The Marathon Dusk.

The time and the place had been eventfully decided. They were to see each other and wishfully, this would be the last time would be “seeing” each other. The act of ignorance and hence the subsequent indifference had dug its lair into their brains. They had taken a severe beating from the tiring exhaustion and the infinite degree of boredom heaped upon them by this mounting strangulation. Both of them were mindful of the other’s infidelity; both of them were aware of the either’s bondage and priorities; both of them pined for independence; both of them had resigned.

The wait was a patient one.

******************************

“You can take my overcoat, if it comforts you.”

Joseph “Droll” was a tall man, though not tall enough to snatch your attention. His three-and-a-half feet torso and an uncannily slender waistline gave a copy-book picture of a eucalyptus. His peaceful face bore not a wrinkle and the tight, pinkish skin gave him the look of a cold, wet lobster. The rat-ish nose was just enough to keep him breathing, and alive. The black in his eyes was black enough to instill a sense of uneasy isolation, and the only feature noteworthy in the whole of his countenance was the breadth, or more accurately, the volume of his “lusty” lips, though it bought him more embarrassment, than it earned him laurels. No wonder, but for his lips, he was not popular among women.

His booming voice beat on her eardrums with the frequency, faster than the thrash she was listening to. For a moment or so, she almost seemed to be toppling from the fence she was straddling. Hurriedly, her supple form regained its composure.

******************************

“Thanks, but I think I am better off on my own,” was the reply. The lady wore a teasingly friendly look, friendlier than he had expected. The rest of her was silently gazing at the steadiness in his steps as he walked past her. Proud as a peacock, wondered she. This was the second time the offered had been refused.

********************************************

His thoughts were in total control and more disciplined than the clock, and forcefully led him into the state of semi-unconsciousness. His mind and soul screamed noisily, in perfect octave. The bugle of the clock announced the seventeenth hour of the day. The mélange of the dusk had settled into a sensuous mauve.

But the wait was still on, and a patient one.

******************************

Shifting uneasily, the lady kept quiet.

"I thought you might be feeling sort of..."

Joseph tried to act friendlier. A man in his mid-thirties and still unmarried should not have any different thoughts. The time of the year and the hour of the day gave reason enough for the offered to have been offered. The smooth currents were soft on her dusky melanin. With her only in a thin drape of satin, the chill got it feast of the day. April, after all, is not the cruelest month, and the winter wind is crueler than human ingratitude. Joseph was thinking fast. This was not the first time he was strolling in the Green Square, and definitely not the first lady he was trying to help. "What's wrong if I offer her my overcoat. I got it laundered today, and moreover its a pleasant perfume that I am wearing . And besides , its chilly and she is only in a satin."

Confidently, Droll made his second remark: "I thought you might be feeling, you know, kinda..."

"Shut up, or I will pluck your balls and give them to the same child..."

Before he was done with his 'help', and even before his butts found some ground, her icily cold, ferocious glare conveyed her reply.

He was ruffling the hair of the ten year old, who had come by them searching for his balls, while expressing himself. Casually speaking, his eyes met those of hers, and a chill of her look ran down his spine. The gush of his feelings was stopped abruptly by the dam. He could not help imagining his balls...wait a minute, which balls was she talking about? his eyeballs or... no, no second thought. The lady looked decent and aren't decent girls supposed to talk decent things? She must have meant his...whatever. All he could think of was the cruel pain in his eyes, the sadistic grin on her face and a sense of immense satisfaction in the boy's movement, after being  promised the first of their kind balls as the gift. Three different expressions, three reasons, all valid enough.

His daydream was disturbed by the ghoulish vision of bursting balls and the voyeurism of the lady.

After all, the winter wind was really kinder than the human ingratitude.

******************************

GOD IS DEAD

With a lit lantern, in the radiant hours of the morning, the madman ran out into the market place and cried out: “I seek God! I seek God!” Since many of the people gathered there did not believe in God, he provoked a great deal of laughter. Is he lost? Is he afraid? Has he departed on a long voyage? Or has he emigrated? - were hysterical reactions. They howled and laughed.

