Glue was good...

Scandalizing people was quite a favorite pastime of his but sometimes, like now, he let go of himself.

He was sitting atop his favorite rock, overlooking the sea. It was late afternoon and there was still a slightly warm touch to the wind that blew in persistent little circles around him. He wasn’t wearing his usual attire. A plain blue jeans and white shirt was all that covered his body, hardly offering any protection against the natural elements. Not that he cared much about that. He wasn’t exactly vulnerable to such things.

But even Arcade wasn’t immune to everything. There was a part of his steady heart that was vulnerable to a lot of pain. But not today… Today it was beating strongly; beating a seldom-indulged little wish.

She is so stupid… he was smiling as he thought about it, about her. He wasn’t even bothered to think what it meant: him thinking about her like this, so peacefully. He didn’t care if he knew it already. Today was one of those rare days when he didn’t mind letting all guard down. There was no one around for him to put up a show anyway.

Oh, if only she knew…what would she say? I am her closest friend. Friends don’t…

Don’t what? Love? That’s not right…

What, now I’m saying I love her??

Arcade laughed softly; an almost quiet chuckle. So what if I do…I’m happy just…being. Being like this, being someone she loves as a friend. It makes me feel so good, inside…he lifted his face to the sun, squinting for a moment and then closing his eyes…it’s like a secret that no one can take from me…talk about me, my clothes, my language, my attitude, anything, everything you think you know…

Talk what you will…

I know what I have to do…and now, I have this feeling with me…so, it’ll be easier…Arcade knew that when the sun set, he would get off the rock and head back home. He knew that he’d sleep and wake up the next morning as if the evening-date with the deep, deep sea never happened. He’d wake up as the Arcade everyone knew him to be.

But it wasn’t something to be sad of. There was no need or place for that. He wasn’t living two lives. He was living one life, one bit a time. And besides, he’d be back again next week. Same time, same place, same thoughts…

Those weekly hours spent in the company of grey rocks, moss, water and his thoughts were like glue holding the rest of his nomadic existence together.

A slow, lazy smile crossed his upturned face. And glue was good…

RIP 'POPIE'

You know that finally, that’s where you’re headed to. It’s where your road leads to. And along that road is your destiny. That journey, what you make of it, the song you sing as you walk along is what your destiny is. but there’s stuff left to do and I think you’ll try and finish it, you know…you’ll look up and sigh and think ‘just a little while longer, love…I’ll be home soon…just gotta complete this’

Did you really complete your life?? I can’t believe that. I know you wanted to live. I know because I know the people you left behind. I know because I learnt of you as if you were standing and breathing next to me from them, from her. Still can’t believe you’re gone. You were taken. It’s only fair that they at least get the strength to accept it.

‘Gone to God, be good about it’ they say. I say no. when someone dies, kick up a fuss, be bad about it…take your time in getting to accept it, then accepting that you’ll have to move on.

Didn’t get to drink tea with you. Too bad, huh? Heck, I hardly even know you. All I know is that this amazing girl whom I love so much loves you. Never got to rag you guys about it.

pg's 'P O P I E'
RIP

KISSED BY A DREAM

Touched by your life

I was kissed by a dream

I glimpse you know

Your memory moulds my life-stream

 

An upturn of your lips

My world's downright nice

Just to watch you sleep

I'd stay up all night

 

Do you know

The sunshine glow

In my heart

When you're close?

Just close my eyes

And let go, everything goes

Everything comes around to you

 

I'm kissed by a dream

I'm kissed by your dream

I'm awake in all my dreams because of you

 

On the banks of this river

Are two different views

But the water's a life giver

We'll meet very soon

 

I have known the peace of love

And the tumult too

They complete each other

Like the sun and the moon

And in their collected beam

I hold hands with you

I'm kissed by a dream

And so are you…

Every Now and Then...

Things get difficult.

But that is only because you can handle it. I wish to believe that we are not faced with problems we cannot solve.

I'm not there yet, but I believe I'm on the way. I'm a lot stronger now: I have overcome a lot of the fears and insecurities and I no longer carry them with me every waking minute of my life. But I'm not strong enough yet…

 

Physically, I'm pretty messed up and I'm not sure how much of that is psychological.

