The Headache

It had come back, with all its enchanting enthusiasm and blinding brilliance! It was in the here and now as they say. And as soon as it was, I felt that it had never gone away... that it was always there somewhere, lurking around, playing hide and seek, threatening a frickin' explosion inside the confines of my head.

For once I wished I were USA so that I could work up random embargo procedures to nip this Iran in the bud. But as my imaginary avatar did, I too underestimated Ahmadenejad's under- dogged determination and gumption to always punch above weight... way above in this case.

But why am I committing the blasphemy of indulging in stupid humor when the one thing that I mortally fear is here! Enough of the digressions... let us focus here, or rather, let us give in.

Today is the turn of the right side. Well, I must point out here that the right side has been the favored one over the years. Has it partly got something to do with the fact that I am right-handed myself? That's something for those men and women dressed in white and earning their lives through high-handed hokum to ponder.

So what is it like? Hmm... how do you put it down in words? Howsoever you do it will be one big injustice to what happens to those 1500 grams. As most thank you speeches go, "Words fail to capture...". But I do need to begin somewhere for this has been too long an introduction.

It is like an iron spear, you know... the kind that is a huge cylinder with barbed wire wound up around it which finishes off in a very pointed end that's tipped with fatal poison. And there's someone working it furiously in such a way that its pushed from both ends alternately - one end comes out of the head in one instant and the other comes out on the far side in the other. You've always wondered about the phrase "driving me crazy", haven't you? Well, for me, this is where it originates from and this is where it ends.

Aah, I see. You've made the cardinal error of believing that what I described above is all of it... and perhaps, by logical extension, you've already decided that something like this is manageable, even though just barely so. Well, there's another saying I'd like to employ here, "Well begun is half done!"

Over and above what my cranium has been subjected to, there's this thick acidic liquid pouring itself into the right side in torrents... so much so that I see scope for hydel power generation here. Just the small matter that this acidic liquid is all up in monstrous flames rising high and handsome on to the roof of the grey matter and turning it into charcoal black!

Wait, what did I hear you say? Yeah you're right... my head's a Goddamn blast furnace for all practical purposes. It does turn iron into steel... how else do you think I've survived everything? Fact of the matter is everything else after this has been a cakewalk. In fact, there have been times when I've missed this mad rush of activity and so I plead myself guilty of turning against myself. Well, having heard me out here, don't you agree that what I achieved by doing so is perfectly understandable?

Your answer is no, is it? I guess I'll call you someday when the 20 minute ride atop The Roller Coaster through Hell is on.

You mind the wait?

I know. I still haven't made that call to you. What has it been like now?! 3-4 years or something? Yeah, somewhere close to that.
And its not like I haven't tried calling, you know. There have been times when I've called and you've decided to not pick up. And on most such occasions, you said you'd call later... that same evening, next morning, in the dead of the next night, next week when you'd be free, next month when you're over some emotional shit, next year when things would change completely for good, next decade when both of us will be Goddamn robots, next millenium when... I'm sorry, my imagination and science fiction knowledge fail me.
So you can't fault me for not waiting, you know. I've waited enough, more than my fair share actually... and now I know there's no point in waiting.
But look at me! Look at the shameless loner who goes by my name, pretends to wear this cloak of invincibility which he knows is actually a veil of false bravado, tries very hard to look blessed when he knows he is doomed, throws vibes of strength while there is the stench of weakness inside. Look at me in my flowing glory, I say!
I return to you every time random games are being played around inside my head. In my naïveté, I used to think that these are practice games at best and I can win the ones that happen on the minefields. Now I am older, very much so, and my maturity tells me that these are the ones that matter the most.
You've heard of Calvinball? You know, that game where the only rule is that there are no rules and arbitly random (or randomly arbit) things are decided on the go? It surely is great fun to read in comic strips but it assumes monstrous proportions when the playground for this thing which is as uncontrollable as a nuclear explosion is your own head.
Bill Watterson couldn't explain Calvinball in its entirety to us dumb people. I don't stand a chance of either understanding it or explaining it to anyone. 
And so I shouldn't even give it a shot... I really shouldn't call you to explain.
...
Or probably, when I think of it, maybe I've stopped caring enough for you to call or maybe I've stopped caring enough for myself to explain. Or it may have so happened that I really don't want to call... today, tomorrow, forever.
Still, don't be surprised if I call you someday!

