Wednesday, October 3, 2007

word shots

gun shots in my head
lead against my skull
bouncing off like rubber pellets
going pop-a-pop pop

make it pieces of glass
like splinters in my head
going off like a shrapnel
click-a-click clock clock

tommy guns and revovlers
lethal and omnipresent
in perfect harmony
going rat-a-tat tat

if only words were weapons
they would feel good
but that again is a cheap substitution
for a weapon so good....

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

i see people.....all day long..from noon to eve....from dusk to dawn....
dawn did i say?.....dawn it is....for i never cease to sleep with my lights off.....
i see 'em cry....i see 'em laugh....i see some holding their tears....and i see some letting em trickle...
i see some riding the wheels.....i see some tearing their muscles apart...
from people who serve me to the ones whom i serve......
from the ones who wish to pray to the ones who pray to wish...
from the ones who eat to live to the ones who live to eat.....
there are people who burden their shoulders....and there are some who are burdened with desires.....
some are busy sweeping.....be it their tears or their filth.....
i see the ones who love to hate to the ones who hate to love.............
from the ones who love the shade of a cloud.....to the ones who build them as they walk along.....yes i see people......all day long....
then all of a sudden.....its time....its time to feel the sun.....the very sun which is a testimony to every activity.....
tired am i to feel my limbs.....tired am i to stretch myself....tired even to count the number of feet i saw....
then i ask myself the question.......who were the people whom i saw....were they the ones whom i knew.....or the ones who were new....
were they the ones who are close....or the ones who are far.....or were they the ones who never existed at all.....
all i remember is watching them under the heat of the sun and the luminescence of the moon...
watching their every activity......their every move.....there hands and legs working in sync......their breahte falling on eachother.....
and all this time i see myself nowhere......not even in the mirror....
i see none of me......i feel none of me....just the way one feels when every limb is numb....
i dnt even feel my breathe.........
where was i all this time........why couldnt i move......

oh yeah i remember now......i see people.....all day long.....all the time........everytime......

Sunday, April 29, 2007

demise..

rights revoked,
thoughts provoked,
makes my hackle rise,
makes me think is it the end or the beginning.....

the demise of logic,
or that of the civilization,
hard to pretend,
that i am a part of the cure but not that of the disease.....

from here to where,
the path is undefined,
but the end is nigh,
and so is the beginning.....

leaving for the sands of time,
to etch on the walls of ignorance,
for the bricks and steel making up the foundation,
are going to wither away like dried leaves in the zephyr.....

Friday, April 13, 2007

galti se mistake!

sorry for a few typos in the post below......

chug along and the fish plates will become ur shock absorbers....

Local train journey-agony or blessing in disguise???

