Sunday, August 22, 2010

The Dream is alive

It fades away, quietly. Almost like a cat in a dark alley. One moment its right before your eyes displaying itself with all it's glory and beauty. And then the very next moment when you look away to smoke a cigarette or distract yourself for a while with human company on the unhuman phone it disseappears into the cold, thin autumn air. And Yes it is out of sight, but not out of mind for a while. You fight for it, you search for it relentlessly. And then your life takes over. Things are as bad as before but somehow worse because of the absence of that one thing, that one amazing wonderful beautiful thing. It wasn’t a thing, it was a moment , it was an experience.
And then one night while getting wasted with a friend discussing wedding songs it made a reappearance. And it was an entry that I shall never forget. Enter Slash. Enter I am in heaven, Yes. I sit in amazement as Slash unravels his magic before my tender ears with magnificent support and co-existence from the rest of the band. As the song progresses I sink deeper into this trance that makes nirvana seem attainable. It cannot come to an end, it must be immortal. It is so awesome that it wraps me up entirely almost making me feel like music is tangible and that I, mere me, could reach out and touch it like I touch my nose or yours. And when the seconds on the music player decrease with every passing second I clutch my heart like I would if death succeeded me just a few moments away. It might sound untrue and even unreal but it is as true as the truth about wine being good for you.
The roof has been raised. Oh boy has the roof been raised. It has flown away into another timezone in the future where sex with multiple partners is as common an occurrence as love. It floats about in another universe where there are planets named after great musicians. I am floored and I shall never be the same.
The song enters me in an almost osmotic way, just oozing in as if that were the only chemical thing to do. It is going to use me as a host and from this moment on we shall share a symbiotic relationship that caters more to my needs that I to it. It will make me do great things. It makes me believe in the power that lies within my useless over weight twenty two year old body. I can move mountains,yes. I can cross every stream. I can and I will reach my dream.
And then reality dawns and I realise that there is no place for dreams in this real world. And even if there is, it would be a fact that is as useless to me as my neighbors soul. I have multiple dreams, I have multiple personalities. If I could be just one person then I would dream just one dream. But I am this and I am that. I am thin and I am fat. I cross over borders with the ease and speed of a house mouse. Never here neither there is not a pleasant place to live in especially if everyone else resides in we-have-jobs land. But just for tonight I dream on.
There is all this talk of it takes just one. I never bought into all that non-stoner jargon until it occurred to me when the fog in my brain cleared. One man can change the world, one cause can save the world and one song can make you the person you were meant to be all along. Sure, tomorrow all this will seem like a dream but today it is alive in today, tomorrow and in the rest of the future that will haunt me till the day I die and the days after that.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Reality Cheque

