Why I am a Vegetarian...

An ordinary day on the streets
Went by as an ordinary day would
It began with a morning sun
And closed with evening, as it should,
The cars honked without humour
At the stubborn red light,
Their headlights flashing so furiously
You wouldn't know it was night!

And while the traffic-man napped
As the commuters flocked in,
I waited patiently by the signal
And witnessed a cardinal sin...
The broiler by the road
Had intentions rather foul
Of re-enacting the Revolution
With some unsuspecting fowl!

These feathered 'aristocrats'
Caged and bound by their feet
Struggled fruitlessly against the Fates
That would have them served as Sunday meat,
Meanwhile, the butcher's guillotine
Gleamed with giddy guileless glee
Awaiting one head after another
Of chickens too frightened to flee.

It was a most unceremonious end
To a quiet clucking life,
As their heads plopped into a bucket
With every slice of the knife!
An adrenaline-induced squawk
With panicked flapping of wings,
Being what was last heard or seen of them
As they wrapped up their innings.

But the most disturbing of all
Was what possessed them in death,
Their beheaded bodies twitching terribly
While I watched with bated breath,
As they were skinned with skill
To reveal the viscera and flesh,
Without the slightest of chances
Of starting over afresh...

Although my stomach rebelled strongly,
Flipping and turning in protest,
My eyes remained fixed
To this hypnotic blood-fest...
It was quite the relief, thus
When the signal changed,
And I drove past this carnage
To adopt a diet less deranged!

Stray Strokes and Clicks

A very close friend of mine recently made me play what is called "The Cube Game". I had to imagine a desert, a cube, flowers and a storm, all within a setting related to me (I think :P). Apparently there's some kind of a psychological interpretation involved regarding how I imagine these things. What I saw seemed like a good idea for a sketch. This is what I came up with:

Cubed

I do plan on colouring it, but it's taking a painstaking amount of time on Photoshop and I lack patience so I posted the ink version anyway. :P (I have a scanner now, yay!)

Oh and this beautiful creature (and it's appretite) won me a prize at a college event today:

A Trophic Encounter

I seem to always be winning things in college thanks to insects. :P

Anyhow, I feel like being useful. So hopefully, there will be more artistic endeavours in the near future!

Fading Dust

Winter is already receding. The morning greets us flirtatiously with just a hint of a chill. Yet, as the day unravels, the sun roasts us in sweat. There is a particular charm held by winter mornings... when you awaken with utmost reluctance, preferring a warm blanket to anything outside of it, when the water and hygienic habits wake you up even if your alarm clock doesn't, when you feel the season with all of your senses and let it sweep you away!

But alas! The last couple of days have given me reason enough to believe that I am bidding farewell to another winter. It's another year that has gone by — many leaves have fallen to Time and many more are awaiting entrapment.

And so the world completes another cycle, just as it always does. And just as always, people seldom change. Their bare essence remains unmarred although their countenance shows the signs and scars of experience. It makes me wonder, sometimes, if the trouble of feeling time flow through the body is even worth it. But then I remember moments when I was oblivious to Time, instances when Time was my slave instead of the other way around and feel inspired to breathe again! ‘Inspiration’ — what a curious word indeed!

Traversing life is more like a drive through the mountains. There are bends, rocky paths, sharp turns, and always, danger of the steepest descent. The view, however, cinches the deal, both at the top and more importantly, on the way...

Memory

And with this rhyme will I but chime
A sweeter memory…
Of painted hills and bright green tills
And sun-struck ivory,
And with this word I do put forth
The pleasures of my sight
’Cross curving courses carved in crumbs
Of ancient earthy might;

And with each drop on every stop
My ink recounts for me,
The clouds that danced, the winds that pranced
On hilltops, proud and free…
And with each treetop crowned in rust
My girlish spirit rose
Past precious peaks perched cheek-by-jowl
Nestled in calm repose;

And as I drove along this grove
The mountains called to me —
A call so wild, my inner child
Burst forth with willing glee!
And with this rush, my soul did gush
And giggle furtively,
Choosing childish charms over chains
Imposed most drearily.

