तुम - मैं

Written by my wife, Alpa.
Starring my son, Raine.

On our first anniversary

An exultation in counterpoint

A single idea can at best be worked into a poem. After all, only in poetry does form and expression take precedence over substance. But prose, or even a song, must ring honest to all the vagaries of life. Oh, the possibilities! The effervescence! Every system tending towards maximizing entropy. The beauty in the chaos! In the dawning that there is nothing that must be done. That man is and always was entirely free. And oh, the new responsibility! To judge and to be judged - but only from within. Unlike the time in school when they put up grade-lists for hostel allocation...

An 'A' for the all-rounders, good at both studies and sports. A 'B' for those good at academics alone. A 'C' for the sport freaks and a 'D' for the pathetic. The idea being to distribute students equally as per their grade, such that no hostel had an advantage over the other. A fair and trusted strategy, so to say. But what of my dear dylanesque friend who was ceremonially labeled an 'A', but later publicly humiliated to a 'D'. He who still vacillates between rebelling and working towards regaining his lost glory? Every closed system closely guards against its irrelevance. Of one's freedom to become. Like the dog who believed she was so attached to her bone that she completely forsook all her meals. Or like the martyr to whom his suffering became an identity. But yet, this is not a poem.

One evaluates one's entire existence on how one feels at a given moment. Therein lies the whole point. The past is always insignificant. All it takes is one fresh unsoiled moment to forgive and be forgiven. Only one moment to attain harmony and retain it. Just like music!

Prelude (from Lute Suite in E minor, BVW 996)

To the Time spent in preparing for Trinity College.

(grade 8 - piece 1 of 3)

Sea, Beer and Song

(aka The Thailand Blues)

Sometimes, i think i'm smoking too much
i'm breathing too little yeah
woah, i need to get down (he needs to get down)
down to the ground (he needs to get down)
i need some sea to get me by
i need some sea to get me high
oh just some more sea to get me by.

Sometimes, i think i'm thinking too much
i'm doing too little yeah
woah, i need to get out (he needs to get out)
lark myself about (he needs to get out)
i need some beer to get me by
i need some beer to get me high
oh just some more beer to get me by.

Sometimes, i think i'm getting too low
got nothin to see, nothin to do, nowhere to go
all i've done is comply (all he's done is comply)
now i need to get high (he needs to get high)
woah, i need a song to get me by
i need a song to get me high
oh just a plain old ditty tune to get me by.

The Awakening

Last night I had a wondrous dream! I saw a Utopia ruled by a respected and capable king. The leader did not get mired in daily planning or execution. He only ascertained that he allocated the right responsibility to every individual. All his planning was done by his circle of judges, who with their clarity in thought and keen sense of right and wrong laid out the moral fabric for the kingdom. These judges in turn had their teams of investigators and researchers who would unrelentingly accumulate and analyze data without fatigue or distraction from worldly charms. The creative artists penned and composed to express their deepest heartfelt emotion. The performers played out their acts to perfection for achievement and for admiration. The entrepreneurs set up enterprises seeking new thrills and adventures. The dedicated loyalists worked for select institutions and establishments, always reliable and dependable towards their cause. The helpers worked charitably, selflessly assisting and nurturing the underprivileged, while the peaceful laid-back mediators, well, they clapped merrily, singing, laughing, dancing and being a friend to one and all.

I woke up smiling, seeing this design repeated everywhere and at every scale. And I said to myself, 'What a wonderful world!'

(Take the free enneagram test to know your principal and secondary motivational types.)

The childhood of Franz Kafka

Franz^[1] woke up one morning to learn that he would soon forfeit the love and attention of his family to study at a boarding school. There were many reasons for this decision, the principal being that the school's location had a climate that would benefit his sickly constitution. The months to follow went in a rush of purchase - uniforms, shoes, bedding and provisions - the hostel checklist followed as per guidelines. All through this while, Franz was acutely aware of the money and effort being spent on him and how lucky and special he was to be selected into such a revered institution. He had resolved right then to live worthy to every expectation of him.

However, as often is the case, impossible ideals do more harm than good. He was quick to realize that he was of an average intelligence and that his frail physique prevented him from distinguishing himself in game or sport activities. Further, most of the students at the elite school came from affluent households and would stand out by means of flashy stationery, new attire or fashionable accoutrements whereas Franz maintained that his family had no wherewithal for luxury^[2]. The only saving grace he recognized was his ability to unflaggingly apply himself, if for no other incentive than to unflaggingly apply himself. And it was this sometimes mulish obstinacy that helped him live up to the ideals he set.

One incident worth remembering is as follows. Every boarding establishment has a certain hallowed installation patronized by every student (or as in this case, by almost every student). This facility is the institute cafeteria or canteen. Now, Franz regarded the financial incumbrance on his father so seriously that he did not frequent the canteen at all, throughout the six years in boarding school! He recounted this almost twenty years later, when his father jokingly told him, 'You were so stupid! You didn't even know where the school canteen was.' 'But I knew Daddy. I was avoiding it only to save your money.'

Another incident further illuminates his character. During the course of shifting lodgings, Kafka's quilt & bedding had been inadvertently transferred to a hostel adjacent to his. This was during the hot summer months when one could easily sleep without a bedsheet, let alone a quilt. Every once in a while, he would request the hostel porters to fetch his bedding from the adjacent hostel, but it still being summer, his plaints were not considered urgent. In a few months he gave up and stopped reminding the porters altogether. Then the cold winter arrived, and in a few weeks he'd fallen very sick with fever. It was only when the other boys in his dormitory intervened and made the house master aware of his predicament that the misplaced quilt was called for. But, by then, he had endured almost an entire month of wintry nights using only a thin sheet for cover.

