Travel T

Imagine not knowing the native-tongue in a strange land and you gotta go pee. Wearing a T like this would be of immense help, na?...Just point and ask in the universal gesture of where??

Levis

As a brand its well known, having become synonymous with denim. I remember the days when we wernt spoilt for choices and had to get a pair from Burma Bazaar at 600 bucks, payable in advance and the nail-biting wait for delivery that would on some days stretch for 6 months and harried 'inland' letters in between. The pleasure of being seen in a pair of Levis was great, the snob value, priceless. This was one advt that caught the fancy of us beatnik generations and boy, was I glad that someone sent the pic today...awesome creativity...says it all, huh?

Mother

We have travelled far
And I thought together
You made me
Every way
To what end, I now ask
You made me a stranger
The joker and the jonah
And Now you laugh at me
I like that!

You have travelled far
And you thought with me
Your second born on caesarian debut
The moon was always mine
On arrogant gurgling demand
And the spanks
And the warm hugs of indulgence
When I reached for another's nipple;-)

I have travelled far
And we thought, with you
For you didnt feed my mind
Only, watered it down
I weathered my storms at your man's boots
You bandaged my body
But could you suture my soul?
The very thought is rape, a violation
You clipped my means to think
Is that why I fight sentiment
And become subordinate to logic
I have no complaints
For it wasnt mine to choose you
We have travelled apart

You ask me
To sacrifice my individuality
Isnt there always a different viewpoint
I get my feed of clover, here too
Can good to me be bad to you
You wanted me
Not I
The womb is better
Need is absent by its presence
It is the fluid, the medium, the cosmos
Whilst here, you changed my nappies

To become subjugated to please
Is to ask me to soar wingless
Today you condemn me for flying
I am damned if I do
And damned if I dont
My self screams for living a lie

We shall travel apart
Like I began when I was born
Emotional blackmails later I succumbed
To discover acceptances being pretenses
You open like an onion
The core is less fragrant than the layers
You will be you
And I will be I
Loners as always
It breaks your heart and mine too
Yours for what I would'nt be
Mine, for what you could'nt be.

We got broken

"If this was any other democracy, by now the Prime Minister would have sacked the minister or the press would have hounded him. But then, this is no ordinary democracy. This is a Gandhian Democracy."

democracy4 entries found for democracy.
Main Entry: de·moc·ra·cy

Pronunciation: di-'mä-kr&-sE
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural -cies
Etymology: Middle French democratie, from Late Latin democratia, from Greek dEmokratia, from dEmos + -kratia -cracy
1 a : government by the people; especially : rule of the majority b : a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
2 : a political unit that has a democratic government
3 capitalized : the principles and policies of the Democratic party in the United States Democracy -- C. M. Roberts>
4 : the common people especially when constituting the source of political authority
5 : the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges

The newspaper column is a cry of anguish that underscores ' 5. the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges'. Where has this democracy taken us that in 60 years of freedom we cannot take our citizens and free them from hunger, illness, illiteracy? A single word describes them all...poverty.
It encompasses not those who suffer from the connotations of the word that flare up like an ulcer that refuses to wither away into oblivion. It encompasses those who are stricken with the poverty of ideas, a feeling for the fellow being who having slept a fatigued-with-hunger-drifting-to-death-now-and-drifting-back-to-life, wakes up to a dog snarling at the half eaten wheat pancake also known as roti tucked away last night in his dirty, patched single bag that carries all his world, for a morning meal as the sun rises on the pavement of his bed, now invaded. We watch the scene from our balcony, sipping our darjeeling and langorously flip through our colored-print fix eager to know who slept with who and got found out on page 3, all the while watching the almost macabre surreal drama being enacted right outside our gated commune with its walking tracks amidst lush green created-foliage circling clay courts for half-volleys and the blue-chill of a sparkling, glinting-in-sun-pool where we go to gorge on others spouses and ssssshhhh our pesky children who want to know if there are more like the spectacle that they see from above holding on to our, bought off the rack, silk pyjamas from Benares.
And we turn and stride with a purpose to the intercom and orally dress down Shatharam, the poor bugger whose misfortune it was to be there at that moment to service our every whim and fancy, waxing our just-imported Bugatti Veyron that can only be driven on a speed track but not over the potholes and sits there in its parking slot, gleaming and unused. We ask him to, " uss, bhikaari ko bhaga de, Shantha, varna teri naukri ki vaat laga duunga", blissfully unaware that for Rs.3500 per mensem, Shatharam gets to oil and massage the memsahib too, when we zoom away on our chauffered-company-ka-diya-hua-sadela-kaar to a ambience controlled work station that links us to our MyWorkSpace in cyber-abaaads littered all over the globe and housed in gleaming chrome-steel-glass forests of ever-gouting concrete, that line the horizon of a version of illusion called MyReality.
We live in denial. Denying our kids the real version, a la Siddharta and expect them to grow up real in a surreal world made by our poverty-stricken-bereft-of-ideas-implemetation government, peers, friends and those who populate our 3D world. We deserve the government that we democratically elect and get ruled by a minority which scoffs, ridicules and puts a girl in jail simply because her brothers have done a vanishing act and companies go scot free for having not done their jobs properly. We shrug ourselves away with the standard, 'saala ye poora system bakwaas hai' and motor away to our club to discuss the latest take over bid on MyCompany and the latest we have launched on that, ' arre woh toh ek choti si start-up hai aur koi direction nahi hai yaar, sab bacche hain, kam-se-kam ek Stake toh milega' in our gravel-ly voice warbling out from a parched throat quenched by the smooth downing of a bacardi with lime-soda as we glance over Mr.Kapoor's latest cutie with envious lust filled eyes making a connect with Mr Usman's philandering hag-just-returned from a hymenoplasty and a bust-job as she shows off her latest stud to her coterie of drooling, dripping-wet clefts.

