Mens Rea, Independence Day

For sometime now I have been appalled by how Victorian morality is often passed off as Indian culture by middle aged men and women and their unhappy and uneducated offsprings (they are all around us by the way and I mean no disrespect to any of them)- the colonial legacy is so infectious that it almost makes me squirm with disgust every time someone speaks of who should have sex and with whom ( and when, shaadi nai hui mere) in a country of 1.2 billion people, Kama-sutra, Khajuraho and other deciduous erotic temples. The courts are still debating about whether to reform the adultery law (why not scrap it ), and some scared patriarch is already losing sleep over a change in the status quo of the sexes. All in all, it was a Happy Independence Day, with old friends and acquaintances and a solid afternoon nap (full of insecure and comic nightmares). Here's one for the record:

It's the year 1893, and the Viceroy Lansdowne hires a spokesperson for the erstwhile colonial government in lieu of the Malthusian scare of a burgeoning native population. He is a very talented young man who resembles a Modi (Nirav is a deshdrohi, so I am safe in this reference) predecessor, a man who can cook up dreams just like you and I and this one being educated comes up with a line that is broadcasted all over the subcontinent, even the princely fiefdoms. 

"If you have a mens rea- you will have gonorrhoea"

India was never the same again.

Into the Island

I

If you have ever been on an island

that had a volcano, spewing up 

noxious gases, I am sure you would

know what it means to grow up in

my kind of a family, except its not true.

I was born in Old Atlantis, or that's what I was told,

before it went down to the sea. Whose blood did they

spill? All the lonely animals in the abattoir-

whose birth and death were forecasted,

whose existence was a daily act of violence-

in whose name we drifted melancholy prayers.

To the wind and to the sea we are all equal.

II

Where I grew up, there were mayflowers, 

and meandering rivers.  

I sometimes wonder if you 

and I would make an island,

one where we would raise grey 

wolves and teach them

to eat the living beasts out 

of people; where a volcano

would lie dormant and Prometheus 

would hide his fire; 

we would sleep beneath  

starry skies and the tropical 

palms will reflect moonlight far into the

 window of an apollo astronaut.

this life that we would share will not 

amount to an ounce of rice, bread and wine-

but all the things that we are 

too little to comprehend. 

There would be no war here, no justice, 

no heroes or villains, 

we would just be, won't we? 

Two mandolin bound

dreamers painting hieroglyphics 

for the new world. 

Looking back, ramblings.

Sometimes I am really comfortable living in a semi-joint family and yet at times I miss my lonely, wannabe writer life of yore and when I yearn for those alone moments I take walks, as must every artist- sometimes through the alleyways of old Calcutta, sometimes in the newer backyards of my neighborhood. I have loved all sorts of loneliness except the ones from which I can't get out; the loneliness of a big city like ours is rather sweet- strangers offering words of wisdom, the rich and poor surviving in harmony, the hustle and the bustle, and yet you can be alone among millions. What's sweet about it is the possibility of not being alone, of casual conversations of identifying with the agony of the millions (and since I transcend all neighborhoods both the first world and third world agonies), and the best kind - of knowing that you go back to a house full of people at the end of the day.

Conversations in the Pub

B. Hey man, you good?
A. Do I look like?...
Have I ever told you about the story of the surgeon?
B. What story?
A.That he was ugly and alone and filthy rich but he could get no girl he liked for himself, he had no game but he had high standards, coz you see he was fucking ugly...so the doctor had an idea, he finally chose a girl and the girl chose him back, but this chick she was fucking fat..not the kind the doctor would want..
B. But fat doesn't mean unattractive does it?
A. It fucking is...the time and place you live in..
B. Ah, I see. So the girl was fat.. but
A. Yeah, she was, but the doctor had other ideas..he took her and performed a-what they call a bariatric surgery, cut her fucking stomach into half.. and in a few months her wife was a 10, a skinny Naomi, and you would think, what the fuck, masterstroke...win-win.. but here's the catch..
B. ..she left him.
A. Fuck no, that would be such a cliche...also if it we're a post feminist landscape there would be no such surgery...but she died man...
B. What's the point?
A. The point is he was no surgeon, he was a fucking butcher that's what it was..
B. Still don't get it.
A. In a society with no laws, no rules- there's no difference between a doctor and a butcher.. that's what. And if you can't protect your best..you don't deserve their best.
B. Your story is so fucked up man, but I get your point.

Where do stories begin?

