Jeudi, 31 janvier 2007

The wind blew hard; it was vigorous enough to make her feel like she would be gusted away. The circles around her eyes had grown bigger and darker. She tried to clutch on to her overcoat with as much force as she could. Her tiredness had worn her down, and her mind kept whirling with thoughts that kept swirling round and round, like an enclosed box filled with million bits of papier-mâché caught in a whirlwind and no escape route. She ached, but she kept hurrying on.

She was part of everyone on the street. The organized scurry of the modern city had devoured her.

And then, she stopped.

The impetuous stop made the man behind collide onto her, muttering curses as he retrieved his footsteps to hurry back on, in his own maddening world.

She let go of her coat and released her hand. She stopped and stared at the road, at the world, the world she had created for herself. She gasped at the overwhelming feeling she sensed. She found a small staircase at the side of the pavement, giving way to an old renaissance architectural building. She sat on the steps of the staircase.

In silence, she sat in those steps the entire night and a little after sunrise, prevailing on the wind, the cold, her hunger and her tiredness. Calmness engulfed her. She knew it was temporary, and soon, she would find herself lost once more in her hazy frenetic life. She was now looking forward to spending the day in bed.

Sometimes, we just have to stop.

Mardi, 29 janvier 2008

The epitome of my numbness is my hurt, my flow of beat has ceased while the garden of my serenity fades away and drifts in the distance out of my revelation. The instances of yellowish calming hue that danced before my eyes are flailing and blindness overcomes me. I want to take a voyage into my silence and rejoin my solitude. My solitude has resigned, leaving me quenching for a few drops of sanity. The people in their meaningless quests have absorbed me into their meaninglessness. Find me an opening to lash out and run. I want out. I want out. I want me. Truth in its essence used to be my comfort, now it’s the complexity of truth that my conscience questions. In a life of no purposes, I found a minute purpose in a deep hole I dug. While digging, convinced of its purpose, too deep a depth did I attain, plainly making my going back hardened. Its continuation would remorse my deepened scar further. Where’s the hand I never asked for? In your beautiful white robe, you stood by me, never adamant on my will to free. Take hold of my hand. Extend it for me and grab it. I am in helplessness asking for assistance. In silence, I sought for an unblemished purity to decimate the petty nothingness of being in a herd of lost cattle in pursuit of the universal path and the illusions of its accompaniments. Hand me the courage to go back as being the sole conception artist of my course, for my smile and my potency, along with your guidance, will lead me to my own – to complete the voyage I set forth when I chose to tread the ways of this humanoid earth. In my understanding, will I, in my ultimate, find my serenity, harmony, bliss and silence. No question, but a humble request for your help.

Lundi, 21 janvier 2008

To be submerged in the non-existence of this bewitching world. Daggers and triggers to my self obliged pitiful self. Please let me disappear. Plunging in the icy cold water showing my reflection, as the pale blue sky withers in the beyond, with the white clouds shrieking for peace. Into the depth of the water, I vanish, where a new world awaits me. With no existence, only the new creation beholds my welcoming. I can no longer feel my body or my aim. I float in the underbelly of this vast existential reservoir. Breathing an air that suffocates me, I feel strangled, by the people around me. Let me disappear, let me vanish until I myself see myself no longer. In the silence of the realm, let me hear the chants of serenity. The orange and yellow glow that reflects the garden of this beautiful paradise encircles my astral form and I dance in their resplendent beauty. Not even a speck of me remains, for I shall attain the universe of no feeling, no judgment, no attachment, no self-pity, no self-esteem, no complex pettiness of this paradoxical day to day life. No space and no time continuum. In the light of the non reflexive water I shall flow to lose myself again and again in my path from beginning to end, in a universe with no end and no beginning. The environment engulfs me in its violet sacrificial odor as I get tangled to this new habitat, to free myself once again, and get lost one more time. Please let me disappear into myself, for none is pure enough to witness my beauty, not even me. No acknowledging, as I withdraw one by one, the needles that have been inflicted on me, and I grow lighter in the dimension of my weight, and feel no pain, no recession, no boredom. I soar into the parallelism and I vanish, I vanish, and I vanish…until I exist no more.

Mardi, le 15 janvier 2007

Je suis un ruisseau en fuite du monde
Pour m’éparpiller
Qu’on ne me retrouve pas en entier
Ni en moitié, ni cassé, toujours à la coulée
Je vois mes alentours lors de ma traversée
Et je vie mes expériences
Parfois d’autres ruisseaux viennent joindre sur mon chemin
Et on continue ensemble
Jusqu’à notre séparation
Alors de mon arrivée
Le fruit de mon séjour s’étale à l’horizon
La mer aussi vaste que pareil
Comme moi
On s’y perd et on y danse
Avec le soleil couchant

Adieu.... and... Hello!

I was fortunate enough to explore various parts of India in 2007. From Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Rajasthan, Delhi, the Taj Mahal, Dharamsala, McLeod Ganj, Amritsar, Kashmir, Ladakh, Varanasi, the Konkan Coast, the various forts at Pune's doorsteps, Bangalore, Goa and Goa, and Goa, still Goa and again Goa….It's only fitting that I ended the year in one of the most beautiful states of India – Kerala…

Snippets of the voyage -

Reaching at dawn before sunrise and boarding the ferry to Fort Kochi which cost only Rs.3. Walking the streets in the dark in quest of our hotel, turning our heads in amazement at the sight of this architectural delight.

The narrow alleyways of Fort Kochi and Vypeen island, where the woman clad in bright sari at her doorstep, letting her long black wet hair dry in the soothing sun and offering a gentle smile as her child runs around the compound shouting and screaming "Hello, what is your name? Do you have a pen?"

Always like a spiral but never reaching the ground…

Offering liberation to a moth by means of continuous flashlights as they clicked away their digitals.

The serenity, beauty, silent, green, watery backwaters that I wanted to grab with both my hands and make my own.

Waking up to the sounds of birds, sitting on the edge of the Periyar river before sunrise looking at life waking up.

Edging towards bushes as I hear rumbles of a deer charging towards me, and making a run for it in fright.

Spending time with the locals as they washed their clothes and offered us their smiles and jokes in Malayalam, as though we spoke the same language. And at that time, we did.

Watching the 71 year old man, row his boat with a combined pride and humility, offering us Thadi and drinking 3 bottles himself.

At the local bar with the local drunkards – a moment out of this world!

With the family who opened their home to us in a village near Alleypey, drinking our last farewell drink and listening to the tunes of Kishore Kumar, as she embraced her nightingale voice.

India to me is like a range of high peak mountains. The climb up is slow and hard as you grasp its beauty, and once you reach the peak, some of its beauty is incomparable to any in the world, but just when you are in total awe, someone pushes you from behind and you go rolling down the mountain and see its deep ugly side leaving you scratched and torn in places, and then again, you start climbing… One thing is for sure, it's never plain.

2007 was very very good to me. I hope 2008 measures up to it, or is even better.

Hopefully, it will give me the opportunity to explore new worlds.