The madman leaped into their midst, and piercing them with his stare, said: “Where has God gone? I’ll tell you. We have killed Him. You and I- we both have killed him. But how did we do this? Where are we going to? Are we not plunging down? Are we not drifting through an infinite nothing? Don’t you still hear the sound of the undertakers? God is dead and will always remain so.”

“There has never been a greater deed; and those who are born after us, for the sake of this deed, shall belong to a history, higher than all up until this moment.”

With that he became silent and contemplated his listeners; and they too fell silent and stared at him in shock. Disappointed, he hurled his lamp at the ground and walked away, saying: “My time has not yet come. This monumental event is yet to come. It is yet to reach your ears, though long done. Thunder and lightening need time to strike; the light from the stars takes time to reach the earth. This deed is most distant that the distant stars, and yet they have done it themselves.”

Later that day, he was heard with his requiem in the churches. Dragged out and forced to account for himself, he had only one reply, “What are these churches, if not the graves and sepulchers of God?”

P.S. this is one of my favorite extracts written by the philosopher Nietzsche in his "Gay Sciences".

MY APOCALYPSE

The shrieking quiescence piercing my throat,
Ejaculates a violently pacifying nimbus.
The smoky zephyr rekindles my goad,
My phantom awaits the stalking Succubus.

Doleful stars, scouring the graves,
Snatch the dying flesh of the phaeton.
Lunatic Luna, arousing its slaves,
Calmly hacks the clandestine orison.

Zombies surround me, bathed in mire,
Phoenixes, bewailing their self-destruction;
The brightly dark sables conspire,
Building my pyre, my death construction.

My body, crumbling, so long has hanged,
On poles, fettered amidst the dead.
I wait, foreseeing my doom being planned,
An iron maiden, donning my head.

The Beast arrives, Succubus behind,
With a sanguinary memento, plucked from the bliss
Of surmounting terror. That apocalyptic mind
Chars my lips, giving me, my steaming Kiss.

... And the HELL gleams in MY APOCALYPSE.

When I'll be ready.

Someday, they say, I'm gonna fly

Someday, would rule the sunny sky

When all my dreams I realize

I'll make the rules of my life.

And then, a girl, with whom I'll strut

And then, would have the Midas Touch

But for this itchy shoot to bud

I have so many to vie.

I know, I have

so many things on my brain

Thinking, thinking

and thinking, I just can't refrain

Countless tests, unending hard work

Life's not so full of cakes

But with my resolution, I know

I'm ready for all that it takes

So now when I lie on my bed

Stuck with games, no thoughts ahead

A reckless brat, so in the red

Was this the urge of my life?

This chance, I'm never gonna waste

No choices will I make in haste

Someday when success I'll taste

Would be the day when I'll fly

I know, I have

so many things to explain

Thinking, thinking

and thinking, I see myself changed.

Countless tests, unending hard work

Life's not so full of cakes

But with my resolution, I know

I'm ready for all that it takes

I'm ready

for all that it takes

I'm ready

for all the stakes

I'm ready

to decide

I'm ready

to live my life...

p.s. this is one of the lyrics i have written for our music compositions.

AS YOU LIKE IT III

 written on common demands...

