I am being rowed through Paradise on a river of Hell:
Exquisite ghost, it is night.
The paddle is a heart; it breaks the porcelain waves ...

I'm everything you lost. You won't forgive me.
My memory keeps getting in the way of your history.
There is nothing to forgive. You won't forgive me.
I hid my pain even from myself; I revealed my pain only to myself.
There is everything to forgive. You won't forgive me.
If only somehow you could have been mine,
what would not been possible in the world?

- AGHA SHAHID ALI
The Country Without a Post Office.

What came off as my mask was handpainted on sheets of paper, and hardbound into a thick brown diary only to be slipped away to a corner of your cupboard, and you still haven't mustered up enough courage to read scraps of my self-pity, have you?

I think we pretended to live in a dead city, like the one I'm living in right now, where the postal service didn't exist or letters sent were never received. Dead letters. Dissolved letters. Words spread out in black and blue ink. I remember singing mundane songs and speaking those words out loud to you; yet, you never cared to sift through the pages of the brown diary. You were a coward, still are perhaps, to some extent. You had no courage to see what you did to my songs and my words. Never have I sung or read poetry aloud to anyone since then. You live inside me like a void, a scar memory. And though I've gifted a part of me to you in pages, in whispers, in words and silence, I feel that part in me living and, dying sometimes.

I drifted away from that world. Thankfully so. The shift of worlds was planned and prepared. My last plan that worked. We don't share an umbilical chord-ish relationship anymore. Your world is but a chimera. Only a bubble illusion. Believe you me, I never want to run back to your world that waned at the weight of our dreams. You appear way better as fiction, as a part of the torn pages of a happilyeverafter fairytale. You look better as the crumbled tin soldier wrapped in a blanket of lies, someone who never made it to my world.

What matters in the end is that I have forgiven you and me for all the mistakes we made. I have edited my story and moved forward.

Note: I read the aforementioned quotation ages later and it triggered this train of thought.

you speak not in words,

you use the language of the blind;

you paint, you touch

you whisper with your fingertips.

and sometimes, you walk 

in and out of our deadened moments,

half-awake, and half in a dreamystupour.

drenched in moribund dreams

that shatter and break on paper.

and burn in the fragrance of candlelight.

you live and die

a million times in my poetry,

like a mythical warrior.

and i tell stories of you

that might just be lies.

you speak not in words,

you use the language of the blind,

and i have saved your poemscars

on my body.

The JUGGAD Act

For a long time now, I've been hearing about how in my future field of work "sources" matter more than knowledge itself. You become a part of a brand name. You become a product. And probably, it's not only law that I'm talking about. Almost everything is, in fact, based more on marketing and propaganda. Everything today depends on how market yourself. It depends not on your achievements anymore; what matters how many layers of well-fabricated lies you have on you, or how you can brag about your supposed accomplishments or how you can pretend to be something that you're not. And no, it's not unethical; in fact, if you look closely, you'll see that the ones who haven't been able to sell themselves this way, haven't reached anywhere. It's cut-throat competition out there, and noone, believe you me, noone cares about how morally bankrupt you become in the process of becoming successful.

I am sorry, I digress when I'm too excited or emotionally unsound.

What I was talking about is "sources" matter more than knowledge or character. If you don't have a source or a "Juggad" in the field, you are incapable of finding yourself at the pinnacle of success. You might just be reduced to a lesser mortal if you don't have a godfather in your field of work. Though I revel in the fact that my Father is in the Merchant Navy, I sometimes wish he was a lawyer or was somehow legally inclined. Life would have been a tad easier had he been a lawyer.

Anyway, I was reading Paulo Coelho's The Zahir the other day and it is funny how I found an entire chapter related to what I'm thinking now. What follows now is an excerpt from The Zahir - Coelho explains quite subtly the importance of "juggad" or what he calls rather politely "Favour Bank" :
( I wish I could footnote. Sadly, blogger does not provide for footnotes.)

'What is this Favour Bank?'

'You know. Everyone knows.'

Possibly, but I still haven't quite grasped what you're saying.'

'It was an American writer who first mentioned it. It's the most powerful bank in the worl, and you'll find it in every sphere of life.'

'Yes, but I come from a country without a literary tradition. What favours could I do for anyone?'

'That doesn't matter in the least. Let me give you an example: I know you're an up-and-coming writer and that, one day, you'll be very influential. I know this because, like you, I too was once ambitous, independent, honest. I no longer have the energy I once had, but I want to help you because I acn't or don't want to grind to halt just yet. I'm not dreaming about retirement, I'm still dreaming about the fascinating struggle that is life, power and glory.
' I start making deposits in your account - not cash deposits, you understand, but contacts. I introduce you to such and a person, I arrange certain deals, as long as they're legal. You know that you owe me something, but I never ask you for anything.'

