Smells at Night

Mahatma Gandhi's birthday was spent pretty much at home. There was little reason for violence or non-violence.

Though I was a little violent to the dog who was violent at me. And the feeling was pretty much reciprocal.

Brunch constituted of mutton cooked day before yesterday and rice prepared fresh.

Dinner had to be made thrice - eggs and sandwiches because each time I'd make it and dash off to wash my hands in the loo, the rats would come and break the sunny side of the egg and move the bread around a bit. I was third time lucky.

There were many phone calls. I think I will keep the phone off now on when I work.

And of course didn't write.

First you prepare to do it. Then you prepare to prepare to do it. Then you prepare to prepare to prepare to do it. Let's try again tomorrow. There's got to be some way of breaking the vicious cycle!

And then tomorrow is a workday. Which means the corporation. My Mama. Muah. I love you, my employee. My management. You are so good. You fuck me more regularly and with greater monotony than any woman would could will.

I dont think I will sleep tonight.

A thought suddenly came stuck. It was about the smell of the raat ki raani flowers in this season in Delhi. I smelt it the other day, returning from work. How does one describe it? How does one draw it?

And most importantly how does one hide it? It is like the sadness that darkens the valleys around your eyes. People see it and shake their heads. And then they say - Nothing is worth it. Nobody is worth it.

LOL. What do they know?

Kind mama

There is a species of madness that goes undetected. Unfortunately it has no name.

It does not live in you, it lives outside.

It moves skulking in the streets of Delhi. I saw it once at Nizamuddin. It was standing by the road and staring at me.

It is not evil and it is not good either. But it makes nothing. It comes from the land of breakings.

One day, I remember in 94, I was standing on the edge of the wall of near Khair ul manazil and it nearly tipped me over. I am alive and kicking, but maybe it did tip me over and I do not know about it.

Anyway, tomorrow morning I will sit and write. And if I do, I will find out what Vivek said to Sharad on a summer evening in CP.

The corporation is a kind mama. It hold me to its bosom and will not let me go away ever. When I grow up, I will not live with mama.

Remember Faustus

It was a curious day. Said bye to dad and drove to what used to be home. I don't know what it is now.

The dog looked happy to see me. She doesnt like to be alone.

I had my two bags with me. And two polypacks - my clothes, underwear, toothbrush and stuff.

I ate the stuff Dad had packed for me.

I felt heavy all the while but it was not the food. It was in the head.

The TV ran like crazy and I kept flipping channels.

Dad called twice. He sounded nervous and worried. They think I will slip. The way Sanyal sir did. Maybe I will, but I hope I wont.

MK says - Remember Faustus? You are living him. A life without redemption. This is truly the end.

And then I felt hungry again and made myself maggi and two sandwiches. Then I slept for a while between phone calls from human beings. There were two calls from office too. But there were no long calls.

Then there was cricket, which has little class left. Very little class or craft.

I don't know why I kept thinking about the month of October. I hate the period between October and March. It sucks.

The dog kept barking all the time. And I kept barking too.

Then the maid came. Actually her daughter. She wanted to know what to cook. I got her to cook Bhindi ki sabzi and dal.

I ate late.

And right now, sitting and typing at 3 in the morning, I thank the corporation for the wireless internet connection. And I remember Faustus, in his room, abandoning all learning that his genius had gathered to devour in one room, and the faustian deal he strikes with ...evil. And the what the chorus says when it is all over.

And I wish I hadn't memorised the lines in 94, It's been 14 years. Why can't I forget?

Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight,
And burned is Apollo's laurel-bough,
That sometime grew within this learned man.
Faustus is gone: regard his hellish fall,
Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise,
Only to wonder at unlawful things,
Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits
To practice more than heavenly power permits.

Terminat hora diem; terminat auctor opus.

The blue badge bus, the red badge bus

It was 1977 and dad was out sailing many months. The coconut trees were tall. And the rains happened all the time in Cochin.

The KG school had two buses. One with the kids who wore a red badge and one with the kids who wore a blue badge. I liked the red badge but I wore the blue badge. The red badge kids would go to Katari Bagh, the blue badge kids would cross the Tewara Bridge and come to many bus stops near my house in Palampali Nagar.

One day I broke my blue badge when I was playing in the roundabout in the park of the KG school. I cried a lot and put my blue badge in my pocket.

After school was over, when the teacher started to put all the children in two ques, one red badge que and one blue badge que, I went into the red badge que because I liked the red badge so much.

So I also got into the red badge bus and not the blue badge bus.

When the bus started to go, I was happy because everybody in the bus had a red badge. But then after sometime I realised that the bus was not going over the Tewara Bridge. It was going to Katari bagh.

Also, all the children in the bus were other children. Only two were my friends- Tillu and his sister who were saxena uncle's children. Saxena Uncle was papa's and mummy's friend but he did not like phantom like I did. He liked tarzan.

This made me nervous and scared. I forgot all about the happiness of the red badge now. I thought I will never get home. I thought I will remain in the road now and no one will know where I live and I will become a beggar. And so I began to cry. And I cried so bad that my nose began to run down my chin and I shut my eyes tightly.

And the funny thing is that even when Saxena uncle dropped me home in the evening on his scooter, I kept crying. As if now, even if I had come home, I could get lost anytime because I had travelled in the red badge bus.

After that, I always held on to my blue badge very tightly, but I loved the red badge even more.

Whore

I like the music I am listening to. I like the drive in the mornings, alone, screwing up your eyes against the sun, I like the changes when September skirts around October. And the Kaansh is growing spectacularly beautiful this season.

I like what I am writing too. Not this, but the book, the 1st chapter. It's coming out beautiful. Moving and sensual. With all the verve and the energy of the city, with all the ugliness of its people, with the pathos of love and longing, and the kick of betrayal.

I like my car. She's old and beat. But she's a good car. She always starts, always runs, always gets me where I want to go.

I like my talents. I like the way I draw figures out of nothing, tales out of everything.

And to the things I do not like, I wish to be impervious.

If life's a whore, i'll buy her, but I wont be a pimp.

They who mutter under their breath

Elves!

You who mutter under your breath, you who breath, you who talk, you who tempt, taint and tug.

Show yourselves one time.

Come out from under the tables, from behind the curtains. Get off my shoulders, my knees. Come out! Come out. Out! of my shoes, my pockets, my underwear, my drawers and my cupboards.

Come out of the dark for god's sake.

Naked children, you feotal monsters, will you please for once

let me be

In peace.

For once, please fall into line, one word at a time, grammatically correct, aesthetically pleasing and a little - just a little - human.

Please.

So much for dream seasons

I used to have dream seasons once. They would come suddenly and stay for a few months. They would throw my life out of gear. Shake up my sense of time, induce queer visions, be marked by a complete lack of hunger and sleep, a chronic aversion to human contact.

Now it will happen to me no more. Perhaps because I am not a poet anymore. At least not in the mode I was.

I am, instead, turned into that creature I call the New Aesthete. I have no past. I do not care for the future. What I write is not contemplative now, it is seductive. Sensation over emotion, brevity over infinity.

The image of the thinker is gone, replaced by the face of the 'sneering gargoyle of Paris' - Ugly, mocking, sneering and supremely disinterested.

In a prosaic world, one only does prose. One cannot 'do' poetry. First there was beauty. Then there was the beauty and the beast. There is only the beast now.

I do not wish the dream season anymore. I will not permit it to touch my eye. It is too noble a season to touch me anymore.

But it was good while it lasted.