are you old
old enough
to know the difference between
a strawberry and a tart
Are you bold
bold enough
to know when to stand up and
when to give in
Saturday, October 23, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
this is how this feels
with no more
no more pain or tears
here we go
on a a wheel round
and round
every spin, every circle we make
takes us someplace new
buckleup
cause this will be unforgettable
the climb we rise
the peaks we soar
the lifts and the falls
it flows
so smooth
watching us from below
the whole world
smiling and crying
everyone wants to be us.
we are so new
so crisp so fresh
nothings gonna touch us
we kiss like pink
we touch like brown melting into an orange orange sun
we are inventing everything again
and wind wont move
and rain wont fall
and touch wont feel
and lips won't speak
till the sunshine touches water
and our colors remake the air
Saturday, July 31, 2010
there will be blood
there will be blood
on the hands of those
who deny justice
who fall prey to vile manipulations
& selfish desires
There will be blood
on the hands of those
who take away years & years
of hope & hard work
with a single wicked tear
There will be blood
on that hands of those
who blind with morality
who shatter a ray of light
with a double edged sword
there will be blood
you have been warned
Saturday, July 10, 2010
where is the beauty?
lifelong dreams
tantalizingly close & slipping away fast
sinking deep into the clutter
of the things we don't need
of the people that don't matter
of illusions of ourselves
of a million pointing fingers
& role models & doppelgangers
the words are trapped
by eyes waiting & watching
by tentacles of argument
by conflicts of relevance & beauty
by too many choices
by too many to please
No matter how much blood
no matter how many screams
no matter how dark & rich
the scene becomes
its always the same
lies wrapped in red lipstick
nothingness covered in satin sheets
& real beauty hidden in a cloak of shame
Saturday, June 26, 2010
poison oil
poison oil
slipped under my skin
when noone was looking
slithered into my blood
found the heat growing in my heart
& exploded
now everything inside
is all blown up
shards and shards of inside-me
that pierce right through
scattered in places i can't find
all because
of that poison oil
that seeped in
when noone was looking
Monday, March 08, 2010
rickshaw & road
Taken from the blackberry 8900.
First in a series of blurry sepia & black & white images on the road from work to home
Friday, March 05, 2010
spectator of the spectacle of release
my nose pressed to the window
i watch as bits & bytes
travel through the wireless
& seep into my brain
i stare
as they contort my thoughts
into newer shapes
& dance wild
living, loose, free
Posterous | Loaded
Loaded
On intoxicating love
On lightning seeds in my veins
On little boys.. precocious
On hurtful memories ..and poignant insults
On silly dreams.. and hopeful happiness
On a cotton trail ..leading to a chocolate house
Saturday, January 16, 2010
a tribute to radiohead
a white page & emptiness
stare at me patiently
waiting waiting
for the void
to be replaced
with something real
it glitters
within reach
Tantalisingly close
i lean in
the game begins
we shift & move
and dance
to each others shadows
illusions both
nerves stiffen
breath stops
a unworldly melody
floats in
we soar
on a voice from elsewhere
we meet in parts & pieces
letters begin & words breathe
tonight we sail to the moon
stare at me patiently
waiting waiting
for the void
to be replaced
with something real
it glitters
within reach
Tantalisingly close
i lean in
the game begins
we shift & move
and dance
to each others shadows
illusions both
nerves stiffen
breath stops
a unworldly melody
floats in
we soar
on a voice from elsewhere
we meet in parts & pieces
letters begin & words breathe
tonight we sail to the moon
Sunday, August 30, 2009
the uncool 30's
ive turned over a new leaf. ive quit drinking and smoking. smoking cause it was time and drinking cause i just got bored & it was easier coz i was never a big drinker anyway. all this is good im sure. however i still like to go out to clubs and such. but now i never know what to do there
and now other people's sordid drinkin stories are not amusing anymore. i am hugely bored of hearing "hey the other day i got sooo drunk and then... " thats the point where i shut off. No, i don think its interesting that u got drunk and climbed up a tree or went to bed with someone you didnt know or puked yr guts out in a gutter.
i know at least 5 in-their-20's kids who do this every weekend. brag about more beer. tweet about tequila shots gone wrong. and wear t-shirts that proudly affirm their 'i like to drink' hobby.