If you'd ask me, I'd say not much. Not because I'd rather it not be psychological.

I just know. And you can see some of the times, especially if you're a little low on luck. Like my mother is.

But most of the times you can't and people look at you weird.

Teachers think you're lazy; you're making excuses, that you pay too much attention to yourself. Friends think you'd rather not spend time with them, that you're proud and haughty and so will not move, act, or play like them.

It's okay though.

You're the only one living your life and you know what's true and what isn't about it.

I'm fighting this, trust me, I so am.

I'm going to be stronger. I'm going to excel in my field.

Maybe not right away, but I am.

So what if I have to wait for a while, so long as I get there eventually?

So what if I have weaknesses that my counterparts don't?

I have my strengths too.

Appearances will always be deceptive...

HA!

The writer of this…eh…blog, she's not really someone capable of reporting any happening or by-chance existence of anything, or anyone, as just that: by chance.

Now, let ME tell you about me. I am Arcade… (Yeah, believe it or not, she got the name right)

Who am I? We'll find out, now wont we?

Why am I?

You will stand away, miles away, point and whisper, curse and admire, all the time wishing you were me.

My being the way I am is essential for you to feel good about yourself. How else will you justify your being, your every breath? You cannot say aloud that you yearn for me, to be me. So instead you say I disgust you. I offend the very essence of society and decent brotherhood.

Am I really that bad? Am I that bad when you think of me, when you're all alone? Am I that bad when you think no one is looking? Am I really that bad when you think no one can hear your thoughts?

Am I worth your time? Am I really worth your time? Is my body the most outrageous, unjust, law-less, cruel and anti-human thing out there, on the streets, so that it requires so much of your passion and rightful, justified anger?

You disgust me.

The whole lot of you spineless, lowly cowards crawling all over this earth in the wake of what was once called human. You, who with your dirty houses and dirty hearts, scoff and snigger at others' dirt.

Don't get me wrong people; I am not anti-social at all. And ladies, you're truly beautiful, you know. It is not every young man who is honored by the unblinking attention of so many fine women all the time. I kiss your hand, I bow to you.

Wait, then again, that really isn't my style. Ah, what the heck…

Pardon my mood swings. I am, after all, channeling my great wisdom through the hands of a temperamental, juvenile girl.

*sigh* See Ya *Not that I really want to*

 

STRIKE DOWN: RULING FOR RIGHTS

Note: This is my first attempt at writing a feature. Except for the facts and data. everything else is out of my head.

A rustle of paper, a clearing of throat: the room is silent but the nervous restlessness is unsettling. The judge looks at the rest of the court. His heart is lighter already, even before he delivers judgment. A pause, the judgment and then the flood gates open.

Out in the streets, hundreds of masked and unmasked men and women scream, jump and hug each other with joy: Article 377 is scraped, section criminalizing consensual sex between homosexuals struck down.

Their lives are not shrouded by crime anymore. Finally their love is free.

And why should it not be? How can any law, that too in the world’s biggest democracy, be partial and grant the right to a decent life and equality to some and not to others?

Article 377, dealing with ‘unnatural offences’, is a section in the Indian Penal Code (IPC) drafted 150 years ago. While sex involving minors and coercive sex belong in the section of the IPC that criminalizes and punishes it, sex between consenting adults, irrespective of their gender, is not a social ‘vice’ that’s going to bring the country to its knees.

The Delhi High Court judgment said “We hold that sexual orientation is a ground analogous to sex, and that discrimination on sexual orientation is not permitted under Article 15,” We cannot have some laws that grant you fundamental rights to equality, freedom of expression and against discrimination based on sex and others which directly contradict these very basic fundamental rights and so deny them to a section of the people.

How can we, Earthlings who travel through space to walk on the moon, call Homosexuality unnatural and ‘against the order of nature?’ What is there to lose if people find ‘new’ ways to love each other in a world adrift with war and terror?