In My Sleep...

As I tried, as I tried, in my sleep
As I cried
I blew a whispered withered word
Into the air, for it to glide
And I sighed, as I died, in my dreams
As I cried
Breathing troubled winter winds
Into my lungs, for them to chide
As they gushed, and they rushed, into my body
And I hushed
Them into silence, for they would
Awaken skin already flushed
And I bled, as I fled, in my sleep
Draped with dread
Along the path traced out by moonlight
That only forest dwellers tread
And I flew, as I blew out my candle
And withdrew
Into shadows shunned by starlight
Burned by a bitter baleful brew
And I sighed, as I died, in my dreams
As I cried
While my soul grazed past all sorrow
And was freed from need at last!

On Silence Within Silence

These days I often find my words stopping... They stop before I start to speak, they stop before I start to write and they stop before I start to feel. I'd always let myself feel through words. I'd admire the beauty of scarlet sunsets or the charm of nebulous notes through words. I'd think them in my mind and feel them in my heart. And yet, these days I feel bits of myself slipping away with no words to describe this silent despair, this dreary desolate death.

I don't have the urge to write on most days. It's funny because there used to be days when I'd be driven to live out each day just so that I could let the words flow freely. Life has not been particularly sad, it's been quite good, I daresay, in a few areas... Still, it's as though I'm no longer possessed by the spirit which drove me. I do what I have to do everyday, but "my soul slides away".

I suppose it is a kind of numbness: one that I've allowed to become a habit through sheer force of routine. I know I should stop myself before it gets out of hand. But where is the inspiration when my eyes have been deadened to the sights of life?

Caught in the same pattern repeating year after year, I'm struck by how much I've let myself be bound... Me, a free spirit who'd rather die than live with clipped wings! Spring moves much slower through my footsteps and it seems that Winter has set in. Again, that's funny, for I'd always loved Winter and the cold that it brings.

On Pippi Longstocking and Other Things

Although I am fairly certain that there are others who do the same thing, I've been told that I can get quite obsessive when reading a book. The thing is, I've always preferred reading an entire book at a stretch. Whether it is a fledgling in terms of pages or a massive tome of over a thousand scrolls, I am happiest when I can read uninterrupted, without pausing for life and its requirements.

And that is precisely what I was doing last night. I'd been a little late in catching on to the Millenium bandwagon, but Stieg Larsson's posthumously published trilogy gripped me as much as it has many others. Last night, I managed to steal away the last book from my mother (who wanted to read it before I did. As if!) and had already finished about fifty-odd pages before she noticed what I'd done. Thus, the book lay in my possession for the rest of the night... And I had to make the most of it if I did not want my mother to steal it back during a weak moment of rest!

It was quite a remarkable amalgamation of stimuli! Here I was, sitting by a window late at night, running through the events of the story as they unfolded. And beyond the translucent glass was a performance like no other! Being Navami night, the para puja had to be resplendently raucous. With a few singers, a hired band and a tiny makeshift stage, the people of my locality could find no reason for anything less than "aatmosht aynjoymaint". There was this Lady in a Green Dress (if it could be called a dress in the first place) who had a decent voice. Sadly, it would not have made any difference if she had only trilled to the tune of the song without trying to enunciate the lyrics. There was also a gentleman who sounded like a foghorn and another lady (who I did not care to peep at from the balcony) who had a very healthy pair of lungs. Both of them spent the greater part of the night enthusiastically egging on the crowd with emphatic cries. Not surprisingly, the crowd got egged, repeated chants of "Yeeyh! Yeeeh! Byaaaapoook! Yeeeeeehhhh!" bearing testimony to the fact!