The above excerpt is taken from 'Infant Psychology - Nurturing the martyr complex' ^[3]. Later, the same chapter describes 'Taking charge and responsibility' as the only established method to mitigate the extent of conditioning.

Disclaimer: The excerpt should not be read as a case study on the effects of a boarding school education^[4]. Every individual reacts to circumstances differently and builds his or her own survival personality.

¹ ^ Though not the writer Franz Hermann Kafka.
² ^ A misconception, as records indicate that his family enjoyed a financial status comparable to that of the other students at the institution. Perhaps his father wished to instill in him a value for money.
³ ^ An online description of the complex can be read here.
⁴ ^ Read here for the relative demerits to a boarding school education.

bipolar

you speak of a heavy lonesome sorrow

yet you rejoice while it consumes you

slowly, taking turns on a spit,

incinerating all quiet of contentment

to cry out loud is to feel alive!

just like your great happiness -

enchanting, swelling, lighting up,

thundering, then pouring down like rain

to lose your self is to feel alive!

you speak of your absolute humility

'no my friend, i got no ego at all'

to lose your self in a respectable manner

do you see how everything fits?

and then, from humility to excessive indulgence

(for selflessness alone can get tedious)

drugs, booze, the arts and intellectual pursuits

to lose your self is to feel alive

to hold on is sure death.

maybe some people can find a balance

maybe this balance is called growing up.

Song To Savita

hey hey miss savita I wrote you a song
when the crowds they were aplenty and the lines they were long
you'd smile through your window, quicker than the rest
no trouble for small change, honey you were the best.

hey hey miss savita what keeps you going so cool
is there someone who loves you, calls you his jewel
do you see him in every man who comes up your way
or are you hoping for a traveller to walk up to you today

hey hey miss savita will I be seeing you again
I've just quit my job, won't be taking the train
maybe we'd go out for tea and talk of everyday routines,
the people you've seen and of ticketing machines.

your restlessness

tell me something, you say.
(i look up at the fan) tell me
anything nice. (the bed is
comfortable. i need to get the washing
machine repaired.) your breasts
are like two puppy dogs -
some might call them perky, bold,
posey, raunchy, sultry or even
dreamy. but i only want to
rub their little noses with mine.

mmmm, now tell me of my feet.
your feet become a tribal queen (no
pearly soft, wintry white princess
from no fairy tale), worthy of
covering mountains, rivers and
deserts on a palanquin. if i were
the gym going type, i'd carry you too.

hah! and how about my elbow?
your elbow is like the celebrated
strait through which all ships must pass.
Jerusalem in the palm of your hand to
Africa ever unexplored. London bridge lies
all furled up on your bed, see these
pretty pink sailboats cross...


i ask if i snored.
you turn and with
your morning voice, say,
maybe.

Delicate is

not just powdery butterfly wings, or
catching floating soap bubbles, or
boiling tea leaves till the tannin is just right, or even
playing every artificial harmonic. but also
adjusting a Philips gramophone needle,
holding a thinly wine-glass (right before you've broken it),
finding fluttering eyelashes with your cheek, while
patiently mending a broken heart.

Blue

There was this quiet boy in office, and there was this quiet girl in office, and they bumped into each other once in a while, exchanging hellos, goodmornings and smiles. He never really spoke, and she never really spoke, so nothing was said between them for a long long while.

Then, one afternoon, it so happened that the quiet girl stood behind the quiet boy in the office lunch-line. As always she smiled and as always he smiled back. But this time, she told him that she felt everyone was a colour and that she was the colour blue. The quiet boy nodded, for it sounded deep and profound and he couldn't think of anything to say.

But since that afternoon, the boy was entranced - he would think of her every time he saw anything blue. His old blue blanket would remind him of her hair. Each cloudy curve in the sky would turn into a contour of her face. His soft faded jeans would get him imagining her skin. Even the Internet Explorer icon would get him thinking of her blinking her eyes.

He had never noticed so much blue. Blue. Blue. Blue. He couldn't work. He couldn't sleep. Always coming up when he thought he was through, a single colour turning his life upside down.

Then, one morning, it stopped. Miraculously and of its own accord. And it so happened, that the quiet girl stood behind that quiet boy in the office lunch-line that day. And as always, she smiled (though he got all conscious and averted his vision). She told him she no longer thought she was the colour blue. She said she now felt green.

another ode to soleil

Sunset streams in through my window
  sweet
    thickly
      like honey
        lapping up
          against my walls
            soaking into
              my books
                and my music.

I gleam, I radiate, I beam -
I too am a Sun!

down with flu

Yesterday
i'd resolved to finish the poem: your mouth
a swollen ripe pomegranate, the recoil
of your nipples on my tongue, the thick
grassy smell that fogs over your skin. each line
a metaphorically chosen rhyme
to tell you i burn, even
when i am not with you.

Today
i am teary, (and not
from falling in your eyes) - i have
a fever, and all i want is to
set my muzzle on your thighs like
a lovelorn dog. you noticed i could write?
i have gained a yearning that is stronger.

This Above All

Look thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue,
Nor any unproportion'd thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar.
Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,
Grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel;
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment
Of each new-hatch'd, unfledg’d comrade. Beware
Of entrance to a quarrel but, being in,
Bear't that th' opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice;
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgement.
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy,
But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy;
For the apparel oft proclaims the man;
And they in France of the best rank and station
Are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower, nor a lender be;
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

- William Shakespeare (extracted from Hamlet)