i think i'm kinda jealous that i don have any crutches anymore - any reasons to do soemthing stupid like alcohol or cigarettes to feel cool and young and hip. i stand around at clubs full of glamorous looking people while sipping red bull and thinking oh shit i better not have too much of this cause i wont get sleep and i got an early morning. sad. i know.
blame it on the fact that im turning 30 in another 19 days. SUCKS.
dammit. im not cool anymore. :(
and now other people's sordid drinkin stories are not amusing anymore. i am hugely bored of hearing "hey the other day i got sooo drunk and then... " thats the point where i shut off. No, i don think its interesting that u got drunk and climbed up a tree or went to bed with someone you didnt know or puked yr guts out in a gutter.
i know at least 5 in-their-20's kids who do this every weekend. brag about more beer. tweet about tequila shots gone wrong. and wear t-shirts that proudly affirm their 'i like to drink' hobby.
i think i'm kinda jealous that i don have any crutches anymore - any reasons to do soemthing stupid like alcohol or cigarettes to feel cool and young and hip. i stand around at clubs full of glamorous looking people while sipping red bull and thinking oh shit i better not have too much of this cause i wont get sleep and i got an early morning. sad. i know.
blame it on the fact that im turning 30 in another 19 days. SUCKS.
dammit. im not cool anymore. :(
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Look what you did
You put light in me
And i drink it in every morning
Cut open my veins
Pour a glass
Drop an icy teardrop
Shake it up
Smile & sip
You put ink in my fingers
And i write with them every morning
Run them on empty walls & beds
Linger a bit to make new dots
Full stop. And start again
Joining pieces of me left on pillows
With the ink you put in my fingers
You put the breeze in my step
Now i fly over snow peaks in my sleep
& float on wet concrete with wide eyed wonder
Skimming the cool below my heels
Then the wet wind crawls under my skin
& life begins in my heart again
And i drink it in every morning
Cut open my veins
Pour a glass
Drop an icy teardrop
Shake it up
Smile & sip
You put ink in my fingers
And i write with them every morning
Run them on empty walls & beds
Linger a bit to make new dots
Full stop. And start again
Joining pieces of me left on pillows
With the ink you put in my fingers
You put the breeze in my step
Now i fly over snow peaks in my sleep
& float on wet concrete with wide eyed wonder
Skimming the cool below my heels
Then the wet wind crawls under my skin
& life begins in my heart again
Thursday, March 26, 2009
music & me - final part 2
ok due to popular demand by the few nice people who read my blog im back for the final installment of music & me.
The pop phase went on till i think i was 14 /15. Yeah it didnt last too long due to the aforementioned 'search for depth'. Thats when MTV happened. Not the lame ass nonsense that is MTV now, but i like to think of my childhood MTV as a real education.
Course 1: How to rebel without a cause and look really cool while doing it - taught by kurt cobain, Chris cornell & eddie vedder
Course 2: Lateral thinking: the coolest ever channel Id graphics. MTV taught me the basics of how to say one thing in the most number of superbly cool ways
Course 3: how to hallucinate and elevate without being drugged - the one and only TORI AMOS , lifelong friend and secret lover
and so continuing on..
Phase 4: teeteering 'over the edge'
My earliest memory of watching MTV was afternoons once i got back from school and noone was home. Sneakily watching MTV when i was supposed to be doing homework or something and one day catching a video set in a grungy basement filled with teenage kids head banging in slow motion to one man's pain stricken voice. I remember very clearly being struck by the orange yellow dusty feel of the video and the 'anti' cheerleaders in black dresses. it smelled like teen spirit and it was heady. then on began the grunge obsession, accompanied by spells of bad poetry scribbled behind red line notebooks apparently an expression of my 'angst'
i still have those notebooks.
Phase 5: my first brush with hallucinations
in the middle of all those brown & grey boys with voices that sounded like paper tearing, a girl with flaming red hair wearing a red tulle dress stepping in and out of windows making love to a mystical piano entered my life. she's still in it , she's still making my hair stand up and showing me 'peices of things ive never seen'
tori amos , sometimes absurd, mostly kind of pretentious when she isnt singing, but always intense and cripplingly beautiful when she is, walked in and took me over. suddenly it seemed like some secret world existed with a secret language and now i was permanent resident of a dark fairytale wonderland.
suddenly am reminded of raggity and the cloud. i miss that book :(
Phase 6: 'adult alternative & mehfil -e -electronica
ok all grown up by now, the grunge/alternative/tori phase defining most of my teens and early 20's i landed up at my first 'advertising job'. discovered a lost cousin from my mom's side - mihir living in boston. thanks to the web we started chatting and realised we were like music twins or something. the newest, coolest music came to me direct from amrica courtesy mihir , here i was with silly smile on my face zoning out on death cab for cutie, phish and the like. Till of course, i heard psychedelic trance. extremely sceptical but pushed by the urge to at least try it, i did. it started with 'this is great work music' (the earlier commercial shit) to 'hmm there seems to be something here' (morning) to 'this is incredibly visual and strangely moving' (parasense).
