We Sit Here Stranded

It is the end all over again. I just completed reading my 50th book of the year and here I am clueless as I was at the beginning of the year. It's the same old story, all over again.

Every year only a few remarkable days stand out. This February I had the opportunity of meeting a woman from Germany. Strange as it may sound, I seem to have forgotten her name. I'm good with faces but I'm very bad with names. She is a visual artist and I learnt more about Germany and the Fall of the Berlin Wall in those two isolated hours I spent with her than history books ever taught me. She herself had taken part in the revolution and was there when the Wall fell. She was 16 then.

In April, I was there at the International Jazz Concert in Nehru Park. A night I'll remember in the days to come. I was there at the High School Reunion this year. I was there at the War cemetery. I was there at Ghalib's resting place in May. I was there at Alexandra Georgiana Skinner's grave and  marveled at its beauty. I was there at Begum Samru's palace. I was on the road. I was in the streets. I stayed up one October night and composed 79 Haikus. I woke up at 5 and ran for two miles each morning throughout December just to catch the sun rise over at the lake. Such days to remember!

And the Good Samaritan, he's dressing 

He's getting ready for the show 

He's going to the carnival tonight 

On Desolation Row.

— Bob Dylan

Dizzy Raptures (East to West)

Maggie Cassidy held my hand all along. 

Fanny Hill

Exquisite.

At The Waterfront (Dec 26, 2013)

Waiting for the sun.

Feelings.

She finally got my letter, twenty-five days later. 

Merry Christmas

I always watch Tom & Jerry cartoons and listen to Jim Reeves records every Christmas.
Well, it will be no different this year. Reason? One word - Tradition!

Merry Christmas, everybody!

Almost Like Melancholia

Because the Moon is Blue

Cold Pigeons, Broken Rooms

Winter Solstice

Happy Winter 2013 folks.

"Between the woods and frozen lake 

The darkest evening of the year."

— Robert Frost

Maison de Van Gogh : A Sketch

The small cafe in North West of Paris where Vincent van Gogh spent his last final months.

Sister Death, You Dance Well.

I waltzed with death for the third time last month. A third encounter seems too much for a single lifetime but the fact that I am here today proves something. I know how she moves, but oh she's a tricky one. 

I have been reading an unhealthy dose of poetry lately; just anything to keep my mind off sickness. I took up my pencil after a long, long time and made a few sketches. Sometimes drawing is the only thing that prevents me from going mad. 

This is my humble tribute to the master artist Vincent van Gogh.

"I will take up my pencil, which I have forsaken in my great discouragement, 

and I will go on with my drawing."

— Vincent Van Gogh

Autumn Haiku #2

Arms folded

leaning on her rusty window sill

she dazzled the moon.

Autumn Haiku #1

Autumn moon

seeping through my window

I’ve got mildew in my bones.

Blackmoon Haiku

Look out!

A black moon rises
& them bats go blind all over again.

Satanic Haiku

Lucifer in a three piece suit —

he wants to go down

with a showdown. 

Miss Font*

And here I sit

Slowly codified into pieces.

I see you

And my tongue goes epileptic.

____________________________________

* with apology to Mr. Roberto Bolano

Sunday Morning

This is a favorite among favorites. Completed about three years ago.

I Beseech You

Hey Look! Dinner Is Served.

Don't judge. It was fulfilling. The best thing about being single is that when you're hungry (and lazy), and it is half past midnight, dinner is always just three minutes away. This may look like a promotional advertisement for Heinz but it is not. No, sir. I'm not trying to pull an Andy Warhol shit here. But be that as it may, this baby saved my life last night and it deserves praise and a place on my blog. And yeah, the egg was my idea. 

#345

Little boy of seven
running down the street, smiling.
His clothes are torn. 

#344

Under the Indian Summer
even the Iguanas
cry for mercy. 

#343

And at night
the weary priest
hangs his heavy shroud on his bedroom door. 

#342

Young girls with flowers in hand
running along the shore
chasing shadows. 

#341

The cat
after the rain
leaves her footprints across the verandah.

