apathy
last night i saw this physically challenged guy who had no limbs from thigh down being kicked brutally by this other guy who appeared inebriated. a crowd watched animatedly, under a dull yellow street light, they looked like the kind of folk who could'nt afford a tv and its in-house remote controlled violence.
i rode on, had dinner and slept, peacefully i think.
ten months of covering deprivation, ethics, truth telling, objectivity and key issues.
they prepared me to be a journalist who can change the world.
it stared at me last night and i felt impotent.
i should have taken martial arts instead and bought myself a cape and a ski mask.
meet moseley man. defender of the downtrodden.
there i go again amusing myself with the world of fantasy.
stop nelson...............write another report.........why dont you?
changing the world can wait.

she
the stars
they shone so brightly
she ambled her way in
smiled and spoke

the heavenly bodies
they hid behind them clouds
ashamed at having been outshone

when she laughed
her laughter fell like
streaks of supernovae

forming a world where angels and cherubs lunch

corridorsofclarity
i dont check the weather report today
there wont be a sudden downpour of discontent
to leave me cold and callous

she holds the key to my seasons
bright in bloom, honey dew like
she works like a fairy alchemist

my feet are tickled by green suppliant grass
my heart is still and flowing mating with sublime lucidity
this season she has brewed made spring blush

marquis de moses
open wide she says, this might hurt a bit. I'll spray some anaesthetic on it and if it hurts too much then i'll inject you. i'm thinking morphine and its accompanying languid daze. the spray does the trick, i cant feel a thing.
she begins what seems like an electric drill to my ears.
bzzzzzzzzzrrrr.
i feel like she's my shearing my gums so that my teeth fall out automatically. the pain starts, damn the pain suppressor. she continues, i can feel some kind of spray coming out of my mouth, i later learn that it was the blood from my spongy sensitive gums. the taste in my mouth now is that of having munched on old leather chappals with old engine oil as sauce.
i need to spit and ask for morphine shot. but she had said that this procedure would not require injecting, i cant be chicken, i can bear the pain. but i need to spit and spit i do. except this aint spit but blood, not the diluted blood mixed with spit. but just plain thick almost blackish blood.
im the count of transylvannia who's just held up a blood bank, and im upto my neck with blood so i gotta barf.
are you ok she asks? this one you can tell is concerned. she must have used her intuition to figure i wasnt ok. im all right, are you allright? i mean after all you are the one doing all the hard work. all im doing is lying down with my legs up. you are the one who needs to concentrate. im fine she says.
i wasnt being sarcastic when id asked her whether she was allright and saying that she was the one doing all the hard work.imagine... she slips for a minute, shes thinking about how her husband keeps saying he doesnt know where he kept his credit card bills. her worst fears have been confirmed, he's cheating on her, shes angry with the husband, she seeks revenge, she needs blood. thats why my smile and concern.' me im allright, i hope you are ok, im chilling here while you are doing all the hard work'

i close my eyes and she employs her electric drill.

i'm........
scuba diving and swimming with mermaids and rainbow coloured sea creatures
in a ferrari driving to victory after starting 20th on the grid
two feet away from the peak of everest with tenzing and hilary on my back
saying howdy to neil armstrong as he descends from his bird on the moon
skydiving with jonathan livingston seagull
water water rafting somewhere in the colorado
with tarzan in the amazon inches away from the all woman tribe
devised doors which will close all windows on bill gates
scoring the goal of the century later dubbed the leg of god
scoring the fastest one day century all sixes, no singles, fours, threes or fives
.........................................am i flatlining....................................................
the agony is unbearable now...im stallone in first blood strapped to wires which are sending paroxyms of pain and anguish directly to the pain receptors in my brain.
we are done she says.........and im looking at her like she's the queenpaingiver of the ruskie army 'you wont get nothing outta me , you phuqqing commie'
mr. moses we are done.
yeah ok, i make my way to the ice-cream parlour, a 80 buck tub for 50 qwul.
hmmmmmmmmmm......
next time i shall pop my own drugs and smile through the suffering.