Now I usually find no trouble in noticing these quaint details and carrying on with my work at the same time. So it was quite an enriching experience indeed to follow the trail of a constitutional conspiracy and, at the same time, mull over the anthropological aspect of boisterous behaviour late at night. It was extremely enlightening... Lisbeth Pippi Longstocking Salander as well as wannabe Himesh Reshammiyas both gave me much to think about! (In the latter case it was a case of philosophical resignation... there are people in the world who should not be allowed to open their mouths but no law of Nature can stop them from doing so).

Finally, it was in the wee hours of dawn, (I suppose 6 a.m. does count as early dawn to me) that I turned the last pages of The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest. Thankfully, nine hours of sitting in fairly the same place hadn't been all that uncomfortable and I was able to hobble over to my room and take my lenses off without collapsing into a heap. Following this, I promptly made my bed and slept till twelve noon.

Tonight does not seem to show signs of being any different. It's quite amusing to see how a night-time train journey has happened to give me the symptoms of jet lag. The trip to the hills, however, was well worth it! But that,  again, is another story...

Order, Structure and OCD

The last week in college has been absolutely arduous! All those of us in the Design team of the Department Magazine would agree that we never noticed when Monday turned into a Friday, as we were all attuned to the many whims and tantrums of Corel Draw. There were a few "inexplicable, incorrigible and illogical" circumstances... Owing to these, we had to complete the page settings for over 70 pages of the inaugural issue within four days so that all that the printer would have to do is press "Print". 

Nevertheless, it was quite an adventure! All those late nights and attending classes the morning after, yawning through the lectures, the phone-calls exchanged every few minutes to be told the latest "bad news", squeezing work into the meagre lunch hours and rare off-periods, and for me, working all night and stopping only when my alarm rang the next morning to go and brush, to make the rescheduled deadline... they're experiences that I am not likely to forget! I'm also fairly certain that my friends won't forget how the sleep-deprived me started humming the Godfather theme really loudly while plodding through the last-minute proofreading, or how I suddenly started laughing hysterically and wouldn't stop, or how they actually had to drag me away from the laptop and restrain me so that I'd rest for a little while.

Funnily enough, I found it all quite fulfilling. I mean, I know that I get obsessive compulsive about margins and measurements and the alignment of borders, yet, it felt good to know that I had had a hand in creating something that represents our years in the department. And it also felt great that when all of us were put to test, we succeeded. Now the rest is up to the printer and whatever power makes the world tick. We've done our job, in spite of it being impossible!

Right now, it is time to catch up on some lost sleep and stop dreaming of being choked by pages of the magazine. And perhaps, to recall ridiculously hilarious auto-rides through the narrowest of lanes, where we narrowly missing having blobs of meat flung at us!

Piano Cat!

It’s feline o’ clock on a Caturday
The regular crowd shuffles in
There’s an old cat sitting next to me
Makin’ love to his catnip and milk

He says, “Cat, can you play me a miaowmory
I’m not really sure how it goes
But it’s sad and it’s sweet and I knew it complete
When I wore a younger fur coat.”

Meow me-meow, meow mi-miaow
Meow-meow me-meow, mew mi-miaow, meow meow

Chorus:
Mew us a song, you’re the Piano Cat
Mew us a song tonight
Well we’re all in the mood for a mewlody
And you’ve got us purrin’ alright

Now Chesh at the bar is a friend of mine
He steals me some milk for free
And he’s quick with his stroke while he makes a mouse croak
But there’s someplace that he’d rather be
He says, “Cat, I believe this is killing me”
As the grin ran away from his face
“Well I’m sure that I could be in Wonderland
If I could get out of this place”

Oh, meow me-meow, meow mi-miaow
Meow-meow me-meow, mew mi-miaow, meow meow

Now, Tom is a real estate strategist
Who never lost fur in alley strife
And he’s talkin’ with Tabby who's still very flabby
And probably will be for life

And the felines are practicing paw-litics
As the ArtistoCats slowly get stoned
Yes, they’re sharing a fat rat called Loneliness
But it’s better than gnawin’ alone

Chorus:
Mew us a song, you’re the Piano Cat
Mew us a song tonight
Well we’re all in the mood for a mewlody
And you’ve got us purrin’ alright

It’s a pretty good crowd for a Caturday
And the Top Cat gives me a smile
’Cause he knows that it’s me they’ve been comin’ to see
To forget about dogs for a while

And the piano, it sounds like a carnival
And the mouse-hole smells full of fear
And they sit at the bar and pour milk in my jar
And say, “Cat, what are you doin’ here?”

