who kept it pumping, either with love or with grudge. These are not just people I meet along the way. The connect with them go beyond the superficial. Breaking through all my shadows of attitude and walls of fear. They touch my soul. These are souls that can control me. They are the elixir of my life.

A neighbor, a teacher.A kin who left early, another who stays as a shadow, never coming together but always there in hour of need.Like the friend who calls every time my present tries to strangle, or the one who makes a painting of my muck and puts it up for sale. One, who challenged and changed my perspectives. A fresh fragrant soul that taught me to let go of past's stench. Two little pairs of hands that tug, pull, hug and keep me alive. The mere presence of them in my life keeps me ticking. The few that try to bludgeon my breath out, they make me strong. The rest, whose mere presence beats my stress out, they give me power. Neither care for my well knit sheaths or able walls. They just barge in unannounced, inundate my existence and then, they leave.

They leave. No matter how they arrive or how they shake up my life, they never stay put. Their pulling away creates a void that takes an effort to wrap or fill that gets maddening at times. Specially when they cease to be actors playing a part in my life and turn into audiences. The scene changes and they rarely get back on stage. They just hover around close by, refusing to reach out and touch. Their job is done. I trudge on, trying to hold on to the life that was.

The pattern never really changes. Only I have given it a new perspective. All thanks to my tryst with the theory of past life. It all seems to fall in place now. These people who break me aren't a mirror of my weaknesses. They are getting even for what I had done to them in some other body. The one's who bring peace and love aren't balanced, loving people, they are here to unload the balance of emotions I earned in some previous birth. The best part is the explanation for their quitting. Each soul has a fixed time with me for each birth, if  death does us apart before we served our time then we meet in future. But only to complete the time that was meant to be.

Gibberish, hogwash, the rantings of a troubled mind? Could be. Having worn my atheism on my sleeve since ever, putting my belief in this theory of past life is not without a pinch of salt. Yet, there is also this romantic in me, who holds on to this small piece of faith, which makes life live. It evens out the folds of hurt and grief bestowed upon by arrogant folks. It makes my heart glow with the warmth gifted by some intimate bonds. It goads me to build faith, recognize and respect these special souls. They are my confidants and quislings, who I feel, have walked with me for eternity.

Tired

Heaviness runs through the limbs.
Dark circles. Disoriented. Disheveled.
Throbbing feet. Cracked lips.
Tired. Painfully tired.
Craving sleep. Deep, dreamless sleep.

Time for the vagabond to hang up the shoes.

Give up the search for anchors and roots. 

Strange has the journey so far been.

Rooted to my own spot the entire world I have seen.

Stations have crept in or rushed past and gone. 

I alighted on some, ignored some,
some away from me have run.
Enticing and inviting were the names.
Family,love, friendship...
in each I tried to build credence.
People came and people went.
Yet there I stood, with a restless mind and a hungry heart.
At times vulnerable, sometimes vain.

I stood my ground facing the bumbling crowd
that rushed in from each stop.
Fiddled with perfidy, bruised with doubts, nudged with expectations,
trying to get a piece of me as a token.
Perched on the wheels of hope and qualm,
I saw them rolling all around.
Calculated moves, trifle motives,
overshadowing, ignoring
my outstretched arms.

The linchpins, they slowly came undone.
Eccentricity. Impulse. Quirks.
Various are my foibles that,
pulled each out, with painstaking precision.

I have waited for an eternity to come home.
To be gathered safely with a touch, comforted with a smile,
reassured with a familiar smell or a loving call.
The dust thrown up by the gallivanting posse has blurred my sight.
I sit at the crossroads shutting out all cacophony
of instructions and orders and chiding and imploring.
Exhausted. Fatigued. Finished. Dead.

Reality

"Jodi tor daak shune
Keu na ashe tobe
Ekla cholo re"

(If your call goes unheeded then walk alone)

Powerful and highly inspiring words by a great man which transcends the boundaries of language, time, age. Many have drawn strength from it in times of despair. I am no exception.

My life isn't picture perfect. Not even close. It is, on the contrary, a canvas on an unsteady wobbly mount. Swaying, lilting, fluttering or at times firm like a rock, absorbing the splash of colors, letting the amateurish patterns hide those couple of masterpieces by those rare aficionados. Often I have tried to stop the hands that spoil the painting, to stop the disastrous strokes, but in vain. I look around for help. My calls for succor go unheeded.

I walk alone.

Alone I tread along.
Answerable to none.
Liable only to my soul.
A picture of strength.

 

Pictures aren't always perfect. Neither are they always honest. Then again, they are at the mercy of interpretations that are slaves of our experiences and prejudices. So while the world jeers, sneers or admires my stubborn solitary walk, I close my eyes and thank them all who never leave me to walk alone.

Vulnerability. Cajoles me to walk blindfolded assuring that it is best to walk with my soul bare. 
Experience.  It always reminds me to watch my step.
Impulse. Always at loggerheads with Experience .
Hope. Biggest supporter of  Impulse and always trying hard to repudiate Experience and rewrite it.

Audacity. Endorses the merits of Solitude.

Angst. Urges me to leave everything and run away into oblivion.

Facade. Shielding me and smearing the rest too, with an imperceptible layer of gaiety.

They never leave my side, hand in hand, twisting, sometimes swinging, interlaced fingers or pushing and shoving. Even when my patience leaves or my ego turns it back on me, thanks to my companions, I never walk alone.

Broken

Gaping wounds.
Those cuts that show the mangled insides.
That layers of thin vulnerability join to guard.
Ugly.
Painful.
That takes an eternity to heal.
That blind spot.
The scars remain.
A reminder of what had been.
The pain never really goes.
Only the mind numbs the hurt.
The heart wraps it and puts it somewhere deep.
Till an innocent little scratch tugs open the surface.
Out spills the rotten stink.
Time seldom mends what is broken.
Cuts don't heal.