#340

After the bedtime stories
children go to sleep
and dream of monsters. 

#339

The sad fog slithers off slowly
leaving the mountain
a sparkling green. 

#338

In the morning light
the lake shimmered with
a supernatural gleam. 

#337

Magma sunset
the boy, smoking his first cigarette,
contemplates life. 

#336

After the cinema
couples in cars
exploring territories.

#335

And the ocean churned her soul,
brutally.
There is no world left.

#334

"Let's not do anything. It's safer."

"I want to engulf and insulate you from the storm."

Selima

Home : A Tropical Paradise

Some pictures that I took in our garden when I was home on holiday for two months this summer. 

Solitary Transmission Vol. 2

"We live as we dream — alone..."

— Joseph Conrad, Heart Of Darkness

05 | 06 | 2013

 June 5th, 2013. Yup. That was a good day.

A Cold Dead Place

The reality we prepared for and the reality that we are made to face, the chasm between is too great. It is proper that we weep. But who has time enough to listen to our moans? 

It is a moribund world.

A Cold Lonely Place

I haven't done this in quite a while: storytelling through a series of photographs. A professor of mine once told me, "there is no other way of understanding poetry except by spending time with it. Never rush in. Linger in every word. Slow down." Slow down, he would say, every time we tried rushing through what we thought were unimportant or insignificant lines while reading Wordsworth. I think this technique of reading and understanding by lingering over the semi tangible medium can be applied in the cases of photographs and paintings as well, or in a broader sense 'art' in general. Of course the best part is always the open endedness, the ambiguity and the possibility of limitless interpretations that the 'forms' allow. 

Lilium

I loved you when you opened 

Like a lily to the heat

— Leonard Cohen

A Riddle Under The Stars

"he sank into the warmth of her and himself, when the nerves of his tongue passed over the invisible down of her skin, the different, goose-fleshed texture of her buttocks, when her weight was on the pelt of his chest, blinded and choked they were flung together, curved round each other like mythical creatures fixed in a medallion of the zodiac."

— Nadine Gordimer, My Son's Story

#325

And in the darkness of the summer night
they played their little game.
Keep eating, a voice moaned. 

#324

Sunset.
two people in love
watching the roads disappear in the rear-view mirror.

#323

Little by little
our bodies tattooed the room
with heavy scents. 

An Existential Dream

Laughter running wild in abandoned haciendas
strangers exposing their private dreams
moaning
the double echo penetrating their flesh
a pause and then silence
a moment
movements
the future arrives
two souls trapped in a game of endless waiting
kill themselves with the sound of the dying rupture

The windows open
the laughter escapes.

Venus In Furs

"I have always wanted to know a real dreamer some time - for the sake

of the change - and you seem one of the maddest of the tribe."

— Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch, Venus In Furs

#320

And then she said,
Lacerate my skin and devour my flesh.
Blind my eyes too. Love me immaculate.

The Roaring Twenties To The Fabulous Fifities

I got a bunch of posters printed out about a week ago. All that remains to be done now is to frame them and hang them. I'm turning my living room into cinema Zen space. 

After The Rain

"And rain will fall on our eaves."

— Jack Kerouac

Kamasutra And A Little Horror

I started out early and took the morning shuttle, which to my surprise was filled with Sunday church goers and arrived at Old Delhi station some fifteen minutes later. Train rides are interesting, it is all uncomfortable silence and cold stares. After four flights of escalators and a quick stop at the help desk I stepped outside and waited for a ride. As usual the taxi driver tried to pull a fast one on me in vain. They still think I'm a foreigner here. When will they learn? Ten minutes later I was maneuvering myself through the byzantine alleys of Old Delhi following the scent of old books and forgotten dreams.

I finally picked up a copy of Kamasutra, and just to kill time two Stephen King novels as well. A fiend of mine has been urging me to read Stephen King for months and I guess luck was on my side because I found these two orphaned books at a secondhand book stall at Daryaganj and decided to adopt them as well. 

August

"You have corrupted my imagination and inflamed my blood"

 

— Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Venus In Furs