Oh, meow me-meow, meow mi-miaow
Meow-meow me-meow, mew mi-miaow, meow meow

Chorus:
Mew us a song, you’re the Piano Cat
Mew us a song tonight
Well we’re all in the mood for a mewlody
And you’ve got us purrin’ alright

~*~

Parody rights 2010: $hohini $engupta (me) and Rudrayudh $engupta (co-written by bro and me =D) with all due respect and the humblest of apologies to the brilliance that is Billy Joel.

Enjoy!

Grey Lady

Poets over the ages have remarked upon how the weather has mirrored their mood... how the bleakest and grayest of days have invariably and irrevocably coincided with the darkest of moments. 

It has been raining almost incessantly in the past few days. From the early grey moments of Monday to the torrential showers of today, it almost seems as though Nature is doing her best to convey what we already know (and fear) in our hearts.

I visited my grandmother yesterday. After a whirlwind (bad) romance with exams. She was tubed and sedated and well, thankfully, patients in the ICU are allowed only one visitor at a time for I don't know how long I just stood there and cried. It feels funny to think that my only fervent hope during the exams was that she not go before I get to say goodbye. And yesterday, seeing her in the state she was in brought back memories buried deep — of stories and swings, of flowers weaved into my hair and distant springs. Of afternoons gone by watching the world as it walked past an old verandah that is now no more, not knowing that two pairs of eyes, one brimming with youthfulness and another, with wisdom, were watching it in keen amusement. I remembered the books with beautiful messages inside, the letters that would come by post, those happy visits during the Pujas, all the times when I'd be told repeatedly to go "shushu" much to my annoyance...

She used to call me her "paakhi" which means 'bird'. To think that it has been over ten years that she hasn't lived the way she was meant to. And now... oh how I wish my gut felt differently!

Maybe, in a parallel universe she stayed well and got to grow old and grey with dignity. Maybe in that world she'd have been able to watch her little paakhi blossom. And maybe...

I Am A Rock

A cyclonic circulation is what is responsible for the city being held hostage by rain.

The stock market has showed an uncharacteristically uplifting upward urge for a Monday.

Claude Monet is set to be finally given a major exhibition in Paris.

Those are just headlines. This is my life. I find solace in Simon and Garfunkel at the oddest of times, in the oddest of songs. Not that I am feeling particularly petulant, but a certain train of thought set off a certain flurry of emotions and swept me right off my balance. It is rather peculiar how something that you don't normally think of at most times suddenly pops up inside your head and dictates how you feel for the rest of the day. I'd say that it's as bad as how uncomfortable you get when you suddenly remember that you've forgotten to brush and squirm wondering whether your breath stinks.

Funnily enough, I am feeling far more flaccid in terms of thoughts. Yet, there is this strange pull tugging at my consciousness and making me want to sit and brood. Do we all go through phases when we want to shut out those we love and just stay isolated, like an island? I'm not sure whether my own responses can be considered normal. I've almost always been the loner, and liked it that way. Nevertheless, recently at least, I haven't really felt the urge to shut shop and withdraw all that often.

Today, for some reason, I want to let all the sarcasm out, all the nastiness, and most importantly, all the feelings of sheer sordidness that are still trapped somewhere within. Then again, it could also be that I'm hungry... and too hungry to realize just how much.

The mundane part about it all is that I'm in the middle of exams and all that is frustrating about life is suddenly doing a bold tango before my eyes. It's only a few more days, but although the rational side of me is patiently waiting for the next Act to unfurl, the more human part of me just wants to jump out of my seat!

