We sit within
Lit by the stars of our making
Oblivious to the night that flows over us
Bristolian Night
Remnants
The remnants of my patience
Lie scattered on my desk
Solitary, I glare at my fear
And face the pain before me
Various Vestiges
Vibrating violent
Virulent vestige
Visions of vain villains
Visiting my void
Vanished into the veneer
Of vital visions like
Vapours that veer through
This venomous veil
The Trouble
The trouble is subtle
Well hidden in folds of smiles
Embellished with dreams and laughter
Ambition and hope for the hereafter
Oh, but it’s there
Spoken of only to the lovers’ elite
Roiling in dark shudders
As scared of itself as it’s scared of others
Lying in its lair
Despising every single heartbeat
Like tar in the gutters
Swirling eagerly uttering sinister mutters
It lies there patiently
Taking joy in the life of sin
Writhing blissfully in the filth it’s in
And secretly waiting for the fun to begin
I can feel it there
It’s like insanity in heat
A shame buried deep within
And shortly its birth will begin
When no one’s looking
It surges forth with monstrous force
Shattering every wall built against it
And my will lies broken on its knees before it
And there I lie
Slithering in shamefaced ecstasy
In the perverse filth that is now free
Having torn every fiber of self control out of me
And I watch him sigh
The now rejected willful me
As he sits in the opposite corner watching me
He stands and walks away saying, “When you’re done, call me.”
The Gift
To wear ink as a badge of honour
To hold a pen like a weapon
To create worlds that never exist
Filled with creatures just as real
To find beauty in the chaos within
To open others’ eyes inward and outward at once
To live a million lives within moments
And find the truth within lies
And friends within enemies
To find the other side of the coin
To find morality in murder and fear in faith
And reprehension in noble acts
And to find a spark in the dark
To masquerade as a god
To wage wars and bloody battles
In the name of love
To empower hate and let it breed
To drive one against the another
To nurture trouble where none should be
To be the poet of destruction
To be resurrector of heroes and heathens alike
To be the sculptor of pain
And an architect of turmoil
To be a weaver of lives
And nurturer of loneliness
To remember the joy of reunion
And the grief of loss
To rediscover the soul
And redesign destiny
To be a slave to imagination
To bring the world to tears
And love to empty hearts
And laughter to the grieving
To be given the gift of sight beyond closed eyes
Is to be given the gift of words
Sandstorm
The sand coalesced to form a figure,
that stood tall and strong
against the venomous desert wind
The dust turned smoother on the skin
and softened into a dark beauty
The wind carved robes around her body
Swirling swathes of sequinned splendour
wrapped themselves around the still forming visage
that the desert itself had given birth to
giving its own moisture to give life to the form
Her arms were long and tapered with grace
her ebony brows arched over majestic eyes, set lovingly in her face
as grey as a summer storm
her cheekbones high melted gently to her chin
nestled under her delicate lips, still forming
And once the whirlwind of sand settled,
There stood this enchanting figure
Demure at first
but if only we could see the storm that still raged behind her eyes.
She took her first step
and another
And another
Leaving no trace behind her in the flowing dunes
that she had ever existed.
When her feet touched rock
and mettled roads beneath them
she merged with the hordes that swarmed around her
to find the men of fire
Scars
We all have scars
Some deeper, some wider,
Some longer, some sharper
Some deep within and some that wander free
We carry them through out lives
Some memories of joy, some of pain,
Some of both
Some of love, some of hate,
Some of both
We carry them on our shoulders
And let them weigh us down
With memories and mixed emotions
Some we show off
But some can’t be hidden as hard as we may try
And fear that if seen
They will turn love to disgust
Beauty to ugliness
And admiration to repulsion
They will turn from mere masks on skin and soul
To cracks between us and the world
We may try to forget these half-mended wounds
But we can’t ignore them,
No matter how small,
No matter how invisible
And sometimes we meet someone
Who recognizes that these are the stitches
That tie the two of us together
Someone who sees the beauty in each one
As a line etched in the fingerprint of who we are
And the moment a scar is touched and appreciated
They grow lighter to bear
Fading just a little
They heal
And the memories that cut them into our flesh
Entwine and stitch together
Become one
Become redemption
But such sutures are fragile
And if strained, will open the wounds once again
They will flower with agony
And bleed again
Don’t leave them to fester, my dear,
Don’t worry about the blood and just let the healing begin again
Learn from your scars
Let them tell you of the inevitable mesh of abrasions our lives are made of
Let them show you who you are
And then, when they are healed again,
By your own will and strength
They will never bleed again.
>This New Country – Part 2: An Indian in the UK
>
And Falmouth is one of the most beautiful corners of this island. I arrived at night so I didn’t really get to see much. But in the morning, I was bowled over. A lush green hilly countryside town, urban in some spots and serenely rural in others. And of course, there is no comparison between rural here and rural in India. I don’t think I should expect anything else of course. This is a first world country after all.
But such peace, such quiet, such a stunning town. Walking past the harbour and quays, looking at the belled masts of a hundred boats tinkling in the breeze, staring up at a sky more blue than I had seen in a while, I felt I had finally made it. My life stretched ahead of me and I could almost picture myself owning a house in Falmouth, drinking coffee on the balcony while watching seagulls fight over fish ‘n’ chips wrappers.
Then the classes started and the gruelling MA dragged me back to reality. Homework again. What was I thinking!