MASKED UNMASKED

Long hair tied in a neat ponytail, the girl grins at the camera. A mask, much like the one Zorro wore while fighting corrupt soldiers, adorns half her face. But that was a movie and Zorro was the Hero that the audience loved and supported. This girl, like the many standing around her, placards in hand, is not celebrated, supported or admired for her cause.

“My parents don’t know I’m here” she says and it does not surprise you. Then she says “Next year I’ll bring them with me…”

Looking at her you realize that today we live the change in perspective, beliefs and practices. We have come a long way since the Stonewall riots of 1969. Each year, as June draws to a close, LGBT (Lesbian Gay Bi-sexual Transgendered) Pride Events are held world over and you don’t have to look closely to see the actual spirit behind these demonstrations. It’s the spirit of young people who believe that though they are masked today, there will be a time when they’ll be openly supported by family and friends.

Discarded soles

She doesn't understand your looks yet

She can't decipher the meaning of that stare

 Your venom-coated words don't poison her

She doesn't yet know she should care

 

Her mother's somewhere nearby

Doing twice the labor for less equal pay

Little girl extends her palm experimentally

She doesn't yet know what to say

 

When she smiles at you

Her lips curl up all the way

She tears around barefoot

This child, she is happy today

 

As time passes, changing the world

Leaving the non-existent unchanged

She has changed, caught in a web

Her young smile now for ages caged

 

Her mother sees herself in her

And a thousand others like her in her (fallen feathers)

But acceptance is the family trade

Each one goes the way the other

 

What is a human not grown from a child,

A child that's a child for just a while?

She never grew up the day she learnt to beg

The child was vaulted the moment she knew

 

What you saw when you looked at her, looked at others just like her:

Inheritant filth, a different breed, unlike you, impure

The world's self-proclaimed humans acknowledge her not

Surely, well-justified scorn, indifference is the cure

 

Today it rains, pours; the skies release their elixir

Finicky, run for cover, leather soles ruin in water

She remains in the open, her non-existent soul sighs

The little girl peeps from behind clouded, clueless eyes

 

Automatic, unconsciously she smiles

How do you kill a god?

How do you kill a god? Where will you cut first? Who will strike the first blow?

You could strike right away, but you hesitate. Your god is weakened, hurt and almost drained of all life. He is there, lying at your feet, whether he lies or not, you know he might have as well been doing so; kneeling, head bowed, baring his neck to you. Your job is simple and requires no more talent, no more skill than squashing a bug in the palm of your hand. So, what's holding you back?

Fallen, beaten, bruised, but he is still a god. You cannot forget, you cannot look at him and not look at what he was, what he did. Your stomach is in knots and you do not want to be the first that strikes because you cannot ever truly believe that he is beaten, that he is not capable of, with just a slight movement, wipe the entire lot of you off the face of the earth.

How do you kill a god? How can you, a common, normal human? Do you even dare to dream of such a thing happening? Now you do. Now you can. For he is, indeed, fallen. But this is not about the fall or about the conquering of so great and mighty an opponent. This is about whether you will ever stop believing that he can rise again.

And so, as he lies there, bleeding, dying, you are already dead. You will live lives shadowed with the doubt that plagued you from the very instant you realized you were going to cut a god.

And so we each carry a god with us, around us. Like palpable clouds, we are surrounded by this.

Often, we kill our gods, often others kill them. But killing is for humans. And so a dead god will rise and take back his place. We watch people breeze past us as we walk. In our little groups, comfortable to not be a god when talking of others, we put our heads together and whisper about the god that just walked by. And we talk not of the god, for that god is human, but we talk of the god of that human. The deity that his life, his existence, his words, his work is.

And then others will talk about us and they too, talk of our gods.

Do you now know what this god is? This god breaks every now and then and people see you and think they see the exposed you, the humiliated you. They scoff at you, they pity you, they laugh, they cry: at you, for you. They think of your god and think how they have managed to see through but then they forget about their own gods and how these human gods are mortal and immortal: your god will grow back. And when this happens again and again, people start looking at you and at your god and they start realizing that they can't differentiate any more.  

That's when they realize that you will not stay broken, that they can't ever react when you fall the next time. How does it matter, you only rise higher. That's when people start either loving you or hating you.