Am somewhere still there now except with the brilliant addition of IDM (intelligent dance music) and trip hop fellows like rum pistol , prefuse courtesy the BASAK - art partner and grphic artist. between our secret language (which noone else at work seems to understand) are the scratchy, twisted sounds of IDM making the work seem sort of more than what it is. here's to that and to music. for making my world spin.
:)
The pop phase went on till i think i was 14 /15. Yeah it didnt last too long due to the aforementioned 'search for depth'. Thats when MTV happened. Not the lame ass nonsense that is MTV now, but i like to think of my childhood MTV as a real education.
Course 1: How to rebel without a cause and look really cool while doing it - taught by kurt cobain, Chris cornell & eddie vedder
Course 2: Lateral thinking: the coolest ever channel Id graphics. MTV taught me the basics of how to say one thing in the most number of superbly cool ways
Course 3: how to hallucinate and elevate without being drugged - the one and only TORI AMOS , lifelong friend and secret lover
and so continuing on..
Phase 4: teeteering 'over the edge'
My earliest memory of watching MTV was afternoons once i got back from school and noone was home. Sneakily watching MTV when i was supposed to be doing homework or something and one day catching a video set in a grungy basement filled with teenage kids head banging in slow motion to one man's pain stricken voice. I remember very clearly being struck by the orange yellow dusty feel of the video and the 'anti' cheerleaders in black dresses. it smelled like teen spirit and it was heady. then on began the grunge obsession, accompanied by spells of bad poetry scribbled behind red line notebooks apparently an expression of my 'angst'
i still have those notebooks.
Phase 5: my first brush with hallucinations
in the middle of all those brown & grey boys with voices that sounded like paper tearing, a girl with flaming red hair wearing a red tulle dress stepping in and out of windows making love to a mystical piano entered my life. she's still in it , she's still making my hair stand up and showing me 'peices of things ive never seen'
tori amos , sometimes absurd, mostly kind of pretentious when she isnt singing, but always intense and cripplingly beautiful when she is, walked in and took me over. suddenly it seemed like some secret world existed with a secret language and now i was permanent resident of a dark fairytale wonderland.
suddenly am reminded of raggity and the cloud. i miss that book :(
Phase 6: 'adult alternative & mehfil -e -electronica
ok all grown up by now, the grunge/alternative/tori phase defining most of my teens and early 20's i landed up at my first 'advertising job'. discovered a lost cousin from my mom's side - mihir living in boston. thanks to the web we started chatting and realised we were like music twins or something. the newest, coolest music came to me direct from amrica courtesy mihir , here i was with silly smile on my face zoning out on death cab for cutie, phish and the like. Till of course, i heard psychedelic trance. extremely sceptical but pushed by the urge to at least try it, i did. it started with 'this is great work music' (the earlier commercial shit) to 'hmm there seems to be something here' (morning) to 'this is incredibly visual and strangely moving' (parasense).
Am somewhere still there now except with the brilliant addition of IDM (intelligent dance music) and trip hop fellows like rum pistol , prefuse courtesy the BASAK - art partner and grphic artist. between our secret language (which noone else at work seems to understand) are the scratchy, twisted sounds of IDM making the work seem sort of more than what it is. here's to that and to music. for making my world spin.
:)
Friday, February 13, 2009
music & me - Part 1
i'm a 90's child. but unlike most 90's suburban mumbai kids, i almost never heard any hindi/bollywood music as a child. thanks to musically evolved cousins who stayed across the road, i grew up on a healthy diet of pop, rock, grunge and when MTV hit it was 'alternative' courtesy 'alternative nation' a show with jerky camera movements and a dark almost dingy set, hosted by VJ sophia who brought her very special brand of cool to the entire experience. (or was it danny? , there were two of them alternative nation and over the edge)
phase 1: Sunday Mornings with the Fab four.
