You learn at 23:
1. Romantic Movies are bullshit.
2. Money is probably everything.
3. There's a deep intellectual person in you, but right now, it just wants more money to express itself.
4. New friends are suddenly untrustworthy. Guys are back stabbers and girls are bottomless bit*hes.
5. It's every man for himself.
6. How to work while being stoned/buzzed.
7. Lying is okay if it serves a deeper, self-justified purpose.
8. Society is another bullshit story. It's okay to do what you want to, till you feel it's right.
9. To respect the virtue of laziness.
10. To find happiness in mediocrity.
11. Using expensive phones is an illusion of appearing big-dicked.
12. Being rich would buy you more books, more movies, and more art. If you were richer, you'd decidedly be more well-read, well-informed and creative.
13. Get Rich or Die Tryin', or Do an MBA.
14. Losing your sleep is the worst thing you can do to yourself.
15. You'd give your left kidney to be a musician. Or, to get paid for what you love doing.
16. Parents are frighteningly responsible.
17. Sometimes, what you write is complete crap. There is no hidden adolescent significance in it anymore.
18. Why Beatles are Kings. And Queens.
19. Love and sex are threateningly symbiotic.
20. It's not always smart to end lists at authoritative figures like 10, 20, 25, 50 and 100.
The night is young,
It doesn't hold promises but.
The Day of my return,
is the Only constant but.
Tomorrow, a demon will rise,
Miserable and impotent but.
Envy beckons for friends who get to stay,
They are veteran nomads but.
Grief is a simplistic escape,
It is natural but.
The guilt of doing less slithers in swiftly,
tis not a revelation but.
Being more is a state of being,
it is no replacement for action but.
Bad poems are emotional diarrhea,
you just ate your heart out but.
You are Shiva's soul,
You are a scenery's flippant knoll.
The creator of all peace,
The doomsday of every discourteous civilization.
You're an earth crystal in the destiny's sands,
The shaken white of the most consequent quartz,
That completes the flawless utopia,
In the maestro's symphony of the beauty of sound.
You are not in me,
But in everything that envelops me,
Like an unrestrained and unconquered force of nature that writes,
Your name in the dew on my Life's Window.
[Ambar - Raghu Dixit inspires this line]
The inscrutable temptations of your eyelashes,
Reveal the resplendent felinity of your urging eyes.
I'd gladly read a 100 Quran, accept a thousand inferior rebirths, sacrificing myself on the altar of your labyrinthine tresses,
In the name of your ancient worship,
Stretched over a 100 generations of my spleenic devotion.
You have a heart of adventure,
And how you rub off on me.
The touch of your skin dances on my body,
Rinsing my thoughts of you with the fresh night's Cologne.
But it's time now to leave this heathen eulogy,
To cower back in the reins of reality.
As the grass stroking on my head.
Gently pushes me to sleep.
...
I wish I was not sitting in this class. I wish I was on the top of a waterfall, poised to jump the life out of my purposeless existence in a white-collar management establishment. A nameless, burgeoning voice is shouting in the halls of my depravedness; spewing out - positional authority, uselessly dissected practicality; traditional, clerical, technical methods to evaluate meaningless, empirical data – a white cloud of perspiring August Noise fills the room like my nightmares throng with sad promises of an average life.
Confused voices, unsure of their cradle and consequence, jet from above and behind, assuming their goals for their dreams. Their smiles are innocent, their minds are drifting, in a pale sea of imposed conformity. They are not to blame, they operate in a delirium. A delirium of a vague rapture, not of a calm trance.
But then, there's always the hot seniors. And so, tranquility sets in.
I am missing home. I was so excited about the holidays. And now it's all gone. I have to join my internship almost at a week's notice after my exams and I dunno where will I stay for one month as the hostel will remain closed till July.Or I'll have to pay a lot more to stay here for one month, that too alone in this whole building.And plus the whole project related research I have to do before I join there, which is not possible in Indore, cos obviously I have not subscribed any international science journal at home! So I won't be home in June.Which is the celebration month at home.My sister and my dad will be home after a long long time.It's like there are no summer holidays this time. I just realised how important summer holidays are in our life. We have been conditioned to the concept of summer holidays since we're nursery kids. From then till college we enjoy summer holidays. They are a collection of happy memories that we cherish forever.All cycling races, all the twilight games, hide and seek, mangoes and mango shakes, ice-creams for dessert at dinner, a house full of relatives, the sound of an old cooler in my ear - it's all in the summer.
But this time I will miss the various cake cuttings and gift sessions that go on in June as there are so many birthdays and anniversaries coming up. I will miss seeing my dad collecting all the gift wrapping papers for future re-use. I will miss posing for the numerous photos we take while sitting in the drawing room opening the gifts. I will miss evening walks with my dad. I will miss eating south Indian food too many times just because my sister likes it. I will miss wearing my sister's clothes.I will miss being asked 'which vegetable to cook' by my mum. I will miss taking as afternoon nap in my grandparent's room (their is AC is really effective), I will also miss hugging my motu dadi while sleeping near her.I will miss watching lazily the afternoon movies that come on tv.I will miss watching my grandfather eat mangoes. I will miss the shiny smile on his face when he brings fruits for us from the market.I will miss those times when we would play dumb charads at the night when there are electricity cuts. I will miss fighting with my sister and then placating her.I will miss the sound of utensils that comes constantly from the kitchen while my mum and grandmum are cooking and the delicious smell of food that follows it. I will miss the sound of tv serials that comes from all the near by houses when I go for a night walk with my family. I will also miss finding ways to meet aniket. And hiding myself in a blanket to talk on the phone for the whole night while sleeping beside my mum.I will miss making a resolution at night to wake up early the next day for a morning walk and then eventually wake up at 10 am.