T minus 10..9..8..7..6 *gulp*…5..4..3..2..1 “aey kai kartos re??…aat madhe zaaa ataa!!” Hey there what are you doing? Get inside quickly! plus a few unmentionable adjectives and in I go, and probably a few minutes later out I come, in the same fashion!
No, this isn’t a police round-up and I am certainly not a criminal! This is what several other Mumbaikars like myself get to hear every friggin day while getting in and out of one of the two lifelines of Mumbai-local trains (the other being the BEST bus service)! Well most of you who are from Mumbai, and commute by local trains are no exception to the verbal abuse (yeah, that’s what it is) and the physical torture (which would put the Indian Army’s physical training to shame)! I mean, who needs to go to the gym if one can get free training for any sport event by getting in and out of the local trains, during the peak hours! You think otherwise? Then here are some of the few points that I would like to put forward, which would force you to think my way:
1. One has to literally save oneself from getting punched at (Boxing)
2. One needs to jostle through the crowd with all possible gifted might (Boxing yet again)
3. One has to run from the staircase to the compartment with the fastest possible pace in a few seconds (Athletics)
And a lot more other events which I am sure each commuter can come up with! I mean, look at this, you get to exercise every muscle in your body without even paying those hefty fees! The work gets done in a few double-digit (sometimes even single-digit) bucks! And if this wasn’t enough, sometimes you even get your body massaged (included in the ticket charge)!!!! Where else can you get such value-for-money service?!! One even gets to perform gymnastics in a 2*2 units of space (I suck at metric units, so go figure that out yourself)! I am sure every second Mumbaikar who commutes by train would agree with me when I say that we can beat the best of Russian gymnasts at any gymnastic event held anywhere in the world! I am sure that we all have managed to amaze ourselves when we stood on one leg, the head tilted in the most impossible way with both our hands spread 3 feet apart, holding on to those handles for support, be it for mental or physical! And did I forget to mention that one becomes a true fighter (literal sense of the word)! Even the meekest of the individual transforms into a mean ‘push n punch’ machine!!! You look around yourself, that is if you get the opportunity to move your head sideways, and you see all sorts of people-from baajoowalein Sharma uncle to doorwaalein Vitthalrao uncle, from the ‘metrosexual’(bah! whoever came up with that word) Rahul to the not so dashing wanabe Jignes; from all sorts of backgrounds foul mouthing, punching or doing nothing but giving you the ‘look’! *uffff*
There are a few things that happen much to our chagrin. Like, free supply (or no supply) of cologne(cheap quality ones-if you know what I mean), body parts rubbing against each other (aaaargh), people sweating bullets and if you don’t you feel left out! If the weather wasn’t enough the hot air gushing out of a 100 standing bodies at the same time! Talk of artificial loo (hot summer winds for the uninitiated)! And to add to the misery, some female commuter gets into the already crowded general compartment! I don’t mean to say that they shouldn’t but then to give them way, 5 already bummed guys move as far as away so that they don’t get slapped or verbally abused at and in the process, all of us get pushed and then the verbal melodrama starts!
But every coin has two sides. So much so for the not so positive aspects of commuting by local trains, its time to highlight the positive ones. Don’t you think that it’s the best place to observe people? Their behavior, their antics, their tolerance level, what they say, what they wear and a lot more! Like I mentioned before, people from all sections of the society travel together, under one moving roof. No one really cares where you come from or where you are heading to. In a country like ours where there is rampant caste discrimination, inside that stuffed compartment, people from various castes come together, stand together, feel each other’s breathe and most of the times exchange words even- be them parliamentary or the not so parliamentary ones! People take care to see that all of them are safe, that no one is hanging by the door (though that happens a lot), that everyone gets to alight at their desired destination by giving way for them to pass through the crowd. Its like, in the real true sense of the phrase “Unity in Diversity”. It’s the interaction that takes place, that makes or teaches people to be more tolerant. People get to know each other, they exchange thoughts, recipes(for food or for success), sing songs in chorus, share jokes, laugh together, make new friends and a lot more. And for small time writers like me, a good source of inspiration! And last but not the least, we learn to listen for if we don’t we sure do know the dire consequences. In a way, it becomes a sort of disciplinary school for each one of us. It teaches us to be humble at any given point of time, no matter how tired we are, how rich we are, how important we are or how snobbish we are! Like I have always said, one can never know the city one lives in if one doesn’t commute by public transport, for a city is made up of its people and not its high rise buildings and fast moving cars.
Signing of for now.
Arohi “local train commuter” Chakraborty

Wednesday, April 4, 2007

wanderer.....

the plates are static....
but the mind isn't....
for it chooses to roam the parched lands.....
abandoned by the gods themselves....

the clock keeps ticking...
the bodies keep swaying...
to the rhythm of the dynamos...
the heart keeps beating...

the end is nigh...
the air is getting warmer by the minute...
breath falling on each other...
i look around for something to hold on to...

the time has come for me to step down...
my ego stands no chance...
for all the jostling robs me of my energy...
for every sweat shed is worth the penny tat i would earn.....

Thursday, March 15, 2007

we shall get back to you!

We shall get back to you- HAH!