I have spent most of my boyhood and adult life in apartments whose windows open upto a sky, and a sky that's hazy through winter and blue and white in the rainy months of July-August, deep azure in Autumn. I don't recall how the summer skies look in my city. The Sun is too bright, and I hardly ever look up. The skies of my life have been populated with falcons, parrots, crows , stars, clouds, thunderstorms, some lonely migratory albatrosses, and more than often aeroplanes. Even before I had stepped on an Airplane I have had dreams about it, a recurring dream of an aeroplane crashing somewhere in my private sky- fireworks, tragedy. I have had such illogical fears about flying that I would do certain ritual things before I step on to a flight. I do that every time I fly alone, and mostly I fly alone with strangers hugging my surroundings. 

This recurring dream was certainly not the reason for such fears, but I could trace it back to here- may be a Jung or a Freud will have other opinions but as far as I am concerned these dreams have always provided me with material to work on, to write and share, to color my life with an ordered chaos, to imagine and reimagine- metaphors and metastasis. I worship what I imagine (my God is different than yours). 

This is where stories begin. A plane crash, 1945. Should I navigate my dream to unlock history or should I just adorn the myth that surrounds us from time to time? How do I write that book ?

The truth

You can spare me the details-

but I want to know the truth, in its

whole form, without the details, 

I want to imagine the details to suit my grieving-

if you could respect it, that way, just that. 

I am limited in my strength, I am of a

limited disposition- but don't worry

the truth has always been handled by my type.

they tell me that the big green trees 

in our neighbourhood were planted

by you; its comforting to know that

you still  provide me with the air I breathe-

the man who fixes our air-conditioner

thinks otherwise, but you know how I

was never removed from the basic truths of life,

and so I know; and thats why it's important

to know the truth. Perhaps its overrated, 

but what if- you taught  me that 

knowledge liberates, that we are the

happiest when we understand, 

even of our shortcomings? 

Constructive criticism, that's the word you oft used. 

The ocean is a mile away from here, 

one and a half kilometres, that's how

they say it in your country- oceans

apart, but why did it happen now, 

when everyone's headed to beautiful

places, everyone but me- 

my truth will always be different

than yours, that's why I want to know

the truth, the heart of the matter.

Sometimes on a quiet day, 

I can still hear the waves and the gulls, 

sometimes together,

sometimes in  staccato beats 

and think of the days when our bodies lay side by

side, and you blew my sweaty face with insides

of your lung- 

but that was not the truth, not your truth anyway.

Some of me will never be aware of your entire

truth, but that's how it is, so I will keep this in my

heart, knowing that you are gone- my imaginations

will guide me- and I have stopped wishing ugly things

for you; your truth is beauty,  and all the

nice things that I couldn't give you, and all the nice 

feelings that were too short to last

a lifetime- 

another story gone wrong. 

Man without an address

Sometimes I recall the faces of all 

the girls I have loved a decade  ago, 

who refused to love me for who I was; 

Its all fair, a boy without a game, 

yet there's a pain which comes up 

from somewhere deep within, 

murmurs in the heart, as doctors would say-

no one ever weeps for the weak or 

the unwanted, its what we do-

we feel sorry, and sometimes I am

 guilty of being sorry for myself.

It's not about love though, or those special ones- 

them gals of my heart 

(there's plenty of both in this world) 

it's about the agony of trying too hard 

when you are young and believing this is it 

-"the fallacy of sunk costs" , sunk emotions. 

Screw them writers and fancy poets who

 lights up your emotions like gasoline;

what of the fleeting hearts and what of the

 poetry for the ones who got away

The ones who were never meant to be.

such is the story of life- we want what we 

want, and then far away in this country 

where it snows every evening I often hear 

a good old Rolling Stone song in Joey's pub; 

"You can't always get what you want
But if you try sometime you find
You get what you need"

and I repeat these lines in my head,

in crisis and in health.

There's solace in the silent victories of 

being a man without an address, of 

gulping sorrow as if its food-

there's solace in these evenings- 

where I keep my body warm with faulty drinks.

Sometimes I walk into some shady desolate

neighbourhood hoping I will catch a 

stray bullet just to paint the snow in scarlet,

but nothing ever happens on  evenings like 

this, no belligerents, no lovers, not even 

my favorite dogs to protect me from

 the sun, rain and the hail- 

just me and the faces of all

the ones I loved; yes that...

I don't recall the ones who loved me.