Soon this cycle of summer holidays will end.I will enter the cycle of home-office-home-sunday in the following years. The summer time will just be another season.
Dil to bachcha hai [The heart is a spontaneous entity, unconquered by reason]
Aisi uljhi nazar unse hathti nahi, [The mind is so distracted with thoughts of her]
Daat se reshmi door kathti nahi. [I have lost the skill of opening your silken blouse
strings with my teeth]
Umra kabki baras ke safaed ho gayi, [Long gone is my erectile prowess]
Kari badri javani ki chathti nahi, [But the eroticism is in my mind, not in my
decrepit body]
[This is a sequence describing self-gratification]
Walla ye dhadhkan, [The heart beat is rising, the climax is near]
Badne lagi hai,
Chehre ke rangat, [I am pale, my blood is being rushed to where I want it]
Udne lagi hai.
Daar lagta hai tanha sone mein ji [Sleeping alone makes me want to test my virility, and I'm afraid I'll fail]
Dil to bachcha hai ji; [I know I act immaturely in front of you, please forgive me]
Raaa, rara raaa, aa
Raaa, rara, raaa, aa
Kisko pata tha, pehlu mein rakkha, [I thought I knew myself]
Dil aisa paaji bhi hoga. [But the scoundrel I am, I betrayed myself]
Hum to hamesha, samjhte the koi,
Ham jaisa haji he hoga. [I thought that the life of the cloth, would rid my lust for you]
Haey Zor kare, kitna shor kare,
Bevajah baton pe, aiiwen gaur kare, [on thoughts that should have no sensible existense in me]
Dil sa koi, kaminaa nahi... [You are to blame, you create another 'I', who fights with me and overpowers my rationale]
koi to roke, koi to toke, [Stop this alchemy, kill your lies]
Is umra mein ab, khaoge dhoke, [I know I won't be able to satisfy you anymore]
Daar lagta hai Ishq karne mein ji [I am impotent - I cannot even love myself, how can I love you?]
Dil to bachcha hai ji,
Dil to bachcha hai ji, [I laugh, for I am not ashamed]
Thoda kaccha hai ji. [The memories of a forlorn youth are still raw in me]
Haaan, Dil to bachcha hai ji. [Still I dream of completing you, for the heart is a happy kid, unfamiliar with the truth]
Aisi udaasi, baithi hai dil pe, [I know you'll be laughing behind my back]
Haasne se ghabra rahein hain, [When I try to hide my incompetence behind cheerful spontaneity and promises of performance of youth]
Saari jaawani, katra ke kaati, [I stayed a virgin, all my life]
Piri mein takra gayein hain. [When I meet you now, you tell me you have experienced love with other men]
Dil dhadakta hai to, [I let my blood boil, to aid my arousal]
Aise lagta hai vo,
Aa raha hai yahin,
Dekhta he na ho.
Prem ke maare, [The final blow has been delivered, and I am emotionally castrated]
Katar re, [My sword hangs limp, from my groin]
Tauba ye lamhe, [These extreme moments with you]
Kathte nahin kyon, [are so humiliating that they never pass away]
Ankhon se meri, [But I do not want them to leave my eyes]
Hatthe nahi kyon, [Because they remind me of you]
Dar lagta hai khud se kehne mein ji, [How do i confess to myself that I have lost?]
Dil to bachcha hai ji,
Dil to bachcha hai ji, [How will this poor, poor heart endure my loss]
Thoda kaccha hai ji, [He is still young, basking in the glory of romantic victory]
Haaan, Dil to bachcha hai ji [I love my heart, more than I can ever love you]
Dil to bachcha hai ji [For What is my heart? Nothing more than an altered vision of you]
Come back to me love, come back to my young, stubborn heart.
More apartments but less houses
More roads but less pathways
They beg, but their eyes do not plead, they mock your conscience
Its not mercy here Mr! It’s business.
A poor old woman here and there to make you guilty for the coffee you just had.
You carry coins in your wallet but nothing to change a life.
They call it the dream city. Where dreams are cold.
They disappear in the noises of cars honking and people running.
More crowd but less people
Strangers are strangers, they remain strangers
In your land you knew strangers even.
Evenings come and go before you decide it was a lovely evening
More cafes, more restaurants, more night outs
But less conversations, less warmth, less feelings
Feed yourself on delicacies, but there’s no dinner to remember.
don’t smile
don’t walk too slow
don’t stop to look at the lovely tree
don’t say you don’t know
don’t thank
don’t wait for no-one
don’t be the first one
don’t help
your land was your blanket
now you are without it.
