I complained when the earthworms fed on my buried body
But last summer the gulmohur tree next to my grave was in full bloom
My funeral pyre finally burnt with bright orange flowers
And I thanked God for performing my last rites

The Dark Horse

"Oh! you were there too. Then you know all about it. But there's still something that you don't know."

"The day had an unusual feel about it. The outdoors felt strange. Usually as you moved about early in the city you are greeted by foul, disgusting smells originating from man’s natural and industrial waste. Add to them the fragrance of artificial scents and you are bound to start your day with a headache. But today these seemed to be absent. There was absolutely no smell in the immediate world around. I could have smelt a rose at 100 meters but sadly there wasn’t any."

Alif: I think I am going to win today.

Jim: What makes you say that? As far as I remember you have never won. You are the most unsuccessful gambler I have known. In fact I think you are jinxed. If you bet on ‘Life Line’ then I would know the winner would be ‘Death Sentence’. It’s always like that. In a way what you bet on has always helped me win, coz you never win and I always do.

Zal: You also share your spoils with him, that’s an amazing thing you do. Never understood why you do that?

Jim: If I don’t then he won’t come to the next race and I won’t win. I don’t share the money with him due to sympathy; it’s a business association. He doesn’t put too much money on his horse anyway. It’s a known thing. Whatever he bets on gets jinxed. It has always worked.

Alif: But today is going to be different.

Jim: Hey dude! You need to stop that nonsense. You are beginning to freak me out.

Jim: Hey Zal you aren’t much of a gambler, are you?

Zal: I just don’t gamble on horses. I think I am more of a gambler than you are.

Jim: Really??

Zal: Look at you, you just bet on winning horses. Come here with this friend of yours who spells jinx on some poor horse and bet on a horse. You then put your money on a horse that makes you feel that you will win and you do. It seems more like an investment to me. And you have been winning haven’t you?

Jim: Yes I have, but I still need to bet one of the other horses. It’s not a two horse race you know. How are you more of a gambler than I am?

Zal: I am a struggling painter, my paintings have so far never fetched me any money. I do odd jobs to earn bits of money and survive. I don’t have money to bet on horses. But I like to watch the race.

Jim: So whom are you betting on today Alif?

Alif: I am betting on that Dark Horse.

Jim: You leave me no choice; I have to bet on ‘Total Despair’

Alif: Don’t, I am going to win today.

Jim: You are acting funny today.

Zal: Looks like today is the first time you are going to gamble. Hahaha.

Jim: Nevertheless it’s ‘Total Despair’ for me. I will go with what has always worked for me.

"The next day's newspaper had the following headline: ‘Hope’ wins the race. "

"And now this painiting of mine is the talk of the town. Who would have thought that a freak accident would see horses fall like nine pins and the slowest of them all slowly trots across the finish line?"

"This black horse looks silly, trotting along around the fallen horses, doesn't it? I will sell this painting to the highest bidder."

That day two people gambled on Hope and won.

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When Heroes Fall!

--
As reality engulfs me & dreams desert,
A little tiredness creeps into my body.

I dont remember the illusion anymore.
It's vague and blur
Like the shadow of failing light

I dont feel anything
No happiness, No sorrow,
Just a little pain.

I don't know what happened.
All those years of glory have just vanished,
Removed from my memory.

Love has ceased but hate has not replaced it.

Now I do not care.

He was my idol, my hero,
He was a good man
How could he have done this?
I dont understand.

Money comes and so does fame,
But when the image gets tarnished,
Money becomes a blame.

My idol has fallen,
Fallen from the throne,
His larger than life image has gone,
Now he looks smaller, even smaller than me.

He needs to rise again,
For my sake.
The illusion cant just disappear leaving me helpless,
No footsteps remain which I can follow...

Now it's just the desert, the sands of time and me.

...Am walking alone

Black and White

--
The misunderstood colors,
Misunderstood as colors,
Misunderstood as evil and good,
Misunderstood as dark and pure,
Misunderstood like me and you.

Black and white,
Like Adam and Eve,
Like Death and Life,
And in between we weave.

Black and white,
Estranged lovers,
Estranged friends,
Estranged but not strangers,
Estranged like me and you.

Black and white,
Like borders on a blank paper,
Like caricatures,
Like illustrations,
Like silhouettes in the white sky,
Like sorrow and joy.

Black and white,
Like desire and love,
Like wishes and dreams,
Like depression and sorrow,
Like optimism and hope

Black and white,
Like the prostitute and the housewife,
Like the beggar and the borrower,
Like a lover and a friend,
Like me and you.

Black and white,
Like reality and truth,
Like self inflicted loneliness,
Like joy in life,
Like joy in death.

Black and white,
Like two wise men in one house,
Like a cup of coffee with sugar cubes,
Like a dead white flower on a zebra crossing,
Like a tooth with a dark chocolate cavity.

Black and white,
Like a dead body covered in a white cloth,
Like hide and seek,
Like God and God,
No form no hue.