Sloshed Rant

Why this constant urge to tell yourself that things will be better? Things will not be; they are only meant to grow worse. 
One of the biggest misconceptions of our age is that when you grow up, you'll be able to do things according to your wish, your own free will. I bet my bottom dollar that you've realized it today: nothing could be further from the truth. Its all a big, frickin' trap meant to take down one person at a time. And guess what, the trap is designed like a vicious cycle: reminds of that legendary Eagles song, "Hotel California"... more specifically, the legendary lines -
"You can check out anytime you like,
But you can never leave."
Its a constant, never-ending fight against this trap out of which you won't come out alive. And time and again, you'll be so fed up of fighting that the (in)famous demon called the Existential Crisis will impose its will on you. And when that happens, there's no absolutely nothing in your past, present or future that you do not question. They'll tell you that such a crisis is good for you and leads you to clarity. Next time that happens, tell them that's the biggest piece of bullshit you've ever heard of. Nothing good ever came out of an existential crisis. That's a fact which is going to remain one for aeons to come. 
All that an existential crisis ever leads to is procrastination. Don't mistake it for the happy kind of procrastination that they show so artfully in all those pirated versions of sitcoms you download through torrents every week: where friends sit together and crack random jokes and have loads of beer and munch on mouth-watering fast food. You don't need me to tell you all of it is scripted; every Tom, D**k, Harry and their grandmothers know it is another version of the same trap.
This is the sad kind of procrastination where you sit alone with a limited amount of cheap hard liquor and an incomplete pack of cigarettes without filters. And so much goes on in your tiny, useless head that you feel zonked out. You stop trusting every relationship - friend, foe, love etc. - that you ever forged and want to break free of all of them. You tell yourself that all you'll ever be able to do is to limit the immensity of the f**k people do not give about you. And you wallow in self-pity about all the work you've ever done and realize none of it can be called work rightfully.
And then you raise the volume on the Radiohead song creating ripples through your already zonked head and before you know, you pass out... only to wake up to another gloomy morning of Existential Crisis.

Marine Drive - 4 am

Its 4 am and I'm sitting at Marine Drive. You know, I could've really started this in whatever way I wanted to. But I chose this because I believe you'd know how much this place means to me. Its almost like being dramatic without creating any drama. Marine Drive is like a drama of nature... where we are subjected to being mere audience. The waves wash away those giant tetrahedrons, there are random ships floating or motoring through the sea, and there are those high rise buildings which have become almost a landmark in The City That Never Sleeps... the city that I've come to love, the first real city I've ever lived in.

And you know that I'm so glad it has taken me in like it has, made me feel a part of it... however small that might be, but a part nonetheless. Everywhere I go - and you know I am not much of an explorer or a traveller even in the city - it feels almost like home. Actually, I just know it feels good... I have been away from home too long now to know what home feels like. I mean my folks are there and there is lots of other stuff that should make me feel at peace but it just isn't home to me. Unlike earlier, I have got no room where I know my stuff would be there, I have none of my school friends around, I have no favorite uncles or aunts etc. Heck! There aren't even any of the shopkeepers, barbers, washer-men, grocery store owners that I love to know and learn from.

And strangely enough, even though none of all that is here at Marine Drive, it still feels like home to me. I always thought I was a man of paradoxes and it has never felt truer earlier. Do you know why? Because it makes me realize that I'm subjected to being mere audience in this ordeal called my life. And contrary to what it appears to be, its a happy realization. Well, on second thoughts, 'happy' wouldn't be appropriate... 'peaceful' would be more like it. It takes away the overbearing sense of responsibility that I can sense weighing down my frail shoulders all the time (that's right, frail shoulders at 24... always been like that!). It makes me feel powerless and fairly vulnerable. And that's really fine by me because I'm tired. I want to let go and start afresh but the world wouldn't let me... actually, I wouldn't let myself.