The clock is ticking but the world and its people around seem to have come to a standstill. There is commotion around but you can hear your breathe going in and out of your body. The receptionist comes up to you and hands over a writing pad. You read the instructions and get to work right away. Whatever the topic is and how much ever the time limit is, all your writing skills prove to be of no use! But you still manage to come up with some ideas and scribble them on the paper thinking that should do the trick! You hand over the finished write-up to the receptionist who hands it over to an unknown identity, who is about to grill you. Then you are called inside. As if the wait a few minutes back wasn’t enough, you are asked to wait yet again! The unknown identity finally shows up, and you are in the best of your behaviour. He/she asks you about everything you have ever known and probably a few things you don’t even have an idea about. And while you are busy racking your brains trying to come up with the best possible answers, he/she constantly stares at you; that makes you all the more constipated! Even the college vivas were more comfortable than this; they were like a “bring it on” sessions for you. But not this, this is more like “Why me?!” You are offered a glass of water, but the water tastes more bitter than truth. The air-conditioner isn’t of much help to you for you are sweating profusely. And then finally its done. He/she gets up and so do you. You shake hands with him/her and then you finally say something without being asked to do so, “When do I look forward to the next round, sir/ma’m?” to which you get a reply “We will get back to you, XYZ.”
Bang!!! Those words hit you like a bullet in your head! All of a sudden your vision gets blurred and you picture the certain individual before you as a demented gunslinger on the lose! Those 6 words are the forbidden words in the life of any hopeful individual; to be precise, a fresher who is looking forward to getting recruited in a company (for the uninitiated, those 6 words mean that you have 98% chances of not getting back a call!). You don’t even know how to interpret them, and moreover you don’t even have the courage to ask them that, is that a yes or a no! Oh, how you wish you were at the other side of the desk and doing the same! But that thought doesn’t come as much of a relief to you, does it? You feel let down, a lot of thoughts cross your mind- *Was I good, did I answer all the questions properly, did my breathe smell stale, did my deodorant ditch me at the last minute, or was the interviewer intimidated by me or by my knowledge?* You have no answers to any of those questions!
Frankly speaking, who the hell in the industry came up with such a line? It is worse than our cheesy filmy lyrics! It doesn’t even leave any room for hopes! Ok, its fine if the interviewer tells one about the next round and the tentative time it will take for the next round to happen, it gives one some amount of hope to hold on to or the interviewer can also send a mail to the candidate saying that he hasn’t made it to the next round; but no, that isn’t the case! The interviewer utters those 6 heart wrenching, soul ripping words and then wishes you a good day (as if that is going to help!) It compels one to think about it all the time, especially if the candidate is a fresher. Oh, I so very pity them(including myself)! Personally speaking, it made me so miserable after hearing them for the first time that I lost interest in everything- from watching Mithunda’s action-packed desi Matrix-style movies to Spielberg’s epics, from having wada pao to hogging on burgers, from listening to Himesh’s heart rendering songs to the groovy psychedelic ones of The Chemical Brothers *sob sob*.
But no, that shouldn’t happen my fellow- freshers! This isn’t a reason good enough to wreck you! Go face the interviews, hear those not-at-all magical words and walk straight out of the room (albeit with a smile), there’s no shortage of jobs in the world. Laugh as much as you can and confine the guffaw within yourselves! Don’t let these corporate people tear you down for they hardly have the soft skills to go along with their technical skills; that ‘we shall get back to you’ line is a testimony to this fact. The next time when you are done giving the interview and the interviewer asks you what you would like to ask or know, muster all your courage from deep within your guts and tell them- “ Please, that’s a clichéd line, come up with something new to scare us freshers!” Its our chance to “get back to them”, literally, with a vengeance. Grrrrrrrrr.
Signing off!!!
Arohi “still a fresher” Chakraborty

PS: *with a puppy face* Is there anyone looking for a 2006 B.e(IT) pass out from the Mumbai University???