Black and white,
Like a child crying on a mother's arm
Hurt by the spanking he has just received.
Like a mother who did not spare the rod,
But she was never spared the pain.
Like tears that have made the child learn,
Like the tears that made the mother proud,
Like the spanking that shaped a world,
Like ordinary people turning great men.

Black and white,
Like endangered animals trying to survive,
Like human beings too afraid to die,
Like the thought 'do I love God more than he loves me?'
Like About Ben Adhem who loved his fellowmen.

Black and white,
Like the recluse who left the material world,
In search of answers,
Plagued by restlessness,
Plagued by the responsibilities he left behind.

Black and white,
Like a candle and its sooty flame,
Oblivious of the light it provides to the world,
Oblivious of the storm that is going to blow it away.

Black and white,
Like the scent of a woman,
Lingering long after she has left,
Like a few moments of happiness
That she has left behind,
Like, that suddenly changes,
The basic necessities of life.

Black and white,
Like Laurel and Hardy and Charlie Chaplin,
Like childhood laughter,
Like childhood friends,
Like careless discovery.

Black and white,
Like the song that has suddenly stopped,
And the hiatus that follows it,
Just like it was a part of the music,
Before another song starts,
Like a vicious symphony.

Black and white,
Like when loneliness surrounds you,
When amongst friends,
And you think about when they are all gone,
And then someone cracks a joke on you,
And then you thank the big bad world.

Black and white,
Like the silence in a hungry family,
Everyone willing to give-up the last loaf of bread,
Coz it is better to die of hunger
Than to die of shame.

Black and white,
Like polynomials playing their very first rock number,
To a live audience,
To know they rock,
To know they have been accepted and maybe loved.

Black and white,
Like the joker,
The mad man, the cribber,
The dead man, the loser,
The mastermind, the moaner,
The soldier,
The lead vocalist of polynomials,
Like they all are just one man,
Like he still searches for his identity.

Black and white,
Like the palette where I search for more colors,
With illusions and imagination and find them,
Like the twilight, the blue sky and blood.

Black and white,
Misunderstood colors,
Misunderstood as colors.
I want to paint my life,
Just give me black and white.

The Touch Me Not Girl & Million Dollar Baby

--
I don't know if i liked the movie but i must talk about it. I loved bits in it. Particularly Danger, i think the best character in the movie, he doesn't have anything in him but heart, and he believes in freeman's words when he says it's not over there's always another fight.
frankly the only person who deserved an oscar for the movie didn't get it. Clint Eastwood played his part well, the rest probably got it due to the shortage of competition. it definitely didn't deserve the best movie award. clint eastwood's Mystic River was a much more powerful tale.
Well the feeling i came out with was -- boxing is no game man it should be stopped and it definitely is not abt earning respect.

The Touch Me Not Girl by Rajlakshmee Debee is a wonderful book. The writer died a few days back and I wish I could have told the writer how much I loved the book, I could have I know someone who could at the least pass on my message to her. But I guess she doesn't need a medium to know my thots now. The book does not say in so many words but it wishes that we erase the imaginary boundaries that separate us as countries and live as a united fraternity.

Where there is no Pakistan
Where there is no India
Where there is no Mussalmaan
Where there is no Hindu
Where the womb bears love
Where the mind dreams of peace
And in that heaven of of Freedom, God, let my world awake....

Fake v/s Real

--
It's not a split personality disorder but something they term as 'Feeling Fake Feeling'. While speaking to her it dawned upon me that I am not as nice or as intelligent as people think I am. I haven't consciously tried to build this image but people around me make me feel that way.

I feel "Wise" at times almost tending to "I am the most intelligent man in this world". Not only that, there's a thot sapling inside me which is dying to grow into a tree of compassion and benevolence.

But the "Mean Man" inside me isn't a sleeping giant either. Especially the wounds of sarcasm that he can inflict in people are quite lethal. But I try to curb this bad boy. Make sure that he doesn't get out of hand and at the least is good to nice people. Maybe thats why the nice people think I am a nice guy. I almost always have never had any problems of conquering the hearts of the elders around me. My modus-operandi is simple, when you meet them first ensure that they have smiled or laughed at least once during the ice-breaking chat.

So am I the genuine hero, the nice-guy, or if not the hero-the hero's best friend who sacrifices his life for friendship? Or am I a character in the soap-opera of life who is at the whims and fancies of the script writer, who one day from the apple-of-the-eye turns into the worm-in-the-apple. Am I the nice guy about to go rotten?

Am I believing what people are believing about me? Am I living to their expectations and are they ready to accept the unexpected?

But chatting with an another her today, I realised that how convoluted the reality is and how simple being fake is. For a diamond to be real it has to satisfy a lot of criteria. But you can still call it a stone. So is reality just a subset of being fake?

Our truest, innermost, deepest feelings are like diamonds only those who have quarried deep into you will know them. But all our feelings that the outside world sees are stones. Valueless but necessary.

Isn't reality a part of this Illusion?