The Helen of Troy

The Helen of Troy thine beauty beheld
Where men of status and valour fell
She smiled to kill and weeped to kill even more
She arose to the tolling of the bell

What doth she hath, not one could think
With her, she spring and summer brings
And when she goes what can the birds
But of cold autmn and winter sing

She is the one, when men held their breath
When natures love and nicety fell
But love for her brought the fury of thee
And the nastiness of the knell...

A beautiful mind...

He took a step, to unite his will
He walked the way to find the end
And it took all his life just to look for the thing
What he dread and what he had won

The spaces in between tried to swallow him
But he fought out his way he fulfilled his whim
There is no turning back for this warrior
He has taken his first few steps


Beware all ye mighty men!



Thousands of ideas crept into his brain
Like little spots of flame that fuelled his desire
And he would be cursed to spend his life, to fight till the end
But then he will know as the man who knew to fend


And all the people say "there is no one like him"
His mind is the great sun - the rest of them orbit him
There is no stoppng now for this collegiate
He has dropped the first ingredient


Beware all ye mighty men!

Now I'm here and then I'm there...

Every now and then we come across such huge words such as trust, commitment, love and friendship. What do we really mean by all these terms. We very so often use it with so much passion and voracity, yet when the time comes for the test we falter. We do not falter by a small step, but sometimes even give up the very basis of all our beliefs and start with an altogether new value-system.


Lets first talk about commitment. We as a culture and value-based society consider commitment as inborn and constantly try to pass on to the next generation its importance. We take it for granted that any decision is based on the belief that ultimately that is what is the holiest value to guard. Commitment in any relationship, be it family, friends, spouse, lovers or work is so important to us. The 'society' considers it a prmary requirement for the success of any transaction. We preach this with all our hearts and stare in disgust at anyone who differs in opinion. Yet we have faltered when the ultimate test was there right in our faces. Call it culture shocks or call it a blind-faith, but when we saw the Americans we slowly started 'modifying' our value system. Though I do agree that many of the changes were welcome and refreshing, one cannot deny that we faltered. We faltered to the degree that most of the things that were considered unthinkable are common place today. Changing jobs without any sense of gratitude, betraying friends and family for more personal gains, infidelity within acceptance of social norms and breaking of the Holier-than-Thou bonds of marriage have become part of our very own culture. So much so, that the much coveted teacher-student relationship in India is slwly beginning to weaken - the fault lying on both sides.


I am not here to question if the changes we have brought about to our lifestyle are for better or worse. The only point I try to make here is to question about how many times we asked ourselves the validity of the old system and new. Did we ever compare and then strike off what was wrong or redress it? Was it just blind aping or was it a well thought of change in attitude?


Well talking about commitment does make my point enough. It does show how much we compromise for comfort. Comfort not in the form of luxury, but comfort in the form of convenience. We are so used to the automated world of comforts, that our attitude has become such that we need an automatically changing value-system to take us through the path of least resistance.


After all our myopic eyes cannot see that the path of least resistance is the one favoured by destruction as well.

As I embark upon this journey...

Help me God to take a step

And to hold the helm at sea

Help me with the strength to go

And help elevate my soul

Tell my friends Im leaving now

But Ill be there wherever they go

Seek their wishes and tell me so

If you ask them, they'll tell you more

Give me spirit to rise so high

Give me breath to deeper swim

Give me might to slip from heights

Let me fall but within my might

Strength to endure the weather of time

Love to ensure to shield from crime

Stamina to endure what seems so wrong

Courage to see those wrong as right

Help me break inhibitions in me

Help me see what I could do

And as I embark on this journey new

Help me God to think of you.

Glug Glug Glug

If I were to ever write about the woman I love, it might not mean much to anyone. It may be ununderstandable as well. More so to myself. I have even been asked so many times by the protagonist herself why I love her so much. Some questions cannot be answered. Infact some questions dont have any answers. Even if it were asked by someone who you think you are answerable to.

What do we call love? Is it just the funny feeling you get in the stomach at a person's thought? Is it just a way of justifying some carnal feelings or is it a sense of security? Or is it just the fancy that you are being fancied by someone? It is difficult to tell. It is even more difficult to tell it apart when it transitions from one to the other. No one knows whether it was for better or for the worse. I am no wise old man who has seen too much in and of life. Infact I am still a fresher. Inspite of my innocence in worldly matters I can pretty much assure you that none of the people in love actually can tell you for sure that there is only one true reason to proclaim that they do so. Even the romances which start off with the worst possible motives could turn out to be a bond holier than what we all know as the Holy Grail. It does not change a thing. Neither does a chocolatey love affair turned into nightmare. The underlined fact remains that we do not know what we call true love.

Yes I do love her more than my life. But then again what did I say? How can I love someone more than my life if I dont care for my life which is the prerequisite to actually loving her? Do I really need to feel that I love her that much? Does the intensity matter if I in reality really care for her? Am I unnecessarily complicating things by thinking about unwanted things? Yes ofcourse my friend. Its difficult to analyse such a thing. It is like asking how hydrogen and oxygen could mix and quench your thirst.

The best advice anyone could give you now was to shut up and drink the water.

The anatomy of a democracy...

