To Avoo..

To You,
I met you on one of my long drives. I saw you by the road with red misty eyes. Your angelic face made me think about the greatest artist of all, God. You walked in grace, smiled with a pure heart. I asked you to join me in my journey. We travelled far and wide. We supported each other through lightning and storm. Many a times our dreams were tossed and blown, but we stuck with each other. Driving through the ice cold thunderstorm you made me warm. That was when I felt the warmth of your embrace for the first time. Like a desert that longed for that first drop of rain, tulips blossomed inside my mind. I fell in love with you. Truly, madly, deeply.
We slept in meadows, we bathed in the sea together, we watched sunrise and sunset. Time flew. Just like the snake that tempted Eve to taste the forbidden fruit I did something terrible. The auguries of innocence disappeared rapidly. The sky darkened and loud bursts of thunder propelled across the grey sky. I sat on the big grey rock watching you leave me. I sat in the cold rain longing for that warm embrace of yours. You turned around and looked at me. Your eyes were sore and red, and with a weak smile you waved good bye. I saw your love even then but even that did not stop you.
I am still sitting in that rock waiting for you. Searching for your fragrance in the breeze, searching for the taste of your lips in the rain.
I will slowly become a rock. A rock that will one day become the fountainhead of a building that stands for eternal love.

Vinay
My tombstone will read:: He died before he died.

Rebirth of John Keats..

I built a world of dreams,
In a land far far away,
With an angel who had deep blue eyes,
I saw my heaven in her eyes,
I felt comfort in her touch,
I heard music in her musings,
I tasted honey in her lips,
I loved her deeply like never before...

All through this i forgot,
I forgot to tell her how much she means to be,
My angel waited to hear these words from her,
She loves me at heart,
But she left me,
She flew off to an unknown land,
A land seven seas and seven mountains away,
I still wait here,
In my garden of love,
Waiting for my flowers to blossom,
Waiting for her to back,
If you happen to meet her,
Tell her, I am looking for her,
I want to be her oracle,
I want to be her temple,
I want to recite the matins for her,
I cant live without her..

Dead Man Walking..

Tears flowed down from eyes,
When i walked back along the woods,
She was my life,
And now i am a dead man walking,
They say you will never walk alone,
Listening to the chirping birds,
and the rustling winds,
I pray to my lord,
Please take me home,
Let me not live in this mortal frame of mine,
Let me be beside you,
In heaven or hell,
In land or water,
In time or over and above time,
Please take me away,
For life without her is....
Life without life...

Confused...

Life is like one of those loose threads these days. A loose unruly thread, fluttering in the wind out of an expensive dress. I am in the last lap of my IIT life. In another week I am out to the big bad world. I will miss the boulevards inside IIT, where many a dreams were tossed and blown away and many a dreams were born. There are times when i sit in my window and look at the distant lights of the city. I can see the local trains speeding through the elevated rail corridors. It is an extremely surreal sight. The nights when i have sat on my window watching the rain. These are simple uncomplicated moments which i will cherish for the rest of my life. While i am writing this with the sound of an old rumbling air conditioner behind me, I am going back in time to those moments in IIT that made me think.

I want to run away into the hills. Stay as far as possible from civilization. I want to live in a village...and be a humble farmer...But yes! a happy farmer...

In search of Heidi...

It has been a long journey. A journey that started in one small school in a rustic lil town ( i still prefer to call it like that) named Trivandrum. The small boy who dressed in clean white shirts and pressed shorts has grown up. High up in the picturesque mountains of Bethany his learning progressed. He grew up seeing piles and piles of clouds kissing the mountain tops. The torrential rains that made the trees swing heavily in the wind, the dark green sheen it gave to the plantain leaves and the muddy pools that it made in the ground. He cherished every moment of his growing up.

He enjoyed splashing the muddy water along with his pals after a rain. He enjoyed dirtying his crisp white shirt every evening. The boy was growing up. He thought how he was similar to Tom Sawyer and how much he wanted to paint the fences white. He longed for a friend like Huckleberry to exchange apples with.

The little boy hated girls. They made him shy. He never spoke to them in school. He always felt insecure with them. He still dreads the punishment his English teacher gave in 8th standard when he had to sit with girls. It was blasphemous. It goes against the oath of manhood.He was made to mix with a different species. He pitied himself, for his teacher and family had none for his latest misfortune.

He imagined being a space traveler going far in search of alternate source of fuel. He had dreams of defeating kings in a land seven hills and seven seas away to win the emperor's priceless collection of a 1000 Arabian horses.

He loved Heidi's house in the Alps. He always wanted to wake up in the small house in the mountains. Drink the fresh milk from the cows and go and play down in the meadows. He had one deep secret. He hated girls but he always wanted Heidi to be his friend.


He has grown up..He still wants to be Heidi's friend....