Distracting myself by setting meaningless goals such as shrinking my enormous laundry pile by a obscene amount is futile.
The real truth is I am confused. And confusion is a dangerous thing. It leaves you holding onto dreams and lies much like an infant his mother. There is no room for confusion if one wishes to achieve success.
I don't know when I will get my next pay cheque. The very next one I am bound to receive one of these days but it is a useless amount of rupees three thousand that will barely cover the expenses of my water and electricity which is overdue, but not long just yet. But the arrival of the cheque after that is still a mystery.
So one would think that I would device ways to arrange for a solution to my monetary crisis. Calling it a crisis is an insensitive exaggeration that I shall take the liberty to express. One would imagine that I would pounce at every job opportunity, meaningless and meaningless, with the enthusiasm of a Lion in the presence of his prey. However, that is not the case by a thousand miles and that is not the case in the present scenario. Payment opportunities have presented themselves time and again. Soft ,hesitant knocks that hope for a response soon, very soon. And then how they disappear without warning to find a rat to place in their race. I was not fast enough to answer to these knocks, I was not confident enough. I was not uncomfortable enough. I was not ready to transition from the dream to the reality. So I ignored them and my brain rationalized the okayness of my decision quite easily. There is no place for a mouse in the rat race. And I had no intention of evolving into a rat. I told myself that it is better to be a dignified mouse than a sell out rat.
It is important to have principles. It is important to hold on to these principles with dear, dear life. I felt immense pride at the fact that I had very strong principles and very adamantly stood by them. The possession of these so called ‘principles’ made me conjure up illusions that could only cause me harm. They made me believe that I must say yes only when I am convinced. But I am confused, yes but never convinced. They drove me to think that one must only indulge, as far as possible, in activities that are enjoyable and bring only happiness to the depths one’s soul. Meaningful tasks that served a purpose, some purpose. How foolish was I to stand by these childlike principles, how foolish was I to have principles at all.
I don’ t know what it is that is stopping me from seeing the truth. Yes, it must be these principles that blindfold me with soft satin cloth making the darkness seem like a far nicer place to be in. And there you have it, the truth. I am in darkness and I don’t see it. I am stuck in a place meant for people who are afraid, who destroy their senses in order not to feel, not to hear, not to see, not to taste, not to smell. To not feel the gravity of the situation that was. To walk through a crowded street with music blaring in my ears, erasing the sound that is unpleasant and embracing the sound of sweet music. I don’t know where I am going because I am blinded by the absence of light and the presence of a dream. The bitter taste of the truth is concealed by the sumptuous piece of cake it lies within. And the fear that lingers like a crook in the night cunningly disguises itself from the olfactory mechanism. With the handicap of being senseless there is little to do.
What is important, however, is the recognition of these defence mechanisms. It is a simple process of recognizing the target and then finding a suitable way to mutilate it so that it causes no further pain or delusions of grandeur. However, the process of eliminating the bug in the system is not as easy as it appears to be. One must be ready first to embrace the truth and erase the lies. And for that to happen it is necessary to make distinctions between the truth and the lies. This task poses a threat in the process of enlightenment. Man only sees what he wants to see and the rest is just insignificant junk.
Is there an escape from this current state of affairs? Or is it as fruitless as trying to save the world, one day at a time. There is victory in the discovery of the truth being a dream. There is a far greater triumph if one has the courage to exit the dream and enter the reality. With reality comes the burden of the truth, the real truth and the world, the real world.
I am ready World. Come wrap me up with all your complexities and illness. But I cannot promise not to break down every time things go wrong. They say that when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Well, the real truth is that I just ain’t tough.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

The unemployed

The unemployed is free.
Of the burdens of time.
Of the shackles of money.
Of the life.
-Anoushka Antoinette.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

And everything in between is life.

We wanted to tell him he wasn’t funny. But we wanted to be nice. That is what our parents taught us for the first ten years of our delicate existences. Even if wanted to go down the honesty is the best policy road of life we would be unable to do so merely because we were slaves of conditioning. So we laughed like we were watching stand up comedy, we asked for round 8 even though we wished to go back to a time where even round one did not exist. We felt terrible about the daily lies, but after a point you convince yourself that there are no truths or no lies in the world. If anything there are facts, coldblooded facts of life. Nice was a fact.
We wanted to tell her she could hold a tune as much as a high school girl could hold her alcoholic beverages. But we wanted to be nice. The Man and wife that fulfilled their duties to the Homo sapiens species by procreating believed that to be nice is nice. So we played along just as we played along with the Santa story and ghosts. We are not stupid, we are children, were children, are children. So we swayed to her vocal emissions like a swarm of bees. We clapped till our thenar eminence turned a shade that was the colour of communism. We did not wish the difference between our thoughts and what we verbalized to be somehow similar to the high definition contrast between Miles Davis and Milli Vanilli. Things turn out different from the original schedule. You have only the option of erasing all memory of the fundamental scheme of things. A nice pretence of falseness is a false pretence of niceness.
We wished to convey to her that all kinds of whales, big and large, in the pacific referred to her as ‘the whale’. But we wanted to be nice. We would not deny her the 56th ham burger she guiltily craved; instead we would incorporate fast food delivery phone attendant behaviour and convince her that the triple super duper combo with the fries and Coco cola was far more amicable to her pocket money. A good deal is a good deal. We blind man visioned her attempts to order juice over beer. A six pack was at the base of her Maslow pyramid, or so we made her believe. We made her believe because we wanted ourselves to believe the honesty in our dishonesty. We were shallow, shallow creatures of scum nature. We were truly lowly insects that sucked the blood of terminal cancer patients.
The world of Technicolor niceness was not the real world. It was a cruel world that made the shy believe they were scared, the genius that they were awkward, the overweight they were beasts, the poor they were weak and the rich they were nice. The fact of life is. What is the fact of life? There are no facts. There are truths and there are lies and everything in between is life.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