It was a very lazy sunday afternoon and I was staring blankly into my laptop. Like every other day I wondered what I was exactly doing with my life. I could even have rephrased and asked what I was doing in my life, to my life or for my life. They all made sense. Now suddenly, I have a feeling that this is not exclusive to me. It is a question every youthful brain asks its heart. Its never the other way round. The heart which has that priviledge is blessed and need not ask for anything more.

You can call the relation between the heart and the brain - democracy. Here everyone has a say in everyone elses matters. The parties partaking in the debate understand each other well but not too well. That causes a turmoil as to whether the heart and brain really know what they are doing. Its funny but thats how all democracies work. I wonder why that is still the best form of government.

Education, social acceptance, 6-salaries, and family (which includes pets :)) all are the fore-runners in the party called Brain. Arts, dreams, love and friends rule the party called Heart. The Heart party always talks about the feel good factor but loses out on the socially accepted scale of success. The Brain party keeps trying to stress on what is right and wrong. Sometimes they know that they can never exist alone, but sometimes they know that if the other did not exist they could have achieved so much more.

The Brain party still wishes that if they had their way they could have achieved that coveted post in the IT firm that the neighbouring government won, they could have settled sooner and brought so much more respect by deciding to take up the job against the advice of friends who were backed up by the Heart party. The Heart party still broods over the fact that they missed that chance to make a mark in the dramatics class had there been no interference from the Brain-backed school lectures. They still blame the Brain for missing the rock concert which would have lead to so many new contacts which they were necessary to boost their chance in the next band competition.

Well, it is not really only about the lazy sunday afternoon or about thebrain or theheart. Its not really about democracy. Its really about what decision we finally take. Its time the President stands up and controls the governing. Its time we awaken President Soul who lies in the background of every action. He lies in our sub-conscious memory and is the one who really must have the veto-power. Democracy is insufficient for the body. It must be a President-intervened Democracy. A form of governement only the body can understand. The form of democracy that makes us academicians by day and rockstars by night. It makes us managers by day and fathers by night. Sons by day and lovers by night.

It was never really about the lazy sunday afternoon. It was about what governing we must nurture to lead a life of contenment and happiness. The only motivation to awaken your soul and follow your dreams but within limits of humanity and within limits of day and night. This is not the end, it was always going to be only the first step forever.

Drowning

Where am I? Do u see my hand?
This turn was not even in my plan
I try to swim even if I cant
Drowning slowly into nothing

I set out in search of everything
That would explain the place that I'm in
I try to smile even if its grim
Set out for oblivion

Talk to me watch me - I'm falling for it again
See me through, walk with me before I drown again
Do u see me drown? Do u see me fall?
Do u not ever want to hold my hand?

Do u see the end? Do u hear the angels call?
Do u feel the way I feel in this land?

Can you see me bob? Do u even hear my voice?
I feel so deaf amongst this silent noise
I play along like a boy without his toys
Feeling nothing underneath!

I can walk on without this misery
Without a name as silent as can be
But when I feel the pain - let me scream
No one ever knows my name

Talk to me watch me - I'm falling for it again
See me through, walk with me before I drown again
Do u see me drown? Do u see me fall?
Do u not ever want to hold my hand?

Do u see the end? Do u hear the angels call?
Do u feel the way I feel in this land?


- With a lot of inspiration from Chirag with his brilliant chords

Change is permanent... like our dreams

Every step we take in time takes us so far. It takes us away from our past, our memories, our nightmares and ofcourse, our friends. We think the steps are small enough not to care about what we are leaving behind. But all of a sudden we realise that there is a such a huge void created between us and our past that nothing seems the same. We wonder if we just long-jumped over an abyss whose mouth is just getting wider. Now we have come too far to even wonder if there is a way back.

Small insignificant jokes one day make us laugh for hours on end. Memories of small meetings, outings and nights we never slept haunt us like a dream of the previous life. Longing forever, something we left back like a child who forgot his favourite toy when he saw a new one. Only that the toy he lost, was lost forever. Songs we played become anthems forever. Everything we took for granted suddenly become so important and significant.

Somethng about the movie 'The descent' scared the hell out of me. It was a horror story no doubt, of a group of friends going deeper and deeper into a cave and not being able to find a way back. To add to their misery they are haunted by creatures who hunt them for food. Those creatures were once human beings, who adapted to the caves and became cannibals. What scared me though was that it was so synonymous to our own life. Everytime they went further down I felt the suffocation. This I realised could be a subconscious sympathy that I felt for them. Its how we end up leading our lives. A descent into a cave that has no way to go back. A place where man eats man and you cant help but become part of them or perish. I know I have digressed beyond any reader's patience but I still think it was slightly relevent. We realise that things were so holy and innocent when we were just a year younger. You wonder if the world has any good place at all.

I was speaking to 2 of my friends the other day. All three of us now in different continents. We were reminiscing the moments we spent together at the top of tank onthe terrace and played our guitars all night long. Just lying on the back watching the stars and nothing came in between to break the harmony. We all know that we would give our life to spend another night on that terrace. We all know that there are new buildings to be built near that building which would change everything. Its nothing but a terrace with a view. It was nothing but the only free space we got. It is now a place we long for just for one more time.

Everything changes. Buildings change. Life changes. We have walked too far. When we get back we would walk over a huge vacuum. When we get back we would be different in all respects. We would be changed men who have learnt too much for their own peace. Yet we still long for those few moments.

Yet we dream...