We glide away to our commune at the end of a 'hectic-day-at-the-office-honey' and reach the same sorry man trying to sleep a sleep-fatigued-with-hunger-drifting-to-death-now-and-drifting-back-to-life, sleep on his antyast dreaming and waiting for his antyodya........

MyTrust

I was trolling for some other material when I came across this . It moved me. Because, I recognized a large part of him, in me. I have a coffee table in my room which I hardly use. Oh, you will find an ashtray there, moved erratically from time to time depending upon the posture that I take on my bed. The table represents the change in my life. its covered with grime now running to about 8 months. Its thick. And people who asked me questions before have come to accept it as an integral part of my make-up. My mental make-up. I don't find any reason to clean it or give it away. Giving it away would entail throwing out a large part of my meaningless life. yes, meaningless. Its just a coffee table after all. black, smoked glass and, perhaps, when cleaned, look good. Or whatever good means to others. To me it looks. It stares at my foibles and that moment when it came into my life. It constantly reminds me of two people who in their interests stomped all over my interest.

My interest was simple. And still is. My needs were simple. And still is. My wants were simple. And still is. My trust was simple. And it now is missing.

Is trust such a rare commodity or is it a cheap commodity that a relationship can be sacrificed at the basal indignity of an animal need being satiated(?) in some place that I know nothing of. Funny, isn't it?

I meant what trolling for material on the web leads you to and re-directs you to some article and I end up writing this. It takes a word, a visual, a whiff of some perfume and the smells of some kitchen's cooking that sets me off and opens up something raw that i had thought was healed and the scab dropped of into the realms of a bygone time when I mistakenly thought the sun shone for me and the morning's bird call was an eternal song of tranquility.

I am at peace. Peace of a different kind. And my levis has begun to fray. Who will give me my trust back?

And a pair of pants

IT & Humpty Dumpty

An interesting article that puts the ground under the feet, so to say. It is a reflection of the me-too mindset that grips the venture capitalists. They use ordinary words and give them a whole new meaning. Yesterday's, ' upwardly mobile' or 'horizontal move' has been replaced by 'forward looking' and 'moving laterally'. In case you want to know what all that means, is that a person got kicked on his butt and got a job in a smaller company with a fancy title or the person moved to a bigger company at a lesser package and a designation that at best would better describe a cog in a wheel.As to where the wheel is going, nobody has a clue. So long its moving everybody is happy. Nobody has the bump ahead in their scopes, yet. When they get there, they will understand the true meaning of that old nursery rhyme, Humpty Dumpty.

Wake up to the news, fellas.

In the stillness of the night

In the stillness of the night
Some traveller pauses
In admiration of the moon
The full radiant shape.

Each petal that shines
The low shading trees, the fluttering fragrance
Speak eloquently of a warmth
The warmth of your beauty.

The tangible sensuousness
Of a beautiful woman
In the closeness of the flowers
In the heady breeze.

In the glistening pathways
In the white boughs beside
As if in welcoming appeal
Answering desire with desire.

But ahead the moon tells another tale
Of another beauty
Its radiance embracing stone
Cold hard creation of man's creation

Row upon row of whiteness
Enhancing the brightness of overflowing light
The beauty of glittering diamonds
Cold, hard and sure.

Your fairness exceeds all description
Inescapable, dazzling, piercing eyes
Lips of an allure remote
That part with few favors

I talk of this and more, with the moon
Your loveliness touched by moon-beams, yet in-graspable
Unearthly soul of the night
Bringing my being alive, with suffused light.