B T Tuesday

Blue tooths in white collars. White tooths in blue collars.

It was tuesday again. And tuesday was the most special day of the seven day week that ended with the sabbath day. Sure, sunday would always be delightful .But Sunday cost a whole lot more than Tuesday did. Hence, to demonstrate simply and mathematically: Tuesday> Sunday.

Why in the world would any sane human person consider tuesday to be even remotely special. Tuesday was the hangover day to the Monday blues. And hence, is the classic unspecial day. Case closed. Or is it open?

Tuesday evening.
The weather is humid, I am prancing around with two gigantic bug shaped sweat patches on my purple t-shirt. But there is a cool breeze that ruffles my short hair every so often. Some relief is better than no relief. You do agree? I walk into Bootleggers, a bar I had come to frequent since the Tuesday revolution occurrence. The noisy warm outside is suddenly replaced by a calm, well lit, air conditioned atmosphere . The difference the opening of one door makes to the world around you will never cease to amaze me. I spot Frogface and B sitting on a table , not facing each other. B is swaying to the music and her cigarette is swaying to her. Her eyes are shut and she has entered prenirvana zone. Amy has the quintessential awkward face that will get her the blame for a war that occurred in Peru. She fiddles with the Jenga on the table, narrating the history of Jenga and how it was invented by a Jamaican tribe in the early thirteenth century. I walk toward the table without being spotted by either of them. I sit down. I do not utter a single word. I reach for a cigarette , light it, smoke it.

Cosmopolitan?
Frogface and B reply in the affirmative.

Round two. Round three.
There is more human interaction between the trio .
Round four.
B is nowhere to be seen. Frogface is laughing for the first time. And I am ordering my 8th drink. I say lets keep on keeping on. B appears from the Mens urinal. She has a grin on her face that reminds me of my future daughter's smile after she has stolen a cookie from the cookie jar in the kitchen. B claims she puked in the Mans Room. WE applaud. We laugh. Next?

Its ten. Its time to head back to the palace of the bighipped. We get up and walk out. Happy and gay. Our pockets happy and gay as well. I love that we are ladies and can avail of the awesome phenomenon that is Ladies Night. Tuesday. Bootleggers.
Lets have some Fun. This beat, it really is sick.

Saturday, April 24, 2010

Sunday.