But it was a dream come true after all. And slogging is the one thing dreams require. So I did. But by the time the Christmas holidays came along, I certainly needed a break.
So off I went with Shabad across the countryside, making a beeline for Scotland with little stop offs in Snowdonia and the Lake District. Niti, a fellow writer doing her MA from Trinity University, Carmarthen, was supposed to come along for our epic journey but unfortunately opted out for a very good reason, which I won’t go into now. So our first stop was Carmarthen, to have a drink and a laugh with Niti. Rage Against the Machine had just won top spot on the Christmas No. 1 and there was another drink to be had for that. And another. And another.
Snowdonia is in the North of Wales and we headed off there as soon as we could the next morning, after a hearty Full English Breakfast, the one thing that makes me love and hate this country at the same time. But it certainly is good energy food.
We bid Niti and Carmarthen goodbye and wandered into the Welsh Hills. Through an astoundingly beautiful, almost Alpine town of Betws-y-Coed (where we stayed at the Swn-y-Dwr B&B. You guessed it, It means Sunny Door. 
), on to Liverpool for a wild night out and finally to Keswick, where our trip came to an unfortunate end.
Shabad and I climbed up a mountain (it really was just a hill) the next day, Christmas Day 2009, and on our way down Shabad skipped ahead with the agility of a mountain goat, while I gingerly tiptoed my way across the ice. The gingerness was apparently unnecessary as I slipped on the ice and broke my ankle in two places while simultaneously dislocating it. My first thought was something like, “Bye bye Scotland”. But, in a way, as I slowly went into shock, it gave me an opportunity to look around the spectacular vista of the lake district’s beauty. An astounding vision, like the snowbound Himalayas in miniature.
As we hobbled our way back to London, I learned how to crutch it the hard way while Shabad and Romit pampered me.
And once I got back to Falmouth, it wasn’t long before the lift broke in my building and I started getting a regular workout going up and down five floors every day. This was when my fear of ice really took root.
I still love winter, especially snow. But solid ice gives me the shivers. I avoid it as much as I can.
My long days home-bound, stoned on painkillers and lugging around my concrete leg finally ended in March and the sun finally came out in May. I must say, after living in Indian heat my whole life, this was the first time I actually appreciated sitting in the sun…for short periods of time.
I also stumbled upon a successful recipe for butter chicken using cream of tomato soup, which has become quite popular if I do say so myself. I wouldn’t have imagined in a million years that I would be able to make butter chicken by myself. But here I was, dishing it out for the locals. But I still miss the real thing with butter naan, malai kebabs and real hari chuntey.
By now I had started hanging out with my classmates more, making new friends and hanging out with the locals. I was also quite flattered to be told that my English was better than most the Britons’.
But no matter how much I spoke in English, I was still everyone’s ‘ friend from India who speaks better English than I do’.
I ceased to be the ‘angrez’ and became the ‘Indian’. How chuffed was I! I’ve spent my whole life being taunted by being called an ‘angrez’, an Englishman, because, it seemed, my love for the English language had killed my Hindi and Bengali speaking skills. I can still speak Hindi but, according to my friends in Delhi, it’s with a bit of an accent – an accent I’ve never been able to perceive.
I am finally an Indian! And I had to travel out of my own country and across continents to be one.
An Indian in the UK. One among many.
These Words – Last Year
A very unoriginal genre song that doesn’t pretend it’s anything else. but for some reason it kind of appealed to me. it’s very catchy and singable and one can feel the passion in it. Am I wrong?
Either way, Im intrigued and want to see what else these boys have to offer. Hope it’s not just this one song.
>This New Country – Part 1
>It’s been quite a journey, these last couple of years. So many wonders, new friends, so many sacrifices, so many guilt-ridden moments, so much pain and joy and meh-ness and so much joy rolled into one magnificent voyage.
To find myself in a completely new country after living my whole life in India was an exhilarating experience. I never thought I wanted to leave India, but here I was, in a first world country, where people don’t worry about electricity or water or heat or air-conditioning. There was barely any dust in the air and there are blue skies in the middle of London. I could barely remember the last time I had seen skies that blue. I’m sure it must have been Himachal Pradesh, at the foothills of the Himalayas, or even in Ladakh itself.
No littered the streets here. Well, at least not as much as on the streets of Delhi. It seemed like they had been thoroughly washed. And of course, they were. By rain. It was more rain than I’ve seen in a long time too. And by golly, I loved it. (Don’t you just love the British tongue?) It was like the monsoons were here to stay. Still, it wasn’t the violent storms that lashed Delhi only too seldom, this was a gentle continuous drizzle most of the time. I don’t even think I’ve seen any lightening here, which seems odd. I must admit, the charm of the rain still hasn’t worn off. I don’t think of rainy days as cold, damp and depressing. I quite like them. But I do appreciate sunny days a bit more now. Amazing how perspectives can change.
Even the neighbourhood of Hounslow, where my friend Shabad’s sister, Simran, and brother-in-law, Romit live, a place universally regarded as a ‘shithole’ seemed charming and quaint to the most part.
London itself, even with such a wonderfully colourful scape of red busses, famous black cabs and the mileu of people from every corner of the planet, still had enough space to boast peaceful parks and grand old buildings whose stones speak of the Britain’s powerful past and promise to stand long into the future. The people I’ve met here, though, seem less optimistic about the country’s future – understandably, I must admit, considering these are the hardest times the UK has seen for ages. But there is still so much glory, so much strength, so much beauty in this tiny little island.
