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.

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