rain
i wish i could bottle up...
the smell of rain
the rush of a roller coaster
the buzz of riding at breakneck speed
the smile of my niece
drunken butterfly whoops in my stomach when i see her
stars falling off the sky on clear nights
laughter and conversations shared with chums
symphony of sounds on a moonlit night at the beach
sunday morning easy awakenings

bohemian symphony
with hair like daffodils strung on a rainbow swaying to a reggae tune i always wondered why shanu decided to style it straight. all the kurusawa movies i should think or the haiku influence.
im so glad its sprung back to its stringy self.
shanu...free spirit, goddess of goodwill and generousity, funny, quirky (donkei) loving, lovable, clumsy, talented, creative and an out of the box mind.
gypsy queen with beautiful ethereal face, splendid smile, lazy talk, funny walk.
60s flower power poster girl/woman.
what you see is what you get easy rider.
you will be missed like a severed arm dreamchaser.
conjure up the magic at moneycontrol and blow them away.
all the best buttercup.

schizo-free-her
hey...
i like it better here
in the voids of my mind
you wont find me when you come knocking
with pain and punishment

no feeling anymore
slip off this map of rude reality
the voices i hear are my own
im not alone

i havent lost my mind
i have just found it
locked and walled in these grey cells
devoid of reason my mind roams free

comfortably dumb and demented

godspeed
will leave now with tears spilled in the back of our eyes
laugh with glee like a baby in bloom
sleep this season out in the cold
left with a thin memory blanket

nursrey rhyme bliss meets blackboard chalk clarity
coffee spills....ink stains....cigarettes sent
grim weeper serenading black hole vertigo
this sea of sorrow floods my heart


melancholy she lives with my heart in the house of infinite sadness
frustration he drops by to deliver hammer blows
how did these strangers morph into me?
i'm severed and suffering upon their exit

let me curl and hug what's left of me
need time therapy in fast forward
time now to enter the world of fancy dress and petty pretence
big city flights of fancy will leave nostalgia numb

alvida arun

the first time arun opened his mouth in class it was about how some people are centre left, centre right or extreme left and extreme right......at the end of it one knew arun was always right. politicially that is. he had this knack to provoke people, smile and watch the calmest of them go stark raving mad.

he made MJ utter the F#*# word when he was justifying Godhra and the carnage. he also had the soft spoken salman khan meets ajay devgan flatmate of ours furiously screaming at him because arun had the audacity to say that 'India Shining' included 92% of Indian households having access to a television.

now my first reaction was that we had a hardcore hindu fanatic in our midst. i realized soon that he was passionate about almost everything politics (he's a super psepologist in the making), sport (he was part of the sports quiz winning team), economics and numbers (a CA at 23), singing (he sucks) and off late fitness (he's seemingly in shape)

he hated sainath until sainath told him very sweetly that he's going to make a super journo, he'd almost blush whenever sainath was mentioned after that. though he kept saying that there were holes in his stories.

rahul and him shared a special relationship....arun loved irritating him... and their interactions almost bordered on violence.....it was good old bonhomie...
his favourite song went from 'hum doon soniyo re' to 'my love dont cost a thing'

us flatmates also had a mating ritual to demonstrate our closeness..it's been captured on camera...good fun that..the politics elective threw up some intense interactions between krishna ananth and giri. arun sifted through hazaar books to prove a point to krishna.

giri was a little boy at heart... a boy who could't heat water with the coffee maker....who could'nt iron a shirt , fold clothes or wash them.
before the CNBC interview arun was running a high temperature, his palms were cold and sweaty. he seemed quiet and subdued. he later explained that this was his idea of getting into a zone. he got the job and the biggest pay packet of the college.

the tam-bram is doing allright.
he will be missed sorely........maybe his singing wont.

goodbye arun giri (CA, PGDJ)