This was me at maybe 5? or 6? something like that. My folks had this record player and every sunday morning the Beatles LPs' would rock our house. those days we were in no hurry to switch on tubelights so the perfect sunday morning was spent with the fab four singing 'hard day's night' and all four of us dancing and goofing around in the little bits of sunshine. ( i think thats where i got my fascination for sunrise trance from)
phase 2: Bowing down to 80's royalty
mid 80's. it started with watching madonna's like a virgin video and feeling creeped out, excited, and longing all at once. my first crush i think she was. i was too young to understand the references but i knew it was soemthing dangerously cool. Cut to me watching her performances on pirated VHS tapes goggle eyed , cut to lame mimicking of jackson's thriller moves cut to humming prince's purple rain cut to speech bubble inside my brain going 'this guy looks kinda weird, but damn this music is strangely beautiful'
apparently also somewhere in the middle of all of this was an arrogant 10 year old girl who thought peter gabriel was god and snootily snubbed everyone who didnt know who the hell he was. (god knows when this happened, but one of the snubbed friends confirms this)
Phase 3: Going Radio Ga Ga
Now to say i am a bit embarassed by this part of the music history is an understatement. Radio came into my life at this point. and so did pop music. not the madonna kind. more like the ace of base/amy grant one hit wonders kind.
so here i was in my early teens, when i decided radio and pop music was fun. No more 'borrowed tastes' i'm going to discover my own music without having to go across the road. so i started stealing No 1's from the weekly top 10's off the radio and by the end of it i had a drawer full of - you guessed it - mixed tapes. of course then i took it all too seriously and promptly rejected the entire movement because
'the lyrics dont mean anything' and 'my life is more complicated than silly love songs'. Of course what was complicating my life at 13 , ill never know.
coming up: phase 4: in search of the 'alternative', phase 5: trip hop & indie
phase 6: electronica takes over.
and then the forever top 10
phase 1: Sunday Mornings with the Fab four.
This was me at maybe 5? or 6? something like that. My folks had this record player and every sunday morning the Beatles LPs' would rock our house. those days we were in no hurry to switch on tubelights so the perfect sunday morning was spent with the fab four singing 'hard day's night' and all four of us dancing and goofing around in the little bits of sunshine. ( i think thats where i got my fascination for sunrise trance from)
phase 2: Bowing down to 80's royalty
mid 80's. it started with watching madonna's like a virgin video and feeling creeped out, excited, and longing all at once. my first crush i think she was. i was too young to understand the references but i knew it was soemthing dangerously cool. Cut to me watching her performances on pirated VHS tapes goggle eyed , cut to lame mimicking of jackson's thriller moves cut to humming prince's purple rain cut to speech bubble inside my brain going 'this guy looks kinda weird, but damn this music is strangely beautiful'
apparently also somewhere in the middle of all of this was an arrogant 10 year old girl who thought peter gabriel was god and snootily snubbed everyone who didnt know who the hell he was. (god knows when this happened, but one of the snubbed friends confirms this)
Phase 3: Going Radio Ga Ga
Now to say i am a bit embarassed by this part of the music history is an understatement. Radio came into my life at this point. and so did pop music. not the madonna kind. more like the ace of base/amy grant one hit wonders kind.
so here i was in my early teens, when i decided radio and pop music was fun. No more 'borrowed tastes' i'm going to discover my own music without having to go across the road. so i started stealing No 1's from the weekly top 10's off the radio and by the end of it i had a drawer full of - you guessed it - mixed tapes. of course then i took it all too seriously and promptly rejected the entire movement because
'the lyrics dont mean anything' and 'my life is more complicated than silly love songs'. Of course what was complicating my life at 13 , ill never know.
coming up: phase 4: in search of the 'alternative', phase 5: trip hop & indie
phase 6: electronica takes over.
and then the forever top 10
Thursday, October 30, 2008
small town indian lady seeking rhinoplasty
so i happened to meet this small town lady. she was a neighbour at a friends place where i was bunking in between work stuff. one day in the afternoon when i happen to be home, she walks in hesistantly asking me if i could answer a few questions for her. so i said ok. so she says do you know any thing about plastic surgery in Bombay??
! - no other symbol could explain my reaction better. here was this seemingl simple rajasthani lady come from small town india, who stays at home all day with two little girls and has no friends to speak of - here was this sterotype doing something completely unstreotypical. she was asking me about 'rhinoplasty' and saying she read on the net that nowadays girls in delhi and in bombay are doing this a lot. i have to say i was impressed.
till of course she told me her reasons.