First love is a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity. I am sorry for the insolence, but Mr. Shaw definitely meant it to be the first step towards love. When people say they have fallen in love, the prized bone of contention becomes the futility, read fatality, of the state of mind into which they are lodged. Come on, love is not what alms is to a beggar. You go begging for love but you don’t get it every now and then, beside every altar. After all, who that once loved remains poor? When it’s love, it should be love, actually. It’s very true that many a times people do take steps towards love, but you fall in love only once. And let me remind you, love is not an abyss, but a cauldron of quagmire. The more you try to get out, the more you get soaked into it. When you fall in love, there’s the metaphysical gravity, don’t know why Einstein refuses, that which by then apprises you of all sorts of foolishness and settles all your curiosities. First love is the only time when an individual acts incapably sane. Another very quaint misgiving is the coin of explanation forged from the molten dung of human reason. When you say you are in love, doesn’t is epistemologically, read etymologically, quell the rebellion your foolhardiness arouses? If you love someone because of something, it is plain and simple- it’s that material something you like, not that someone. And then you no longer desire only that someone, but all others with the possession of that something (well, do mark my usage of words). If you love someone, you simply love that someone. Why try and give a reason to the unreasonable? The greatest tragedy of mankind is the adidas, read impossible is nothing, misconception, where it tries to trespass its domain groping for an answer to love. It is then they forget that love is abstract. Anything abstract, I hope you agree, is unreasonable. Why do you pray to GOD? Or is there a God? Why do you live? Do you need a reason to live? Why do you love? Do you need a reason to love? Or do you actually love? Love is love’s answer. You love someone because you simply love that someone. Well, the question of love doesn’t leave me. Love is often said to be a result of alienation, and leading to alienation. Pardon me, but either the source is unaware of love, or grossly misinterprets alienation. Love is an abstract measure of the organic solidarity in the humankind. Love is an outcome of affective actions. Love is involuntary. Love binds, it doesn’t alienate. Alienation is becoming foreign to society, and how can you become foreign when you are woven very much into it. You can’t be alienated if you love the system that alienates you.

Well, you may ask as to when I know if it is love. People, if it is love you will not ask. You may say, was it not the day I was born that I fell into love; where did that first love, curiosity and foolishness thing go? People, start believing in love at first sight. Don’t you love your parents? Was it not them you saw first? And as far as the problem of this kind of love and that kind of love is concerned, well, you have to borrow one common word “love” for both the kinds, till a new word is defined to suit your needs (In the end, one does not always end up with his wishes fulfilled). People, love is not the child of disillusion, but it is the parent of illusion. Love conquers all.

If love is a red dress, give me one in velvet. Not that I don’t have a velvet, it’s just that I am dying for the red one. We have our fair shares of both, thorns and roses. Only that people like the pain of the thorns more than the warmth of the rose; that the pain of the thorns lingers longer than the smell of the roses. I don’t want to be opiated with the gore of bloody thorns, let me embrace the anodyne of the roses. If love is a flower, give me the red rose.

AS YOU LIKE IT II

First love, actually, is a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity; only that the foolishness thing makes you repent and the concept of curiosity fails you in your ultimate objective. I am aware of the usage of words, and there lies the stark element of foolishness. Of course, it should not startle you if I propose that the very conception of the same forwards you into the realm of the innocuous and inane irrationality.

No one has ever fallen, and none can ever fall in love, let alone the cliché: “I fell in love with you at the first sight.” (Please put up with me, when I continuously mention love). And well, the Savage Garden song “I knew I loved you” is a miserable disaster for the followers of this ideology named Love. It’s the territory of foolishness and curiosity again. Foolishness because you grossly misinterpret the feelings and curiosity because you impulsively feel like knowing the degree of foolishness in the third person concerned.

The philosophy of alienation scores poorly in all forms of its applications, and the story is no different here. The love for someone is just a measure of the amount of recognition you receive when you make yourself foreign to the society as a whole, in favors of the enamored individual. Love as a notion, is introduced to let you know the strength of your individuality, and the sycophants who proclaim themselves as your “lovers” are mere stooges in this altruistic social outlook. Alluding from my previous version, the whole discussion concludes in the cruelty of the providence, in using “love” just as an expression for continuation of its potency. How true it seems to me now!
 

My cousin someday surfaced the probable confession a man in love would make. The metaphysical aspect of love brings out momentous facts about the same. People seek shelter in this so-named interdependence. The paradox lies in the fact that this “understanding” first leads to the individual’s alienation and gradually this alienation becomes the one’s resignation to the same. This concludes in the one seeking refuge in the bounds of “love”. The interesting part in this context would be the inherent reply to the question, “Do you love me?” The reply, most often, is an assertion stating some bodily characteristics, and a great deal of emotional stuff. Love is identified with feelings like trust, emotional bondage understanding et al. The final statement ends the reply, in a sigh, “Do I need a reason to love you?”

