About you and yours

I hate sitting in front of a blank page with a blanker expression.
So this is what i'll do: I'm going to fill it up with you.
Yes, you.
The one with a smile waiting to invade your face.
And a pointed chin resting on a soft fist. 
You are beautiful. And you know it.
All beautiful people do.
But you're a bit different.
Your beauty transcends skin; something you may not know.
Most of your kind don't.
You make right just by being you.
You, as a person, is taken. It's you, just. 
You look through stuff—unprejudiced. 
Maybe because you sleep less and see more? 
There's grace in almost everything you undertake.
Even the way you move your hands.
Even while sitting quietly on the corner of a bed.
Or talking with your mouth full. 
You've become my favourite;
person, colour and  word. 
Effortlessly. 
I can't be mistaken about certain things.
You happen to be one of them.
Aren't you something?
Which is why i'm tired of missing you.
I'm done with the stupid distance in between
although i'm scared of messing up.
Unfortunately, i don't know the lanes we are bound
to cover in each other's company.
Fortunately, you don't know how to swim hence
you can only sink further into me.
For good or for worse, I won't be empty anymore. 
You will complete me.                 

Symptoms of madness

 

Every time that small spot of light flashed, this shark took it as a sign. He didn’t realise that it’s a man-made invention. In his pointed head, it was a star that had fallen from above and trapped on top of that phallic thing. So, what our hero tried to do was get as close as possible. But none of his feisty endeavours managed to fruition. Either he got severely washed off by waves or damaged his jaws at the rocky base. Regardless, he refused to give up.

Moral: Stars are best left to sky and morons, to sea.

First look

Observation #1: Friends come and go away because that's what happens whether you like it or not. But every once in a while, a friend quietly walks into your life and makes you believe in yourself. And before you even realize it, you don't want this one to go away. Ever.

Observation #2: "Annanavagru kopa dallid'aara?" is something a three-year-old kid asks her mother when she thinks you aren't talking to her as you're upset with her when in reality, you don't speak Kannada and there's no way you can communicate with her. Cute.

Observation #3: Newspapers turning yellow is one of the beautiful things you can witness. The only problem is we can never see the lignin in motion. It's always going to be white/salmon-pink now and within a period of time, it'll acquire a taint of time. Unjaundiced.

Observation #4: Mangalorean fish curry and parboiled rice has to be what heaven must serve on entry. Even somebody who isn't a huge fan of separating skeletons (OK, thin bones) from flesh would vouch for this humble yet royal dish. At least i would. Enchanting. 

Observation #5: What's worse than people littering on road? People doing the same inside a train on a long-distance journey. Who's going to clean up? A wild guess: Grandchildren of whoever isn't diligent enough to keep their crap on the right side of the window. Behave.

Observation #6: Studying is tough. However, it can't beat the pain that your knuckles bear while you're pushing pen on your examination paper. If it's a 3-hour paper, it seems like 9 years, 7 months and 23 days long. Yes, exaggeration is completely allowed here. Sorry.

Observation #7: Arvind Kejriwal won for only one reason: He's not corrupt. Yet. And whatever be the political rhetoric—if you understand economics—you must also take AAP's sweep with a pinch of salt. Subsidies are and will never be the solution to problems. Gumption.

Observation #8: We are what we are. Even if we pretend otherwise, we eventually come back to the person we actually embody. The way we look at things varies while those things remain the same. Similarly, for the universe at large, we are one of those things. Pity.

Observation #9: Violence is not really a bad thing. If employed effectively, it can provide what non-violence never might never be able to. The catch here being the difference between the two is enormous. When a lion turns violent with its prey, it harbours no hatred. Whatsoever.

Observation #10: Your parents may come across as archaic and boring. But that also goes on to show that you were perhaps too selfish to help them keep up with the latest from the world of "cool". So, whatever you think they are today, it's on you, not them. Comeuppance.

More often than not

More often than not, we give up as well as give in.
More often than not, doing nothing becomes the most appropriate option.
More often than not, staying away makes a hell lot of difference.
More often than not, you don't know whether you're coming or going.
More often than not, the words we use aren't as convincing as our truth.
More often than not, you don't get a second chance or a second thought.
More often than not, the poet in you should remain silent.
More often than not, failures make you more compassionate.
More often than not, something is wrong with them, not you.
More often than not, we need others to listen to our crap.
More often than not, your co-passengers' decision to award a train beggar depends on yours.
More often than not, we are itching to scratch.
More often than not, we miss that person we could have been.
More often than not, we need somebody to show us the way we already were aware of.
More often than not, silence is the beginning of a conversation, not the end.
More often than not, rich thoughts lead a poor existence.
More often than not, justice is in denial.
More often than not, opportunity presents itself in the past.
More often than not, it's difficult to marry sincerity to conversation.
More often than not, they mind the very stuff we ask them not to.
More often than not, grammar gets me wrong.
More often than not, men think with their testicles, not dick.
More often than not, your job loves you but the feeling isn't mutual.
More often than not, we end up as the very person we once resented.
More often than not, sentences—not mere words—ruin us.
More often than not, i don't get what i'm trying to accomplish with my typing. 

A fine distinction

Nothing matters. On a second thought, almost nothing matters. Everything is fleeting at any given point of time and can be best described as a phase. However, being humans with a heart that refuses to stop beating itself to death, a tongue that wags like a serpent and a mind that is perpetually licked by abstractness, we try to enslave moments. So we end up attaching meaning to the meaningless. In the process, we even extend our chances at feeling luckier than we actually are. Which could be a reason why we click pictures, capture those sweet moments that will always be ours to keep. We dive into ourselves, touch the recess of those events that ended up shaping us into the person that we are today. It's a struggle against time. It's a greater struggle against yourself. Because you are temporary but what you did with/to time isn't. It's etched there forever. Like an itch that is going to scratch itself for good. And we thought we are mortals! How can we be so when our greatest gift is time? What matters is those moments that define who was the master and who got enslaved.

Grace, uninterrupted

My deputy editor doesn't remember much about my initial days in office. It goes to show where i must be placed in her pecking order of significant people. But then, i have a very bad habit of remembering details which nobody else gives a fuck about. No, this ain't a newfound conclusion. I arrived at it long time ago. However, i recently told her that i when i joined work, i instantly assumed her to be a Parsi given her name, features and voice. Later it turned out she is a Muslim. Regardless, i continue to remain protective about her the way i was earlier when i mistook her for an endangered species.

I admire her a lot not just because of her endless 'lessons in life' but also because she doesn't pretend to be someone she isn't. In her case, what i say is what she regrets. So keeping up with the tradition of unfinished conversations wherein either one of us laughed hysterically throwing our head back cutting the short conversation shorter, i asked her who is going to take care of her after i leave my job. Pat came the reply "Tab tak main badi ho jaungi!" with a reluctant smile. She's one of those who is more comfortable laughing. Not the one for etiquette. Not the one for bash. An endangered species indeed.

Never again

Anna teacher never liked me. There are always some students a teacher find it very difficult to deal with. I was that guy for her. Maybe it was my face. This happened when i was in fourth grade. What's ironical is that her subject happened to be my favourite. What's more interesting is that i was mostly placed closest to her while she was teaching the exploits of Shivaji Maharaj. What's not interesting is that i wasn't a first-bencher. I often used to kneel in front of the wall on which the blackboard was crucified. Like i said, closest. Within seconds of her entering the classroom would i be asked to leave my bench and join her on the floor! This routine went on for a long while as she continued to find faults in me. But it miraculously stopped the day i left my seat—to occupy my knees—while she was about to enter the room for her history class. After that, i was never punished again. Maybe it was my face only.