Of what I like

Beauty of His Decadence: Part Deux

What is the pleasure of the fallen
Cannot be felt by the flying
What we have sunk to feel
Cannot be measured by time
Running against the steady winds
Undoing what is defined
We stand in a part of their reeling
Trying to do the untried
The palette that holds our grays
Blending the black and the white
Will not be of meaning to them
For whom the norms suffice

Spider

Our Song

Can you feel the past in the night?
Of pain and hurt and sacrifice?
The same haunting melody
Which we once thought was divine
It was to be this, it was to be here,
It was to be our song
Can’t you see the same starry nights?
The beginning of beauty undefined
Can’t you feel the start again, our beginning?
All captured in the magic of that one rhyme
We were the flowing meadows, we were the skies
We had something which was our shrine
But as the song plays on, as it transcends
What became of our song
Lies here, in this, the pits of our hearts
In the un-meeting of eyes and the withering shine
And the reasons and impatience and pain
This became of us and our song
This broken, ugly rhyme

The Diary of a Stephen's Trash Bin

I don’t know whether I’m the only one who feels this. This strange alienation from the world around me. As if people in the corridor see me and yet pass by, only a slight nod of recognition of an acquaintance that left no special impact. A customary greeting, made by the burden of that one, ordinary encounter. Nothing more. And some people that I do know, sometimes just pass by. Not even a glance, not even a nod. It gets very embarrassing when sometimes I smile and the person doesn’t even smile back. It is very painful when people you know don’t even bother saying hi. And I tell myself, they’re just preoccupied, must be having a seminar today or a test. Or probably some crisis at home. I never get to find out, never get that chance to help. Because nobody waves, nobody stops, nobody bothers to find out how I am. Sometimes, I wonder. Am I that ordinary? That stupid, that senseless that I don’t even deserve a hi? Is it the way I dress? I talk to my books (they are the only ones who talk to me) and we discuss this. What difference can one hi make, it asks?Oh it can make a world of difference. That one, nice senior (whose name I don’t know) smiled, just smiled at me in the Main Corridor one day and it made me feel great for the rest of the day. Call me loser or tell me to get a life but you will never understand! You’ve always been waved at! And I’ve seen people waving, smiling at one another and that, bad, jealous, hungry part of me rises and makes me look down, not prepared to face the world, to which I’m so meaningless, again. I don’t claim to be great company, to be brilliant at striking conversations about a hundred different things. I may not be as intelligent as an average Stephanian but does that make me less worthy of being acknowledged? I don’t know.And another book asks, why this drama? People are left alone all the time, many have to walk the journey alone. And the image of this one lonely guy at the entrance area of the kitchen, right behind the mess corridor limping his way to probably the Arts Dhaba flashes in my mind. Why am I making this hue and cry? Why can’t I be at peace when I’m left all to myself? I don’t know. Maybe I’m not strong as those lone crusaders. I need company, I like being talked to. And maybe all those great, lonely figures aren’t really that great in their aloofness. Maybe they are wounded. Maybe they have given up the hope of companionship, of that one smile from this world.I don’t want to be the punk-rock-I-hate-this-world type. I don’t want to feel bad about people in my college. I’m ready to give everyone a chance, have been dying to, really. But I don’t want to wave and not be waved at again. Because one can’t keep lying to oneself forever and one can’t give chances forever. Each time I’m ignored, it hurts more. And I don’t know how much hurt I can take.I’m sure many of those who read this, will think I exaggerate more than my share. But, guess what? When you’re hurt, you’re hurt. You don’t go around with a measuring tape trying to figure out the extent. And it hurts, when someone I know pretends to not know me. My parents think I’m great, so did my teachers at school. Somehow, on that big yardstick in which fellow Stephanians are judged, I didn’t make it to the required cut-off for being known, for being said hi to. I like Stephen’s. It’s a good college. I like the Professors (who actually acknowledge me when met occasionally at the library corridor) and I like the library, architecture etc. I like the people. But they’re too busy, too smart, too myopic to say hi and to stop and inquire how my life has been. I’m happy my parents are happy I’m here. I’m happy my friends think I’m at a great place, living a great life. I’m sad because I’m just a trash bin at Stephen’s; you only go near when you need to dump something.

Beauty of His Decadence: Part Un

The black that is around us
And the ink of your eyes
Fallen from our highest wrongs
To the lowest right
We hail the fall of the beautiful
Of virtuous delight
And hail the rise of the ugly
Of minds not blind
The misery of the beliefs we quenched
And the battles you fight
It will all descend to the rise
Of what will happen tonight

We Don't Have All Day

we don't need to talk in riddles,
we don't need to be afraid,
we don't have to play at propriety,
we don't have all day.

no need to go around in circles,
no need to make that delay,
no need for reason, logic, explanations
no need to be gentlemanly and brave.

if we feel the darkest desire,
what else is left to say?
why do we even have to look at
those spectators finding a prey?

the people who talk will talk
and if they call me a slut, i'm ok
and if they call you a pimp
i don't and neither should you care

because i wish we did but we don't
i wish we did but we don't,
we don't have all day.