Yes, you bloody need a reason to love someone. Just browse the lexicon for the meaning of this word, and you get my intentions. Beg your pardon, but this very thought drives me into the portals of nonsensical re-arguing. Shakespeare rightly says that it’s the complexity of the situation, more than the situation itself, which drives you out of your reason and puts the thought of suicide in your mind. (I am not thinking of a suicide anyway…..). 

“Why do you keep mentioning her? You don’t love me.anymore.”; the obvious answer to a statement which it is meant for. Yes. There the failure of love portrays itself again. You are free to love as many individuals as you choose. You are free to decide on who should you shower your love and who should remain devoid of it. Love is just a gross exaggeration of one’s liking for the other. Ah! There I hit upon the right word. Liking. You never love, you always like, and this extent of your liking, your inclination, defines the new term: LOVE, and thus, weird definitions. They say love is free of bounds and is unconditional. Well, a husband is bounded by the society to “love” his wife, and vice versa, out of some socially accepted etiquette. There emerges the difference between love and liking. Love is a bondage where as liking is not. Liking doesn’t require situational adaptations, Love does. Liking does not require your constant attention, Love does. Liking doesn’t demand your continuous thought, Love does. Liking cares no expectations, Love does. Liking needs no explanations, Love does. You dislike someone if you don’t like the one, but you desert and hurt someone emotionally, if you no more love the one. This is what the underlying failure of Love is apparently. The faculty of human reasoning is bounded and its reins are controlled by Love. How rightly they claim Love to be blind!

A brief discussion, apart from ‘this type of love’. Let me give a brief view of family love. You may say that this type of love is pure and free of any of the aforementioned vices. But let me introduce to you the concept of privatization and property. Economically, Marx says that the history of men is nothing but their economic evolution, and rightly so. A family loves the offspring because its existence and identity depends on the offspring. The latter loves because the latter inherits.

Simple enough!

“Love” is named to give a reason and furtherance to identity. This foolish and quaint misinterpretation of ideas is what leads to the sustenance of the philanthropic existence of identity, and the existence of anthropos.

SONNET III

IN thine absence, ceaseless, and my craving

Unfathomable, for thine lissome form,

Visage, with verve, so full, so brimming,

O! Dearest, my spirit is spent, braving the storm

Stirred in thy sojourns. Anguished and haunted,

Oh! So lonesome, my amour, lulled in stupor,

Fain would shun, drab, the dusk of thine wonted

Truancy and in new red dawns, find humor.

Love, in my heart enshrined, doth tenderly chide

My passion. Why strive thou, for evanescent lust?

Love is not an ugly cloak, an aide, to hide

Thy lechery. Love isn't a candle, but its essence

Is quixotic; its madness, is like a forest-fire,

Which flames further, fanned by the wind of distance.

Sonnet II

In the throes of thine tormenting absence,

Mine heart, forsaken, salvation cries,

Stranded in the main, against wicked skies.

Tumultuous and tiring, the qualm in my sense,

Is worse than the fall from heavenly chasm.

So deep and dark. And my daunted spirit,

A meek lamb, in hollow blasphemy doth sit

Sulking and sundering every phantasm.

But hark! The faint murmur and patience prevail.

And let not the sickle of corruption avail

Thy shadow. The Master needs not lost soul,

Brethren. So His children, whether rise or fall,

He guides through this eternal help:

“What seek’st thou, if not thine real self?”

I THOUGHT

I thought I was confused
When I said I loved her,


Thought it was just
That fatuous, ephemeral stir.
When I first saw her
Dancing so gaily,
The elegance of her silhouette
And thought of her daily.



Thought I was confused,
When I said I loved her.



The dawn in her eyes,
The silk of her hair,
The spring of her smile,
I couldn’t but just stare.
The touch of her scent
And my timid sighs,
Oh! How soon it was
That we bade goodbyes.



Just thought I knew,
When I said I loved her.



The last that we met,
I remember, she cried.
And my love for her
Then, I could not hide.
She rose and planted
A kiss on my forehead,
And how soon I realized,
That nothing was ever unsaid.



Surety creeps in, when
I now said I loved her.

My love for my girl,
Was not just a banter
And I know I mean it,
When I say I love her.