As I said last time around, I have no clue what I want to say and what I end up saying. You didn't understand this long rant sort of stuff I just said, right? Guess what, even I didn't. So don't bother, I'll call you someday.

Someday...

I shall call you someday. I've so much to talk about, you know. If you were to ask me, I'd say the wheels are coming off the train that my life's been. And then, knowing me, you'd say, "You always say that! I've been hearing it for the past 20-odd Goddamn years now. Give it a break, will you?!" And then, I'll tell you, as I always have without fail, "No... this time, it's different." And then, you'll say, "Wow! I didn't see that coming at all!". I always knew you did not have the ability to thinly veil your sarcasm.

And then, like you always have without fail, will ask me to enter that endless monologue. And then, through some random twist, I don't have words to put forth. I feel my throat getting parched and my lips getting drier with every passing second. It all comes back to me: hasn't it always been like this? I have always felt I've so much to say and I've never found the words or the intonation. 

The few occasions on which I have ended up churning out words from thin air, it has ended up being completely different from whatever it is that I wanted to say in that mind... creepily different. I've then had my words ringing through my own ears and inside my own cranium and I've felt gutted - for saying the wrong thing in the wrong manner at the wrong time. I've then proceeded to apologize profusely for the mess I've created and you just don't get what makes me go down like a pack of cards all of a sudden. You shut down and stomp on my apology... I don't blame you, its almost always the right thing to do because it gets me to stop speaking about myself.

I must tell you the fact that you don't react at all just baffles me in that moment. I ask myself, "Why would she do that to me?! I just narrated the horror that my life's been for the past century and she has absolutely nothing to say. I've known her to be much more sensitive and understanding and caring towards me. Or, did I know what I wanted to know?" These are strange, almost demonic thoughts. Self doubt has never been my strong suit. I say self-doubt because doubting you almost feels to be the same. 

But then, very soon, my brain comes back from the long vacation it went on to Bahamas or some other mind-numbingly exotic place. And it begins to dawn on me that if I didn't get a single word of what I said, its just plainly stupid and pathetic of me to expect you to get it. And by some strange twist, even if you get it in bits-and-pieces, how in sweet Hell are you supposed to react?

And this cycle repeats itself, every now and then, with almost boring regularity. I don't know why I find a strange kind of solace in not saying or saying it like it isn't... its almost like I experience inner peace for one fleeting micro-second. And you know what is the worst thing about inner peace? When you have internalized it even once for that quintessential fleeting second, you want it all the time. You pine for it and you run behind it... knowing fully well that there's not a more false way to reach it.

Anyways, this shall go on. I promise you I'll call you someday.

Blank Noise

A half-lit joint
A glass of whiskey spilling away
The fractured shoulder
Pink Floyd playing through the earphones

Strong on the outside
Fragile like glass on the inside
And confused somewhere in the middle

The questions don't seem to end
The answers seem very hard to come by
Status Quo reinforced

A monologue with oneself?
Or, a dialogue with the other half?
Silence and cacophony intermingle
Blank Noise

Nightmares and Scars

They beat him up to pulp in the alley,
A broken jaw and a blackened eye.
He got up somehow...
and ran for his life.

As he entered the dark hallway,
He saw his image in the wall at the end.
It was as bad (good?) as a ghastly devil...
The wind got knocked out of his sails!

He ran again; fate it was or a twist in the tale?!
Even tougher it got to rein in the horses of thought.
A dank, unkempt, claustrophobic room awaited.
And he escaped into it, wasn't he lucky?!

Saw 'em there for the first time ever,
seemed too good to be true, all of them.
"Oh well...", said he to no one in particular.

He was flying up and above...
when they brought him down with a thud.
"You worthless piece of shit!"
He gave up...
before, much before he gave in.
And ran again!

Escaping from the escape route...
Hell yeah, what a sight!