'And then one day...'

'Exactly. One day, I'll ask you for a favour and you could of course, say "No", but you're conscious of being in my debt. You do what I ask, I continue to help you, and other people see that you're decent, loyal sort of person and so they too make deposits in your account - always in the form of contacts, because this worls is made up of contacts and nothing else. They too will one day ask you for a favour, and you will respect and help the people who have helped you, and in time, you'll have spread your net worldwide, you'll know everyone you need to know and your influence will keep on growing.'

'I could refuse to do what you ask me to do.'

'You could. The Favour Bank is a risky investment, just like any other bank. You refuse to grant me the favour I asked you, in the belief that I helped you because you deserved to be helped, because you're the best and everyone should automatically recognise your talent. Fine, I say thank you very much and ask someone else into whose account I've also made various deposits; but from then on, everyone knows, without me having to say a word, that you are not to be trusted.
'You'll grow only half as much as you could have grown, and certainly not as much as you would have liked to. At a certain point, your life will begin to decline, you got halfway, but not all the way, you're half-happy and half-sad, neither frustrated nor fulfilled. You're neither cold nor hot, you're lukewarm, and as an evangelist in some holy book says: "Lukewarm things are not pleasing to the palate."'

Got Tagged After Ages!

Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you.
(Actually this is a Facebook tag by Beadysea but I cannot access Facebook because of the Wi-fi here, so completing this on the blog.)

01. I love chocolates, and somehow I cannot imagine doing without them. :)
02. I cannot get through the day without writing. It could be either on the blogs or in the diary but I've got to write. Writing and expressing in words keeps me sane. I feel rather disoriented if I don't.
03. Music keeps me going. Ask anyone and they'd say that I cannot do without my headphones. I'm always listening to music. I probably get my headphones off only when I'm bathing or when I'm attending lectures. Headphonic idiot ta toh emni emni bolena lokera. :P
04. I love walking. Long long walks. Maybe with a chocolate in hand. Walking alone helps me calm the chaos inside. However, if I had to walk with someone, it would always be either A or my best buddies, Sudu or Sweety. :)
05. I do a hell lot of random photography. On the streets, at home, in the hostel, in college - almost everywhere. And I tend to add words to the photographs to create poesy. Sometimes these very photographs become my muse.
06. I read a lot. If I cannot find anything relevant to read, I read up the Dictionary.
07. I have a fetish for weirdness. I'm pretty weird and prefer to be friends with weird people.
08. It takes me quite a long time to open up to people. I come across as an extrovert but I can be myself to very very few people. And when I'm close to people, I bare my heart to them so they kind of have all the opportunity to hurt me if they'd like. However, I'm not a weak person so I don't wear my heart on my sleeve.
09. I'm quite a foodie. LOVE and LIVE to eat.
10. I'm quite a romantic person, I've been told.
11. Ridiculous as it may sound, I love getting lost. I think the vagabond in me revels everytime I get lost on the roads or something. Sometimes, I just keep walking onto unknown, unseen roads in the hope of finding myself lost.
12. I'm a staunch radical feminist. :D
13. I hate people encroaching my private space. There are very few people who can toe the line and tread into "my world".
14. I can't stand insecure and weak men. I'm talking about those "mamma's boys" who cannot do a thing themselves and depend on their mums/girlfriends/sisters/wives for everything. It's weird how their macho-image comes to pieces when they have a crisis they can't handle, and it's weirder how they run to mums/girlfriends/sisters/wives then. Yes, mard ko bhi dard hota hai but please, don't make your dard so immensely melodramatic.
15. I'm a sentimental person, yes.
16. I can be aggressive and shrewd and hypocritical when needed. And yes, it is indeed needed at times, to survive in this BIG bad world.
18. I like to keep things to myself most of the times. Even if I get angry/hurt by someone's (even close people) behaviour I tend to keep it within. I don't call for emotional help until I explode.
19. I love the rains. Maybe it is something to do with being born in September, but I just love love love the rains. The rains do something to me, I suppose. I get into too much emo poesy during the rains. I think I get a creative high during the monsoons.
20. I either talk too much or too little.
21. I get myself into a whole lot of trouble. :P
22. I have a weird imagination. If there is missing information about something, I tend to make up stories in my mind about it.
23. I tend to be rather detached at times which is why sometimes I'm thought to be insensitive.
24. I value my freedom. I hate explaining myself unnecessarily to unnecessary people, and I hate being dictated. You get the best of me when you let me be.
25. I'm almost twenty years old and still haven't understood what "love" means. The term is a little overrated yes, and we tend to use to for almost everything. Yet, we never really comprehend what love is. Funny, eh?

Phew! It's done. :D