SONNET I

Consternation, at bay is, even when

The throng, in mirth, your shadow smothers

Scrutiny, oh! the harsh introspection bothers,

Gray with murk, my hollow empyrean.

Oh! how muffled and choked my flame

Burns, an ennui in doleful exile

In drab oblivion, wasted, nay facile

And lo! who is but myself to blame!

But lament not for what is spent

And with fortitude, brace the balm of élan

The lambent lustre of the stringent flame

Gleams and bathes, in candour bent.

Discern your cause, and in virtue flicker,

The flame attains its gist, when burns the other.

PARADISE QUIT

“Our’s is not to question why,
Our’s is, but to live and die.”


I don’t exactly recall the source of this couplet, or if it is one, but just reminisce the school days when I first read MILTON. One of his sonnets, on his blindness, beautifully presents the idea of procrastination of authentic thought process. The shock in the octet, where Milton bewails HIS gift being snatched by HIM, thereby, him lodged to uselessness, the allusion to the parable of talent, and questioning HIM, is subdued by the demand of servitude for the one who is nothing but a concoction of beliefs, false and blinded.


Milton says, they serve HIM best who bear HIS mild yoke and who just stand and wait, and I demand justification through the rest of my writing.


Expectation and beliefs, those naïve superstitions, more than often, quieten REASON, which I believe to be the most sophisticated of all human endowments. More than often we fail to reason, and when its otherwise, we feel excluded, or rather I should say ostracised; trying to sound type of rational and sort of ontological, ends up in a tiring prolixity.


What is it, if not PARADISE QUIT? The Gifts of man, cleverly snatched by the giver, what is it, if not PARADISE SNATCHED? The indictment and the ‘retribution’ of pagans by the so called religion, what is it, if not PARADISE DENIED?


LUCIFERISM only! What is Lucifer? Virtual embodiment of reason, or a real cherub, who tried to be inquisitive? Or does it signify that “disobedience means to burn and burn for ever in unimaginable agony for all eternity?” It is said that among all dangers on earth, there is none more dangerous more than a rich reason. It is possible to teach an ass and make it talk, but to blind, delude and destroy reason, next to impossible. Lucifer, being sent to the lake of fire, or in equal probability, he choosing to go there, was the outcome of his desire to be reasonable. Well, well, Lucifer is the refined version of Satan, or may be Satan a crude name for him. Believed to be the prince of lies, Lucifer is said to have once guarded the throne of GOD, the brightest of all angels, the signet of ‘perfection’, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty, blameless from the day it was created, until when his wisdom was corrupted by the reason of his brightness. And then, the fall, the things of fire; and Lucifer was poised as the epitome of terror for having personified mutiny, freedom of thought and reason.


I don’t claim to state the philosophical existence of devil himself, or Lucifer, as it is named. I don’t believe in the BIBLE or the Christian God, but with no offence to the theists, the only thing which I feel like truth in Christianity is the existence of Christ. 


Back to Lucifer! The name is bearer of light, and my claim is to falsify the “what’s in a name” thing. Light is often an allusion to reason, knowledge, intellect and power of discernment. If at all I do start to believe in Christianity, I would develop more questions than a convalescent faith. Why did GOD throw out Lucifer when he started to question HIM? Why did GOD not kill him, like he did to them in the GREAT FLOOD? Why is it, that to conquer sin, the inquisition used physical abuse?


Bluntly, my view is, that all the stories are told from the point of view of ‘GODISTS’. GOD is documented as a sadist and the central of all dogmas, if you see it from my window. The answer to Job, the reply to Joshua, in which GOD rebukes for questioning him, and asserts in pointlessly accepting him as faith, and burning those who dare question him to spread the fate of disobedience; all portray him as a sadist. May well have been the reason why Lucifer, the brightest of all, was dissatisfied. God punished ADAM and EVE just for eating the fruit of knowledge and ‘disobeying’ him, in pursuit of their pleasure. Don’t these fables, as told by GODISTS themselves bring out god as the SATAN himself! Why did god let Lucifer live was he evil? Just to assert his presence in curbing evil, or satiate his sadism, or in a flint of hope, that Lucifer might one day return to serve him?


