White Lilly

Liily is dead? Lilly is dead? Lilly is dead? ......


I am finished with James Frey -- A Million Different pieces. I admire his will. I've never been an addict; I hope I never do become one. But for some pages I really could relate to the mentioned fury, about his relationship with his parents and his Idea of all things god-ly. I myself am 23, and for reasons that I myself cannot comprehend I do feel the way he did(or does) about his parents. And I cannot imagine the loss of Lilly to him. I mean someone that actually held him through out his time at the clinic and he held her, is gone. My mind cannot digest the fact that Lilly is gone and a bow, a hats off, a dry day dedicated to him for he hasn't relapsed.

I like the fact that other than the Tao book, which thanks to this book is with me, this book rings even more true.

Here's to You James and Lilly. You are an Idol.

The city is lost

There is nothing left. No aura, no aspirations, no soul. Nor does harmony exist anymore within the chaos we live in anymore. In – numerable novels, both fiction and non – fiction, articles and write – ups have been written, read and recited about the topic, it being the cityscape of Bombay (Mumbai – I hate the name, I hate everything that’s got to do with the name ‘MUMBAI’ . I want ‘BOMBAY’ back.). Apparently the dream making land of the east. Ha! (I AM being sarcastic here.)

Approximately a decade ago, I had stepped into my twilight years, everything was new the world was coming alive, I was turning 15. My cousins used to take me around town, show me places I had never seen and a face of the city I had never witnessed. It was different, from my books, my school bag, my college admissions, my whole life (up until then that is). It was a free and a wild time, with discovering the city rolled into a perfect joint. Roaming around the city on foot in the wee hours of night up until early hours of the next day. No I had better things to do like sleeping, but what better than given a chance to go around, explore (originally - what humans were (are) meant to do) and discover the land where you live. From Bade- Miah (Pronounced as ‘Ba-deh Mee-aahs’) to Burgee Pav’s; been everywhere, with almost every joint open through the night hit. It was completely astonishing, after the routines and the grime and the noise and the humidity and the pushing and the struggling and the homework and the screams, finally the city would be shrouded in a mist of silence, this spirit, would engulf almost every one. The city would be at peace, a completely different shade of a stroke from what it used to be during the working hours in the day. A time when mondie’s still served all types of alcohol and would be open much after the 1:30am deadlines. A time when organizing and carrying out a project called ‘flash mobs’ wasn’t illegal, because a group of more than 5 people could visit together any public place. I used to love this city. It was home. It was inviting, pushing, struggling, peace and comfort giving land.

But as they say, things never remain constant, since we are living in the times of change.
I too started to change my point of view, with having a love-hate relationship with this city. I started seeing another stroke of the city. It was not only inviting, pushing, struggling, peace and comfort giving land but it was also a land riddled with downfalls, faults, traps and false expectations (one can also always argue, all expectations are false expectations). The streets being a window to despair, grief, and life. Every corner of this city has a contradicting contrast.

Everyone here wants to make it big. Most of the people coming from all around India to Bombay are living on the streets. I always wonder, did they make the right decision for a few more bucks? Did they ever foresee the consequences? They sure did take a chance, to make a difference in their life, but will it ever pay off? Does it ever pay off? A city where our own police has a masters degree in Botany, Zoology, etc. does it really matter anymore? Does anything really matter anymore? I assume that, thats what they say growing up really is.


I can go on and on about how the city has changed and the city is lost. But I won’t, you can read that in the books. I guess if anyone is to be blamed, it would be me first. I never voted and when I did I just did it for the black ink spot on my finger. I will also blame my attitude towards the site and smells around me. It has become in-different and the trend is just catching up. I really really wonder will I be ever ever be able to make a change,any change, will anyone hear me, when they can turn deaf when they hear screams of in-humanity all around. Gee I really really just keep wondering a lot, don’t I?

I would also blame me for creating a politburo out of our state government. The biggest deaf ear you could find in the city is the mantralaya. The biggest blind eyes you will ever find are the courts. And the bluntest killing knife you will find are the streets. Democracy is lost, bureaucracy has replaced it and nobody wants to look for it.

Today, I look around I am overcome with feeling of utter hate for this city. I despair and loathe a spirit that has been lost, maybe forever. A charisma of bringing people from all walks of life together lost, turned into charcoal. A museum of beauty turned to boxing ring of politics and manipulators. With people around you, who don’t trust you and you can’t trust or depend on. Well life is all about changes, isn’t it? And I cannot just carry on as if this change hasn’t effected and affected me, it has. And it took 6 local trains to be blown up at the same time to revive a spirit lost for just a couple of days. I wonder again what it would take to bring the same spirit back forever. Certainly not this article, not this write, it will be read by blind eyes.