Her neice apparently has a 'bad' nose and isnt getting any proposals despite being qualified working independant etc.. so of course, why not just fix the problem. anything to get her married , money etc no problem. and why not ask the 'bombay girl' for advice? its amazing hwo she compltely missed the irony of it all.
Anyways it was awkward for me. on one hand i kept thinking i should be discouraging her from thinking about surgery and on the other i figured she had a right to know if she wanted to. education never hurt anyone. so i decided that its best to give her all the info so at least she knows the risk.
and then the situation turned a bit. uncomfortably so. she asked me tentaively in slightly hushed tones about breast surgery. now she kept sayins its for some other neice but err one could easily see how the information could be used for her own benefit. well by this time i was kind of expecting this so i just helped her out.. even sent her some links ( yeah she has an email id, she surfs google for info , chats on yahoo with her sisters and soon im sure she willhave a twitter account)
apparently her husband likes women who are well endowed. sighh..
cant help feeling a bit queasy though about the whole thing.
! - no other symbol could explain my reaction better. here was this seemingl simple rajasthani lady come from small town india, who stays at home all day with two little girls and has no friends to speak of - here was this sterotype doing something completely unstreotypical. she was asking me about 'rhinoplasty' and saying she read on the net that nowadays girls in delhi and in bombay are doing this a lot. i have to say i was impressed.
till of course she told me her reasons.
Her neice apparently has a 'bad' nose and isnt getting any proposals despite being qualified working independant etc.. so of course, why not just fix the problem. anything to get her married , money etc no problem. and why not ask the 'bombay girl' for advice? its amazing hwo she compltely missed the irony of it all.
Anyways it was awkward for me. on one hand i kept thinking i should be discouraging her from thinking about surgery and on the other i figured she had a right to know if she wanted to. education never hurt anyone. so i decided that its best to give her all the info so at least she knows the risk.
and then the situation turned a bit. uncomfortably so. she asked me tentaively in slightly hushed tones about breast surgery. now she kept sayins its for some other neice but err one could easily see how the information could be used for her own benefit. well by this time i was kind of expecting this so i just helped her out.. even sent her some links ( yeah she has an email id, she surfs google for info , chats on yahoo with her sisters and soon im sure she willhave a twitter account)
apparently her husband likes women who are well endowed. sighh..
cant help feeling a bit queasy though about the whole thing.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
100 years of
one hundred years of darkness later
the sunlight dances on my toes
one hundred years of despair later
i am moving slightly to morning music
one hundred years of scrutiny
& i discover everything is going to be ok
one hundred years of battles later
i am finally home
the sunlight dances on my toes
one hundred years of despair later
i am moving slightly to morning music
one hundred years of scrutiny
& i discover everything is going to be ok
one hundred years of battles later
i am finally home
Friday, October 10, 2008
new blog!
ok i started a new blog
its called http://bornurban.blogspot.com
its about being born and raised in and by the city
please check and let me know what you all think. i got nice
header art also from deviant and a world clock across five cities!
i am very pleased with that one :)
also would like to invite anyone who reads this to
share their own on the blog. if youve got something to write about your city please get in touch and ill put it up with credits.
its called http://bornurban.blogspot.com
its about being born and raised in and by the city
please check and let me know what you all think. i got nice
header art also from deviant and a world clock across five cities!
i am very pleased with that one :)
also would like to invite anyone who reads this to
share their own on the blog. if youve got something to write about your city please get in touch and ill put it up with credits.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
all these people
all these people.
who shrunk me with their
holier than thou
who kicked me harder when
i was down who broke me choked me
raped me , turned me out
into the cold
all these people.
i watch them from a distance
their miserable tiny lives
growing smaller by the second
caught in time's stranglehold
tighter & tighter
sharper & sharper
cut bleed gasp burn
veins peircing through the flesh
screams for anyone someone...
but im not there.
im not there anymore. no more
who shrunk me with their
holier than thou
who kicked me harder when
i was down who broke me choked me
raped me , turned me out
into the cold
all these people.
i watch them from a distance
their miserable tiny lives
growing smaller by the second
caught in time's stranglehold
tighter & tighter
sharper & sharper
cut bleed gasp burn
veins peircing through the flesh
screams for anyone someone...
but im not there.
im not there anymore. no more
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