When they love you, they realize how much more common you are for you have embraced all that is human in humans: the ability to always hope, to always rise again. And so they understand you stand on the same ground as them and together, somehow, the whole lot is raised.

When they hate you, when they feel you have a better god, a luckier one, they would rather kill your god than make their own like yours: immortal, phoenix.

1st only excerpt: Appearances can be deceptive.

The following is an excerpt from something that I once started writing. I was experimenting with clichés and characters. (By the way, it is the only excerpt! Sad…hope to rectify that and write more)

This is the reworked 'edition' and I like it better than the original. (Great wisdom it is, the reworking-writing rule!) But it still does sound very amateurish, which it is. The good thing is that I'm finally sharing parts of what I wrote/write and reading Nikita's, Ayesha's, Sinha Sir's blogs, I'm inspired to actually be consistent and regular in my writings.

Anyway, here goes:

 ..........................................................................................................................

Appearances can be deceptive.

But Arcade was every bit his reputation in his manner of speaking and appearance:

His hair was long and unkempt and fell in a deplorable manner all over his forehead. He was tall, very tall. Naturally, he walked with a slight stoop. The drag in his walk seemed almost rehearsed to match his untidy and seemingly neglected self. His jeans were at least two sizes too baggy and he religiously stuck to shirts of black and blue featuring crap (written or otherwise). Yes, people tended to stare.  

And he enjoyed it.

He enjoyed every bit of being and living, sleeping and waking and walking as Arcade. Nothing amused him more than the reaction he effortlessly got out of the 'higher class' crowd. Mothers would frown and glare at him till he was out of their sight. Girls would 'tut' and sigh, or have their eyes glued to the back of his head until he felt his scalp tickle. Young boys always followed him around for a bit, keeping a respectful distance. Most of them were intimidated by him but awed all the same.

It was not that he looked so outlandish. It was the air around him that seemed to shimmer with his presence. It was obvious by the expensive shoes he wore and the player clipped onto his belt that he wasn't from a poor background. Far from it, he exuded a sense of princely-richness.

Maybe this was what angered the men and women even more: a rich kid purposefully dressed like filth.

And, boy did he revel in it.

.............................................................................................................................

One wish

There are times in a person's life when they wish desperately for a
miracle, some divine intervention that could swoop down on them and
set everything right within a second.
Or they could think one wish: if only just this one thing could be set
right for this one person...if only they could have that happiness,
that essential peace of mind...you'd do anything for that...

trying to be regular

the whole point of blogging and diaries misses me by about 180 degrees....i am just not regular. but i am going to try being so this time.
i know it's not easy to get people interested in what you write. but i am trying to get there, at snail pace.
if anyone is reading this, then please help me by telling me how i can write better (though i hardly have started writing anything substantial yet) and what i can post that will be nice to read, usefull, etc.
it is, after all, just a weird attempt at a public diary...and i am a very private person. which means even if no one is reading this, simply writing as if i am talking to someone makes me feel really good.
i think people should try that. most of the people i know wont be bothered to pen down anything...writing is for nerds they say. or geeks...or poets and great people....utter nonsense if you ask me....it's as simple as just putting down whatever you're thinking. atleast, that's how you start...and before you know it, your realise you have stories to tell, mystieries to unravel, secrets to share...
and there aint no better listener than a diary, whether one in hardbound paper or one on the computer. even my cell phone works for me...i type stuff into the calender, save random stuff in drafts....yeah, writing can get obsessive, and like other addictive things, it can give you the high you're looking for...
but who would'nt want that...no pain, no sickness or ill-health, no physical or mental damage...only positive things to be gained, if you ask me...

opening words or whatever

I had this sudden weird thing in my head ( apart from the other weird things) that if i am able to help even one person, in a good way, then there is till something worth saving.
so this blog is for all kinds of odds and ends, tips, quotes, (maybe even first aid bits), other info, anything...and yeah, also my untiring rantings.
it's a diary in its essential sense, but one i would want others to read.

about tenseiga....you can check it in google for those who dont know. it's from the anime inuyasha. tenseiga is a sword that heals people, brings the recently dead back to life. kind of ironic and very out of character for a sword.