Perhaps it would have been better if I had indeed been a rock. "A rock feels no pain". Neither does it have to sit for sinfully squalid semester exams (or Mid-semester ones at that). I presume things are building up since I've been purposely starving myself of things I love doing (and even I don't know why I do that). 

Or maybe I just need to switch to another song.

Thoughtful Ties

When bitterness becomes stronger than even blood-ties, the slightest gesture showing some thought behind it moves you strongly. I had long stopped hoping for such thought to be directed my way. Yet, I was touched today. Maybe it is rather sad that I was. Perhaps those who take certain kinds of love for granted will never understand why. Still, it felt good. I really hope that in the moments when I am almost paralysed by angry despair, I remember this moment and feel heartened, however slight that feeling is.

Shy Words

My world is no longer a flurry of poems
Or songs sung sweetly to many sunny Springs
’Tis neither a lark’s lore of furious flight
Nor the spiralling heartbreak that descent brings —

Although pale pages lie waiting for sorrow,
Tearful outbursts and laughter to fulfil them,
The Sun shines on, unmindful of tomorrow,
Its beams sewn surely to Eternity’s hem.

The rains claim their place amidst parched pliant ground,
My heartbeat echoing every raindrop’s sound,
Yet as panes grow misty and my senses numb,
My soul stiffens slowly and the ink stays bound.

Within and without, with grief or without doubt
My lips rest their case with an unuttered sigh —
Drifting clouds pass by, the sun scorches the sky,
Leaves glisten with dewdrops, yet my words stay shy.

Verse Fest

So last night, as it is quite obvious from the posting time of my last post, I had trouble sleeping. Not surprisingly, I wrote of my plight as a status update on Facebook. This is what ensued:

Silver Skylark I write haiku when I can't sleep. :P
{17 hours ago via Mobile Web}

Tito: {Name changed for security reasons}
..Reading that, it makes me weep

Counting seven, must it be
You've one extra dont you see? :P
{16 hours ago} 

Silver Skylark: {that is me, LD}
Hark! What sound goes there?
Of sixes and sevens you speak!
Curled in darkened lair. :P
{16 hours ago}

Tito:
that was random..that you know
did i get it?..dont think so..

but pardon you..that i may
sleep doth come by end of day.....
{16 hours ago} 

Silver Skylark:
I could not count, so it seems
Outside, the silver moon gleams
Retire, friend, as day comes
Morrow's song, another hums.
{16 hours ago}

Tito:
Now that torrent downloads done
New moon shall i gaze upon

Vamps and werewolves shall i see
So with this rhyme, off i'll be :)
{16 hours ago} 

Silver Skylark:
Lycans rise as darkness falls
Gaze upon unguarded walls
Yet may sleep set your mind free
Of dangerous poetry. :P
{16 hours ago}

Tito:
lol..im watching a movie! :P
{16 hours ago}

Silver Skylark:
Go watch it, you Edward Cullen fan! :P
{16 hours ago}

Tito:
HAH! i made you break your count
While I secretly kept mine XD

And I watch for Jacob Black >.<
{16 hours ago}

At this point I must say that the 7-syllables are maintained if I remove "Edward" and that "lol" cannot be counted as a single syllable. :P

Silver Skylark:
I did not hear those words sad
Lest the Heavens strike me mad
For that sword thrust I'll get back
While you drool at Jacob Black.
{16 hours ago}

Kaz: {a.k.a. Prince Kazarelth}
You two are crazy.
There's no haiku that I see.
Sleep or New Moon, guys?
:P
{9 hours ago}

Silver Skylark:
These aren't the haiku
That I posted in my blog...
For Facebook to show. :P

That was a haiku...
The rest, seven syllables
Of a Rhyming fest. :P
{7 hours ago}

'Nuff said! xD

A Dream

Wings brushed shut my eyes
Wondrous pearls gleam before me —
Silver pierces night.