Dying

Your voice fades and I feel nothing,

The world seems to wait for me to react,

But all that I have for them now is exhaustion,

So tired of putting up with this act.

Wistful whispers of happy memories surface,

Then drown again in swamps of indifferent haze,

They cry out for me to hold them close,

But I watch them die in a cruel daze.

You are no one to me now, nothing,

A vestigial part, dead, cut off, discarded,

A goddess once, beautiful, mighty, pure,

Now an uncomfortable evil I have warded.

Leave me now, let go of my hand,

Your touch washes off me like sand,

Our love songs sound like dirges now,

Played by ghosts and funeral bands.

Red Eyes

These red eyes I've been given,

They only see the truth,

They look through the bullshit and deception,

They look through the smiles,

They look through the saccharine sorrow,

They just stare through the wiles.

These red eyes I've been given,

As a gift for my naivete,

A gift for my fucked up morals,

They tear through my misconceptions,
They stare past my self-illusions,

These red eyes I've been given,
They tell me what is,
And not what I want,
They show me what lives,
And also those that can't,
These red eyes I have now,
They point me in the direction,
Of transparency and justice,
They tell me now to go to places,
Where lies are out of practice.

These red eyes I've been given,
They look through you now,

These red eyes I've been given,
They no longer wonder how,

These red eyes I've been given,
Even see things you won't allow.

From Noida to Guwahati While Sleeping

This is a whatever number of steps process -

1. Have an exam the day before. Obviously you did not sleep the whole previous day and night.

2. Go shopping at Palika on bikes soon afterwards even though you'd rather be sleeping.

3. Make plans for an all-night computer lan gaming party. And ofcourse go to the party. And play. And not sleep.

4. Have the plane take-off next morning.

5. Get on the metro at 6.30 am after not having a wink of sleep in 2.5 days.

6. Fall asleep leaning on your guitar. No worries because you're getting off at the last stop. Wake up just in time to get down.

7. Get an auto to the airport and fall asleep inside. Not the best plan as auto driver may take advantage and deliberately waste time as he sees you sleeping. As a precaution, tell him to get you there 30 mins before you need to be.

8. Make the driver wake you up when you reach there. Get inside, go through security, have some ridiculously overpriced sandwiches for breakfast and get on the bus which takes you to the plane. Lean on your trusty guitar and fall asleep.

9. Someone will wake you up when you reach the plane. Get down blearily, try and look the best you can to the pretty lady getting up behind you, even though drooling when asleep probably makes everything irrelevant.

10. Get to your seat and sleep. You don't remember the take-off, the cruising or the landing. As far as you're concerned they may well have used a particle transporter thingy from Star Wars (or is it Star Trek, oh yeah, Beam me up, Scotty). You just know the scene outside your window changed from Palam to home.

11. Get your luggage and get on your car. Fall asleep in the car (no, not if you're driving). Many unconscious but hot and uncomfortable minutes later land up at home.

12. Get something to eat, find the nearest bed and fall asleep again.

That makes it 12 steps. Sweet.

The Last Metro - Revisited

Why, why is it that, just when you try and sit down to study, you find other so much better things to do, addictions you didn't know you had. Like news. Why do I need to know what's on the news when Advanced Engineering Mathematics is in my hands? Can't I do it when I'm free? What catastrophy am I expecting that may somehow make studying maths unnecessary? It's a bloody conspiracy, a great elaborate plan ( a parting gift from the Nazis probably). Even the metro just started conveniently just before our exams. Coincidence you say, I don't think so! I just can't figure out the motive. What kind of a sadist takes pleasure from torturing innocent young hopeful students, out to make a mark, taking the shine out of their eyes

Take another example - I hate coffee. But put me in front of VHDL Primer and I start craving it. At 10 pm at night. I have to have it, and not just from any roadside stall, no sir, me and my friends just have to go to Nirula's at Connaught Place. At 10.40 pm. So we take the metro (yes, the one and the same evil Delhi Metro), a day before VHDL practical end semester examinations, and land in CP.

We go to Nirula's, gorge on Ice-cream soda (suddenly cappucino doesn't sound so good, after all it's 10.50 pm) and Nutty Buddy Ice-cream (which was delicious by the way, recommend it), which a friend insisted on eating only after we cleared of all the nuts. It's nutty buddy. It has an exorbitant price only because of the nuts. I mean what's the point? Might as well eat plain vanilla. Anyways, we spent almost all our money. Meh what do we care? We've got the Metro Smart Card. Think Smart, Travel Smart. Except the Metro's smart timings have the last train for Noida leaving at 10.55 from Rajiv Chowk. Not so smart.

We walk in to the metro station at 11.15 politely asking Enquiry when the next train to Noida comes in. Shock. Horror. Stranded. No bus. No metro. We were smartly too late. And with less than Rs.100 between the three of us. One of us asks an auto-wallah how much to go to Noida. Answer - Rs. 250. We all laugh in his face, hoping he'll somehow be enraged enough to take us there for free, or at least for less than Rs. 100. Didn't work out all that well. We got out of there before either side became too abusive.

Empty streets. No place to go, and no way to go back home, we start walking in general direction east (Noida is east of Delhi, or atleast I think it is), ready to call everywhere hoping some friend would be good enough to take us in for the night. And then we see a Kwality Walls ice cream guy and ask him if he knew some cheap way to go back to Noida at midnight. Long shot but it paid off. He told us to wait in front of Barakhamba station, lots and lots of cabs going to Noida for as little as Rs. 10 per person, call centre duty. Would have bought a whole months supply of ice cream from him then and there we were so happy, if we had the money that is. So long live call centres it was as far as we were concerned.

Got a cab as soon as we hit Barakhamba Road, didn't even have to go as far as the metro station. Got in, only the three of us in an Indica, with a fat-ish and bald driver, with a considerable moustache - about all I remember. He asked for Rs. 20 per head and even then, cheapstakes that we were, we got it down to Rs.15. And so he got going, and get going he did spectacularly. There were 15 near misses in the next 15 minutes, as I was reduced to quietly hoping that the guy doesn't hit something today, he can happily go back to crashing as soon as he drops us off. So atlast he screeches to a stop at a red light somewhere near Pragati Maidan, and one of my friends passes around his mobile, in which it's written, "The guy is drunk". That was about all that we needed to make it perfect. So we start humming the songs in the radio at full volume, afraid that he may fall asleep, as he continued playing with his and everyone's life for the next 30 minutes.

And then the gates to Noida. The Buddha statue looked like a very dear and long lost friend, the stupid hoardings of the MP almost making us grateful enough to then and there sign up for the BSP. We get off as soon as we reach familiar grounds. We were Kings now, there's no worry anymore, we were in Noida. Our place, our backyard.

But there was still some distance to our homes. So we took another cab. This one had a shifty guy driving it, which prompted one of my friends to tell the one who hailed the cab that he was going to kill him, if the driver turned out to be a mass murdering psycho. No such luck. We were back, and I gave my exams the next day.

But that is a horror story for another day.