Take a look around, it is dead. Lost. Everything.

A Million Little Pieces - James Frey

"...Everything goes white and I cannot breathe. I clench my eyes and I bite down on my existing teeth and I think my jaw might be breaking and I squeeze my hands and I dig my fingers through the hard rubber surface of the tennis balls and my fingernails crack and my fingernails break and my fingernails start to bleed and I curl my toes and they fucking hurt and I flex the muscles in my leg and they fucking hurt and my torso tightens and my stomuch muscles feel as if they're going to collapse and my ribs feel as if they're caving in on themselves and it fucking hurts and my balls are shrinking and the shrinking fucking hurts and my dick is hard because my blood hurts and my blood wants to escape and its seeking exit through my dick and my dick fucking hurts and my arms are straining against the thick blue bylon straps..."

"... I turn and I slowly walk away and I don't look back. It as always been a fault of mine, but it is the way I am. I never look back. Never. I move down a Hallway, gripping the side of the wall for support. Each step is more difficult than the last, each step hurts more. My face is throbbing to the rythym of my heart, the rythym of my heart is not as strong or as steady as it was. It is speeding up and slowing down, beating with irregular strength, sending sharp messages through my left arm and my jaw. It held when it needed to hold, buts it's not going to hold much longer. I'm not going to hold much longer."

"...My mind is clear and my urges are gone and my heart is beating slow nd steady. I am going to leave here and I am going to kill myself. The thought makes me smile. It makes me smile because it is sad and horrible. It makes me smile because the mystery of my death is gone and without the mystery it isnt scary anymore."

I dont think I have to explain any of the above. Sometimes......

Traffic Signals are the wierdest things!

“my Friend My Friend... Are you free on Sat..Im Thinkin about Something man and i think only you will be bold enough to pull it off with me..So tell you Piece of Puke Are you Ready??”, that was what I was told by a best friend. It seemed that I was the only one with balls of steel to do that something, I was the only fool hearted, strong willed dumb head that was ready to actually pull this off with him….this guy obviously looked up to me in some weird ass way…the only catch was I was free to do this on a Sunday rather than a Saturday.

Day of the week not being an issue, we agreed to meet at his place in the after noon and take it from there. So I reach his place by late afternoon, everything is ok, as it should be, I get a warm welcome, some amazing home made cake to chew on and voila we were ready to do the deed.

He takes his keys. We get down. Walk upto the car marked with a big red capital ‘L’.

I was the only man willing and crazy enough to sit with him while he practiced his driving skills on the road in real life. Having being tutored a little by me and a lot by a very distinguished German uncle. It was an under statement that we thought he was ready.

I told him to get in the car and take it a little ahead before I sat in. I wanted to see how comfortable he was with his car. After satisfying myself and telling him that he was a little of his left side judgments. I got in his car. It was the weirdest thing. Normally I was always the designated driver, and suddenly things have changed. I am in the passenger sit next to him and feeling proud of him driving like a big brother, him the being the little one :D.

And so started a journey to be never forgotten, his first drive around the beautiful city of Mumbai. At this point I would like to point out that the beautiful part consists of the roads being completely empty and devoid of any and all rickshaws, they are like little pests scurrying around and wrecking havoc in the city.

We were out in the open, we were out on his first drive out, and then we came to a stop. We were at his first ever traffic signal. Sitting in the drivers seat he asks me how do you come to know when is one suppose to stop and when is one suppose to move ahead. I explain the whole concept of the red and green lights. And we are moving ahead, we had to make a pit stop at the fuel pump, where instead of opening the fuel lid he opens up the hood. Next thing we know we are driving down to the suburbs for a cup of coffee.

The next signal we stop at he mutters an insightful little statement that never occurred to me, he sits and stares at the signal, saying “You know man, traffic signals are the weirdest things….How on earth am I suppose to know when to stop and when to go?....”
PS: we found this rickshaw with a sign saying “TOO FAST TOO FURES” (rickshaw=three wheeler pests)

