Always be Contrasting

A tall claim and a small promise
A brash command and a feeble request
A line of condescension and a word of praise
A wave of fear and a ray of hope
A flush of anger and a flash of calmness
A warning of danger and a sign of rescue
A cool handshake and a tight hug
A look of contempt and a gaze of adoration
One step forward and one step backward

Thought Bonanza

Nothing floats in a bath tub
The sun is a circle of fire
Rich people from a poor man's country are the worst people
The reality that is an illusion and the illusion that is reality
Forever may have happened forever ago but forever will also happen forever
Reality unchallenged is an illusion unchangeable
Take a piece for my peace but don't give a piece for my peace
Multiplying into two is not as symmetrically satisfying as rooting the square
Intense dental work followed by a self portrait of LSDesque colours and waves of me violently cleaning my tongue with a pink toothbrush
The world's nobodies do nothing; the world's everybodies do everything; and the anybodies continue do to anything.
Having a conscience does the disciplinary job just as well as religion or state laws can.
You know you're in too deep when you can no longer enjoy indulging in a good looker's lingering look.
I really resent the phrase "school of thought" because that implies the schooling of thought and puts people in boxes.
What vastly inhibits growth is one's own inability to throw away their bad ideas into a wastebasket thereby triggering new thought.
I didn't expect to rant after drinking all of that expectorant

To Two Drastically Different Yous

What a miserable love is a love with no love
What a tragedy to want what you can't have
What a shame, and I'm to blame
Was that a way to live?
Was that a way to love?

What an incredibly quiet mouth you had there
What an incessantly loud mind I had here
What a waste, and such a disgrace
That's no way to live
That's no way to love

What fun to find joy in hidden places
What happiness to seek solace in new faces
What hope traces, with my swift paces
That's some way to live
That's some way to love

What a miracle for your love to have found me
What timing for you to stand right behind me
What good fortune, I'm over the moon
Now that's the way to live
That's the way to love

Feminine Famishment

Have you ever seen a cat,
Who looked like he'd eaten one too many rats?

Have you ever seen a dog,
Who looked he chewed too much flesh off too many bones?

Or, if I may, a high flying kite,
Who dragged down too many empty-eyed crows?

How about a snake shaped like a hose,
Who devoured one too many a human nose?

Have you spied a hungry-eyed lion cub,
Who ate hiding from his brothers behind a shrub?

And have you spotted a cunning little fox,
Who could wolf down a full carcass filled box?

I've seen it in my mind's eye and the thought is chewable and so I chew and chew and chew it till it's replaced by a docile dove wan looking and full of a vegetarian kind of appetite that's somehow fouler than any previous thought.

Yes? No. Okay.

Loopy Love

If Cupid's bow shot you twice
But you fell just the one time
What matter, it would still be sublime

There is this light
It never goes out
At night there's darkness
But that's okay
Unless sleep eludes me

I know what it is
I think I've known for a while now

It's your eyes
Eyes with everything in it
Light and fire
Warm, so warm
And so wet too
Your eyes are water
Clear brown gems against clean white

Gems the Cadbury
Five rupees worth
That you'd secretly hide in my pocket
When we'd cross through the passage
All those years ago

If I could love you thrice
But your eyes demanded more
Sign me up, I'm ready to re-explore

Express Notes Expressly Expressing About Expression

^ Definitely not expressionless

I have great love for the English language. And I think that's because I can express myself very fluidly thanks to it. It's familiar territory. It's the language I think in. I know Hindi and Sindhi but I only speak them when I have to, for the ease of communication. I love learning new English words and l love listening to great orations and reading well written pieces of content; be it poems, stories or anything else.

As far as I understand it, more Indians today speak the language better than most people from natively English speaking countries. Knowledge of the English language has propelled the country to where it is now in the global economy. It's changed perspective of how the rest of the world sees us. It has, no doubt, created aspiration and ambition in the minds of India's youth to lead better lives. A school going kid does feel a sense of empowerment knowing that his horizons are broadened. And that's really amazing.

But that's not enough. Beyond language learning, I really feel like the Indian education system must throw light on expression. Teaching English with results focusing on the kid speaking articulately with beautiful vocabulary is great. But what about working on creativity of expression and building capability for great communication?

I find that storytelling is very important while growing up. My favourite teachers were fantastic storytellers. Coincidentally, the same teachers were also very encouraging of students participating in storytelling themselves. The mind is a beautifully vast place and you have to irrigate the seed of imagination. I'm no child psychology expert, but it is understood that children are eager to please and if around the right stimuli, they can become fine artists. Because what are artists but masters of expression?