They call Lucifer the prince of lies, and they themselves define lie as anything that contradicts the word of GOD. A lie is then, the questioning of dogmatic beliefs of the BIBLE and GOD’s representative on earth. Thus, praise lies, and adore Lucifer, for in his quest of rationality, he gave up the heavens. How cruelly GOD contrives for his dominion, how shrewdly HE plots for authority! Lucifer was a free thinker and of course free thinkers do not make good slaves! For our part we find it a lot easier to follow than to think for ourselves, to face the horrors of responsibility. Originality seems to be the other world!


We are born sinners, as the GODISTS say, and the SON OF GOD gave his life for our sins. Tell me, how do you account for my deeds? Let me remind you again that these stories are told by people who are blinded by the power of hypocrisy and false servitude; people who claim to be superior in servile beliefs; people who don’t think for themselves.


Lucifer may well have QUIT the PARADISE. Lucifer might well have RESIGNED!


Let’s be LUCIFERS…… Forward into LIGHT!!!!

AS YOU LIKE IT

First love is a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity. To what extent is G.B.Shaw's doggerel justifiable, is something worth giving a profuse thought to,when we put into question, the panache lying beneath the palpitations of a Romeo, when he stops blathering, stands beneath the facade of the quasi-quagmire labyrinth of the palais of his dreams,beside his (first of many to be) Juliets. But then isn't Romeo and Juliet tragedy in itself ?


I would rather fancy questioning, being in the stead of Shaw, if it was the first love he meant or was it an intention to mean one's first affair? It should not take me by surprise if someone turns up with questions on love. But whether it be an affair or love, the cruelty of Providence lies in the fact that it uses us, with love just being an expression for the continuation of its domineering presence, for the continuation of its creation, for He needs someone to make Him feel His presence, His potency. Writing so, neither do I intend to hurt a theist, nor do I aim at doing so.


Just love. Shaw called first love as foolishness and curiosity. Taking stands on his point view, curiosity seems to be a far fetched thought. Yet again, you never know the moment you fall in love. What can be yet another question is when does one know one loves someone? It was easy on the part of Longfellow to say- "It is easy to know that you are in love once you are in love." But he doesn't seem to make a point and we can't stand by romanticism.


I just am reminded of the silver screen, which portrays this feeling for various age groups, in various situations. My obsession with Wilde again brings to my mind- "There can be passion, enmity, infatuation, friendship but there is no place for love between a man and a woman". A man always likes to be called a woman's 'first love' and probably a week or two after they start seeing each other he takes a chance. On the other hand, a woman always desires to be a man's last romance. A serious point that I might have brought forward lies in the two different terms that I used for men and women. This also puts forth that women 'fall in love' when they get tired of loneliness, and men because they are too curious. Doesn't Shaw stand justified ? At least when it comes to 'curiosity'. Foolishness need no mention since the aforementioned thoughts speak aloud my views on his second stance.


Just because you like someone, or someone makes you feel at home in the one's company, does not have any implication of love. Methinks love is just a gross exaggeration of one's liking for someone over the others. Love is a temporary insanity curable by marriage. But again Shaw's influence crops up- Isn't marriage a alliance between a man who can't sleep with his window shut and a woman who Do you need any reason to love? (I admit I do not understand half the things he says.) Why do you love someone? Just because you like someone, it is appreciation ; someone loves you, its reciprocation ; you feel for the one, its compassion ; you want someone, its desire, lust or perhaps need, not love. So how would you define love? How do you get to know you love someone? Or is love some sort of a bondage? Does love demand faithfulness to the extent of spending your life on the whole with an individual? Can't you fall in love with two persons simultaneously? Just because you see some one other than the one who knows you love the one, would it mean you don't love the former anymore? Is love all about compatibility? Or is it the complementary nature that defines a 'successful love'?


Countless questions, and only a few to answer. Probably I should end up getting answers to my questions, as they are now projected. I would prefer falling in love, though.


Wait! Before you start thinking the mental state I was in before putting my thoughts to pen and paper, just a reminder-
Its not the end; and I am not in LOVE.
(At least now things should turn around; I am still waiting!!! )