It was a warm Sunday afternoon. Not average in any possible way, it was a most remarkable afternoon. I did not know that yet. I was still under the assumption that this was an ordinary Sunday afternoon. Sunny and lazy just as it should be.
At noon time I decided it was time to commence the shit dump brush bathe process of mundaness. I executed this thought after one hour of deliberation or as you would like to call it sheer vegetative laziness. I awoke and reached for the half smoked cigarette lying on the bedside table. I placed it between my lips only to realise I had nothing to cause a nicotine fire with. I searched around for a matchbox or lighter or anything that was warm enough to get the tobacco revealing end of my cigarette to turn orange and emit smoke. My brain indicated that it was time for motor activity in search for a light that will light my fire. Come on.
I made it to the bathroom, found a matchbox on the sink. I sat atop the container that would make my shit vanish into thin water. Lit my half smoked cigarette. Coughed a few times at my Jewish ancestry that wasn’t Jewish at all. I pondered over the day ahead of me. A few moments later my body started the process of excretion. Next Please.
As I washed by freakishly large palms I stole a glimpse of my face in the mirror. Today was definitely not a day of beauty. I looked absolutely unremarkable. And not in a the quiet girl in school who topped class kind of way but more in a mother in her early fifties forgotten by her only son never to return as the prodigal son kind of way. Inner beauty Darling. My system is beautiful, the benefits of number two. Good number two is number one. Deep shit.
I walked down the 40 odd stairs that led me down to level one. At level one I was attacked by the weather. It was as hot as the eggs at a restaurant with good, neigh, great service. I had a split second reflex to revert back to my earlier state of being. The split second passed by in a split second and I proceeded to seize the day. Carpe Diem.
My walking had no motive. I walked, just walked. There was no definite decision as to what could be done on this Sunday of Sundays. I say how about we shop. I say you are a synonym for penniless. I say we watch a movie. Why watch big screen when you can watch small screen for free, thanks to the download revolution and your lack of conscience. I say we go sit by the sea.
We’ll slowly
solve everything:
we’ll force you, sea,
we’ll force you, earth
perform miracles,
because in our very selves,
in the struggle,
is fish, is bread,
is the miracle.
I rattled my way to the sea in a cab that came close to breaking down in the middle of the road a total of 15 times in a short 10 minute journey. If you are secretly questioning my confidence at stating an exact number that depicts the exact number of times an almost breakdown occurred, then I say you are a fool. The cab strangely reminded me of myself. It chugs down the road, swerving from left to right and right to left, almost hitting, almost missing, hitting, missing. For causes unknown it tends to almost come to a standstill possibly due to some malfunctioning of a part whose exact specification is yet to see the light of the dawn. And then out of nowhere it taps into some energy source and continues rattling through the streets of chaos. It finally makes it to the destination it was directed in. It drops off the baggage and then resumes its journey to find more luggage. The cab was a representation of my life and I pay very close attention to anything that comes close to imitating the pattern of my life.
Pay very close attention.
I finally stand before a large expanse of saline water. I can feel it move ever so gently, just the way my grandmothers hands did. Just swaying as if it were at a Miles Davis performance enjoying the music ever so much.
I am at peace at last. Not one with the Sea but one with myself. In some mysterious absolutely remarkable way the Sea knows me, inside, outside. I have a connection with it that has no labels much like the relationship between at step father and his step son.
A remarkable Sunday. It was indeed.
In my ears of wisdom I had never heard such a blatant lie. But I played along anyway.

The rubbishness of it all

Belief is a dangerous thing. Faith is fatal. And hope...If you remotely care for the existence of your skeletal apparatus containing several life supporting agencies (and life creating agencies as well) engulfed by a brown coating with hair growth sometimes an inch long; I would suggest a detour from faith and belief. Green says go. I say go. The other way, where they can’t find you and make you feel a hundred percent sure of something that never was and never will be. You will be safe only in a land far far away. You will not build castles in the air only to watch the wind blow, and see them collapse like Hiroshima did. Once, when someone believed that it was a good idea...
I haven’t lost. Yet.
The words of the Cynic scare me. They send me straight to the arms of my mother where I feel safe, from the world and the universe it is part of. I am afraid to believe in a day that is somewhere in the future where I will be happy, the forever imbalance in my life shall be brought to a peaceful equilibrium and the smell of sweet strawberries shall linger even after the party is over. I paint this image over and over again in my mind, in every minute miniscule part of it .Conscious. Subconscious. Unconscious. I am afraid because somewhere I know that belief will only result in sadness. I am a prevention is better than cure kind of person and I would much rather be sad now so I don’t know the difference later. And faith is when after a couple of alcoholic beverages you willingly blindfold yourself and walk into a crowded street. You will feel elated the first few times you come close to breathing your last quota of air. And then before you know it, the show is over...
I am the rope in the game played at family picnics and other gay occasions called tug of war. I oscillate back and forth, side to side between faith and belief and the absolute lack of it. If it were a matter of just one game that would decide the victor once and for all my life would be simpler for it. However, that is not the case and it is certainly not the case from seven hundred miles away. This is a game that repeats itself repeatedly causing a sick kind of torture beyond the imagination of even a prisoner of war.
Agree to disagree.
Disagree to agree.