When I used to write anything or make by hand  any art/craft as a teenager, I would never have the heart to destroy it immediately. I just couldn't relate to melodramatic scenes on TV of writers making paper balls after writing pages just to aim them directly into the bin. It looked like such a waste! I have saved every piece of writing, however terribly expressed and this blog is proof! Anyway, now that I am reasonably more grown up, I am more critical of myself but it's in a productive direction. I know now that destruction with the idea of rebuilding a stronger foundation is the only acceptable reason to destroy.

We aren't training kids to think critically. We care more about preparing them to answer questions. Where is the focus on fostering an environment where questions are welcomed? Why should a grown man find himself battling with very existential and real questions, when he could have addressed them being a lot younger?

We encourage children to be more accepting of their faults having surfed waves of confidence ourselves all throughout our own lives. What we don't realise that is that you have to see yourself critically from an early age. Introspection must happen much before being pointed out or pulled up by someone superior. If one is carefully critical of themselves from childhood, one will have a stronger sense of self.

We are living in a world where kids think they're smart enough to know what's good for them. And what they think that is, is pretty much equal to what they want. Interestingly, that's actually not so bad, unless it's drugs or some bad shit they're into of course! It is imperative to enforce a sense of control over what content they're allowed to consume.

Very simply, if you have access to entertainment options, you're not going to bother with coming up with creative ways to better fill up your free time. There has to be a sense of independence in everything that is being consumed. Discovery channels need to be more accessible to young opened up minds. They have to figure out what they like and dislike by experiencing everything that's available. You shouldn't have to like the new Bieber song because everyone you hang out with does. Opinions have to be created. You have to be your own person.

You should give yourself the chance so that when you reminisce about your life, you have these phases where you were into a whole bunch of contrastingly different things. It could be something as mundane as a music genre or something more sensitive like religious faith or even sexual identity. No one knows who they are at any given point of time because that's changing all the time. You're not who you were yesterday, and you're not going to be who you are now, tomorrow. That's what builds substance.

One thing I find to be endlessly futile, is the search for inspiration. Nothing can be more elusive than inspiration. Which is why you have to have to be; and by just being, opportunities for being inspired can unravel themselves.

I dream of an evolved education system with a focus on impartation of wisdom and of essential life skills. And, I would like to very much be a part of that in a big way sometime in the future.

After 66 Million Years

I only saw a familiar midriff round the corner of the riverbank
Was I to know what would surface
Head or tail, could be anyone's guess
All those years ago
I got a text from Mr. T-Rex
It said he'd be gone for a while
So could it really be him?
After all these centuries?
He said not to miss him
And I should have known better
Than to miss him the way I did
The way you sweat through sheets profusely
The way you rapidly scramble to get out of a crowded elevator
Such urgent want
I should have known that there would be none like him
My poor dinosaur's fate was such
And how could someone else ever be so:
Gargantuan gregarious and god-like
A primeval and predatorial presence
But could it really be him again?
Wishfully I have waited
And the land and sea has changed so much since our time
Back when there used to be a black day and a sunny night
Something in my peripheral vision disturbs the water
A swift yet imperceptible movement
But that's enough conviction
He's back and I'm diving right in

Writing and Scribbling

Long simple stories with happy endings
Short complicated stories with sad endings

Faces of strangers with familiar smiles
Familiar faces with strange smiles

Beautifully written short sentences
Thrillingly written long paragraphs

Perfectly straight queueing by tiny black ants
Random scattering by red ants

Not knowing where your mind is
Knowing where your mind is

A lingering look from warm affectionate eyes
A short look from cold unloving eyes

A peaceful minute of standing under a shower
A sheer second of water unexpectedly splashed

Writing leisurely in cursive with pencil
Writing hastily in block letters with pen

Patiently undoing a particularly tight drawstring
Impatiently undoing a particularly tight drawstring

Cool water after roaming about under the sun
Cool water after freezing outside in the snow

Slow paced solo walking on unexplored paths
Fast paced group walking on unexplored paths

Sleeping and dreaming
Resting your eyes and incessantly thinking

Fasting
Starving

Feeling powerful with no real power
Feeling powerless with real power

The week that was, the week that wasn't, and the week that will never be

On Monday I measured the homo goblin's haemoglobin
I tried thinking of things to do to on my two thousandth Tuesday in town
I bumped into Arti on Wednesday, finding her choking on an artichoke
Thirteen towels tumbled towards the tapestry on the Thursday
Fashionably freaky friends fried some fries on the freezing Friday
And I found Saturdays were best suited to snoozes and snuggles
And when came Sunday I found the good booze to guzzle