New Year madness

The train is zooming past the paddy fields and I am resting my head on the window sill so that I can feel the wind in my hair. These rails are taking me home, to the place I belong. Whenever I go back home, I take a deep breath and spread my hands. I take the warm crisp air inside me and it detoxifies me. The Butterfly changes into a caterpillar. In IIT Madras I am a post graduate student, someone who is ‘supposed to be old and mature’, but when the train halts at my home town I become the child again. A child who is fascinated by the small roads, the same people and the same old way of life, the lemonades, the coconut trees swaying in the wind, the protests and marches conducted by political parties, tea from a road side vendor. The list is endless and so is the pleasure.

Another year has gone by without much difficulty. Thank my guardian angels! This year is special because it has taught me a real lesson. A lesson on ‘Character’. I don’t know how to define what character of a person is, but it is something I have ignored all long. Life begins when sun rises. Life begins when darkness fades. Life begins when blissful ignorance is wiped out by curious questioning. Life begins….

Train tickets from Chennai to Trivandrum:: Rs. 500

Expenses in the train :: Rs. 100

Auto charge from station to home:: Rs. 20

The pleasure of detoxifying you and asking those important questions to yourself….PRICELESS…There are really some things that money cannot buy…

A Story stained in blood...and love...

When he opened his eyes, he found that the blood stains in his shirt were gone. He was wearing a milky white robe instead of the torn and battered black Versace T shirt. He looked for his blue back pack but it was not there. He panicked and searched for his automatic Kalashnikov. He couldn’t find it. Something is definitely wrong.

A zephyr brought with it some melodious music. He was never interested in music as a kid. But this time, he listened to it and felt a strange calmness. Something he had never felt till that moment in his life. For him life was a struggle. His voice was not heard anywhere and he pledged to himself that he will make the world hear his words once day. He thought, “I had a dream…..”

He realised that he was in a garden. A garden where many violets were smiling at him and the dew drops reflecting the light of the golden sun. The air was cold and crisp. He saw a small girl dressed in white running around which is so typical of children. She had a cherubic face and he realised that never before in his life he saw so much beauty in this world. There were many people around him in that garden. People with different skin colours, eating different cuisines, dressed in different costumes but all of them were happy. They were waving at each other, acknowledging each other and sharing a smile. It was a happy place.

People smiled at him, but he didn’t smile back. He never smiled back at people. The small girl was eating chocolate cake given by her mom and she brought for him a piece of the dark temptation.. Looking at that innocent face, he finally smiled. For the first time in his life, it was a smile that came from the bottom of his heart. He felt his heart becoming light and he felt free from the worries that plagued him for over 25 years.

He finished the chocolate cake and said “Thank You” in Urdu to the girl’s mother. She smiled and said, 'joy multiplies with sharing'. He left and the girl’s mother still had a smile lingering in her face. She thought about how she had died the day before in one of the 5 star hotels in South Mumbai. The stranger she had just shared the cake with had fired the AK 47 that killed her and her family.

An eye of eye and the whole world will be blind. Maybe this is the way God punishes the wrong . The terrorists lose their memory but the people killed by him, still remembers what he had done. They take their sweet revenge by being kind to him. It is their way of showing, my heart and my will is much stronger than your bullets. Your bullets can break my bone, it can pierce my flesh, your hatred can kill my mortal body but the innate goodness I have will always remain intact.

I have memories to cherish the happy moments i have lived..…but you will be a lost soul for ever... searching that eternal truth forever…

Dedicated to Mumbai…

Random Thoughts

I sat down on the rocky granite floor after walking for more than 20 minutes. I rested my head against folded legs. There was some music coming from the background. I let myself dissolve in the magical moment and I ceased to exist. All the problems, tensions, fights, anger, every possible emotion ceased to exist. There I was a kid, in a blank state of mind looking at every thing around with curiosity and intrigue. For a brief moment I had gone beyond the silly, stupid things that make me worry.(Visit Kapleshwar Temple,Mylapore Chennai)

Then I saw a small kid. She had a ‘murukku’ in her hand and her parents were sitting a few feet away from me. She was too young to walk but was trying hard to walk. She was crawling in the granite floor and at times trying to walk. She fell down many times, but always stood up again and tried again. I could see her eyes welling up for a second whenever she fell down. But in a split second she was back to being cheerful and radiated enormous amount of happiness.

It would be amazing to live life backwards. You rise from your grave and become alive again. Then gradually the aches and pain in your joints cease. The grey hair becomes ebony black. You are a middle aged man with a family to take care of. After sometime you are young and a carefree person who loves to hang out and date as many women as possible. You later become an adolescent with raging hormones who loves Che Guevara and motorcycles diaries. Time slowly passes and you become a small kid in the play school. Finally your life ends as an orgasm.

This is a much better way to live life.