Metamorphosis

Ever had the bigger note? Yes? Then you know how it feels when you need some change you don’t get it. The thing is everybody wants change. Everyday you wake up from bed, go through your normal routine, which goes something like this - brush, shit, bathe, go for work / lectures / school / cook whatever, eat lunch, continue to work / attend and so on and so forth. Everyday, it’s the same old world, same old story, same old people, same old activities, same old you, same old same old. It really gets tiresome doesn’t it? Is there an escape? Is there a way out? Is there an underlying possibility that something or maybe everything will be different? Yes! Yes! Yes! Well, otherwise why do you think I was asking all these questions? Anyways, there is a way out, there is an escape, there is something that makes you do all that you routinely do, its a small faith, call it "hope for change". It’s something like this, every morning you get up, thinking or hoping that you will get something you want, you will do something you want and you will go somewhere you wanted to. But as with most cases you land up doing what you were supposed to do instead of what you were hoping you'll do. Confusing, isn’t it? Well, agreed that this is not always true, it can’t be. There is always a part of us thinking and hoping for some kind of rescue, for some kind of change. And more often than not, there is. And what and how you feel when you get that change? When you get that escape? Relieved? Pained? Something’s missing? Happy? Sad? High? Low? It all depends on the type of change. Yes its official, there are types of changes too, a caterpillar changes into a butterfly – the beautiful kind; you are playing golf and it starts to rain - the low kind, you just came to know that you are gonna have a baby, well here we go, its the high kind, and so on. Everyday, you try to change yourself, either trying to make oneself better or trying to make oneself worse, well which ever it is, you as a person try to grow in terms of change, in terms of becoming a valid, understanding, full of wants and full of expectations Human Being, alternatively, in terms of strong, childish, immature, going back to roots, Human Being. One thing is with Humans that is very common is that they tend to change. The change is not just superficial, it covers all, the body, the thinking, the mentality, the trust, the love, the priorities, the economics, the views, the places, and more. It’s a topsy turvy when you come to think of it, its like you are not constant, you are this one person standing in the world, and the world is changing and changing you with it. Its complex, yet simple, it’s easy, yet hard, it’s a mixture, its change. And what factors influence you to change? All these factors and reasons can be summed up in one single word which is mostly defines life – ‘Experience’. You fall, you get up, walk again and try not to fall again because the last time you fell... gee it really hurt. This event changed your whole life, this little un-consequential event changed you, changed your point of view. And now imagine how vulnerable one is to change. How weak is one towards change. How much do you avoid changing? Everything changes, everything around you, everything in you, and so do you. And this truth, this revelation is constant. This change is constant. "Nothing is Constant except Change."We all know this quote, we all know or assume to know what this quote is suppose to mean, we all know what are its implications, or do we?

A perfect gift

This is a gift from one of my students given to me for teacher's day. Its an exact sketch of me, much more in the cartoon arena, but definitely me. its amazing and wonderful. thanks to moosa.

The first teachers day

I have been a student all my life, still am. But this time something’s changed, something I thought I never do, have I done. Something that I never thought I could become or had it in me to become, have I become. It’s all too weird and comes all too easy, as if I have found something that has lifted this weight off my shoulders, as if this something has given way in me and a realization has struck like a lightening bolt from great Zeus himself. I am dragging my ass aren’t I?

Well, my life has take a very steep turn, and I have every right to drag it this long, I have become a teacher, a person who imparts education to a mass audience, something I never thought of doing, never thought of becoming, and in a very weird manner it feels like home, I am teaching in a suburban college, the same subjects that I was thought.

The reality is, reality and gravity struck me pretty late. When?

Well, 5 September, 2006. Teacher’s day. I wasn’t expecting anything out of the students, right fully so, dint get anything, but the college had different plans, it had newly got a students council and they decided to give us (teachers, realization started striking at this point) a first ever teachers day celebration thingie, first ever in the 14 year history of the college(college is actually older, but most the professors I know are teaching since that long, so an assumption I made on their behalf).

I was totally unawares. I was taking lectures, teaching as usual, until my colleague came and told me give an off to the whole class, upon asking he smirked and said teachers day celebrations, so I did, he also mentioned every faculty in the college would be there. I went along.

Boy! When I entered the meeting area, the badminton court, I was in for a surprise; actually in reality all the faculties were there, including the principal. And this was the point when a thought struck me, almost 70% of the people had thought me at some point or the other in my 7 year history with the college, and now as a member of that clan This article is a salute to all the teachers, professors and faculty and academic members of the teaching institutions around the world.

All said and done, it still feels like I am student, still learning something new every day.

Have a nice one.

Nice Legs I Say

Sitting and talking to a best friend over a table of grilled beef chilly sandwich and bacon burger, and a mug of daft beer, it’s hard to concentrate to what & where exactly the conversation is going. Why? Well thats because of a pair of amazing legs, who walked in 15 minutes a go and is sitting right across you showing her legs off.

It’s like the biggest tease ever. These long calf-length boots, knee short black skirt. What does all this mean and lead to, nothing but anything your imagination can conjure up, say a Goth chick with the same boots and skirt with black make-up, black-lipstick, black-mascara and black nail polish, its like the perfect black rose, at the least in your eyes of imagination.

Don’t get me wrong I am not voyeur although the prospects seem very lively and amazing and imagination does numbers on me, but at the end I have to go home to my lovely lady. The photograph is credits of my best friend. See what I mean ;) .