Farewell

This is what I had quoted from Illusions (Richard Bach) in the farewell invitation I had prepared for the outgoing batch of 2005:


          Don’t be
         dismayed at good-byes.
   A farewell is necessary before
you can meet
       again.

                And meeting
              again, after moments or
                  lifetimes, is certain for
                  those who are
                friends.

It was easy to write at that time, it was difficult to face it “now” – the final nail in the coffin; stamping you officially out of this place which has been much more than just home for the four best years of your life. My odyssey at ISM had to come to an end – every good thing ends sooner or later – I would also be wrong in saying that I wasn’t prepared for it; yet, any amount of preparation always seems less when you actually confront it. The day comes, leaving you flabbergasted, shaking you from inside – wake up; you are about to be thrown into the mayhem outside, enough of the cocoon of hostel life – look how bitter and dirty the world outside can be.

The ceremony was great. Clad in my only black cotton trousers and a white shirt borrowed from a junior, festooned with a garland, drinking early and then dancing with the band they had arranged for, I thoroughly enjoyed the “informal” ragging and then the introductory sessions at Opal. I was overjoyed with the sudden downpour starting around midnight, exactly the time at which I was out for party-hopping – attending the two other farewell parties arranged in different hostels on the same day – giving myself a good excuse to drench when Chandra and Kundan accompanying me weren’t much interested in the idea. After this wonderful drenching-in-the-midnight-when-drunk experience, drank some more, danced some more, got everything above waist torn to tatters, ate a bit around 4:30 a.m. and then called off my day with a 5:30 a.m. RD session.

Its afternoon now. My muddy trousers are hanging in my room besides the torn shirt. The soaked up leather shoes haven’t dried yet. The socks are strewn on the floor. Everything says that yesterday night has ended. The mind knows its not going to come back. The adventure is up, the only reminiscences being the few pictures stored on my system. Yet a part of my heart wants to stay here “forever”.

PJs

After numerous senti blogs, getting back to my "natural" stuff. Inspired by the daily one hour postprandial PJ session at RD each night; taking liberty to assume myself to be one amongst the greatest PJ'ers;, here is what I can "manufacture" to be written immediately :

What is this?
a question mark...

What sucks the most?
tongue...

To "fall" in love (From an old movie): Chalo dildaar chalo, chaand ke paar chalo...
and I say moon's acceleration due to gravity is one-sixth of earth... you would "fall" with lesser velocity and it's better on earth...

You are sitting in a room with a pretty girl with no one in the house...
and you say : Kyaa aap mere saath coffee peene chalengi?

You tell a married girl that she is looking beautiful...
and you are making her April Fool...

It says : Shoot for the moon and you will atleast land up among the stars!
and I say : Why should I be disposed, I am not a nuclear waste!

A hotel room has glass doors... a couple is staying up in the night...
and you watch through the keyhole!

A dwarf wants to suicide...
and he jumps from the sidewalk on to the road...

You tell me to show a woman who can drive well...
and I show you a crooked No Parking board...

Drenching in the rain

Rain rain where thou art
Bless the earth before it shatters apart

This unrepentant sun and this sultry sky
Gnawing my heart wherever I lie

My dry lips and my thirsty mind
And pains and agonies of all kind

My hands which could never learn to pray
And my heart which has only one thing to say

That its eternal hope sees that elusive light
That one speck among the existing plight

Move on where your dreams take you
Who says they don’t come true?

Treading forward on this thorny path
Whatever be the fury or the wrath

For, there awaits my dream, my soul
O rain! Drench me and make me ‘whole’.

Potpourri

Long time no blogging. Coming back after two months with a pessimistic note. What has been going on in my mind in the past few weeks is hinted by the following informations glanced upon here and there :

Two people in a small Himalayan village exhumed a dead body and then consumed it after cutting its head. They were "tantriks" who believed that consumption of a dead body would give them supernatural powers.

A woman delivered a baby in a lavatory bowl while answering to nature's call. The head of the baby was stuck in the hole of the bowl and by the time some fire brigade personnel broke the bowl and rushed the baby to the hospital, it was dead.

Around 50 people - whose charred bodies with a terrible stench were kept on ice slabs for claims - were engulfed in a fire which ran through three air-conditioned pandals of an exhibition in a city named Meerut.

In parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan, people have a callous carnival in which they cheer on attack dogs mauling at a defenselessly tethered bear in an arena for the bear baiting bloodsport. In parts of India, little bear cubs are blinded and neutered and then dragooned into dancing with thick ropes driven into their sensitive muzzles pierced with hot iron rods and other merciless multiple mutilations.

And finally, the protagonist Winston Smith of my present novel 1984 (George Orwell) is being tortured by electric shocks and blood thirsty rodents attacking on his face in the Ministry of Love of Oceania.

Bon Jovi's "Is it you and me or just this world we live in?" comes to my mind almost instantly. And then follows "Gonna take a miracle to save us this time"! Amidst all this potpourri of "strange" thoughts, I could reach to just one conclusion - the world is a dirty place and all our present actions are knowingly or unknowingly directed towards finding clean spots here itself, isn't it?