The Last Eleven Years

The C.J.M. Chronicles...

Sigh!
Sigh!
Sigh!
 Weird how this syllable can be uttered in despair and nostalgia too (sometimes, even when you eye a particularly striking guy, but that is besides the point). In this case, it is mainly of nostalgia. I won't say that I couldn't live without the time I tripped on a bag-strap and fell in front of the entire school or when a teacher considered me holding a short-put as a potential threat, but hey, we all have had to be embarrassed sometime or the other (more or less). All those incidents did teach us how to get up after every fall, pretend to be not hurt, and fall again the next second on some smart Alec's foot. We also learnt how to say “Give me those marks before I reduce you to a splattered watermelon” in ten different accents. And, of course, we most importantly learnt how we aren't “a sack of potatoes, nincompoops, a bunch of morons, lousy louts, pathetic dunderheads” and so on, my memory fails me any further. We learnt five ways to sneak past the princi.s office, twenty-five places perfect to bunk (though I, very honestly, used none), six ways to say “please” to the canteen-guy to give us free food and various tricks to hide whatever-it-may-be in wherever-it-may-be and the list is far from ending and steadily growing. We have much of our seniors legacy to be thankful to and I am sure that our juniors shall too, for we strive each day to squiggle out of situations we caused, however unintentionally. But you see, what happened in the process? We did, indirectly, boost our confidence, learn to speak out (I hear screams and guffaws of laughter as I write) and fill our heads with spider-webs (minus the spiders) and fluff, but then, at least the aren't empty anymore! But really, I might complain, I may curse, but had I the option to do it all over again, like in 1996, I would do it all over again.

Hail Seth

I read a poem by Vikram Seth, perhaps you have read it, The Frog and The Nightingale. Fun. That's when I realised how I've never tried my hand at the kiddish kind of poetry. Well, I did and I liked what I wrote.

A Ghost from World War I

There once lived a billy goat
Grazing on the banks of a moat.
The poor thing was a bit cock-eyed
As his tail caught fire once and he nearly died.
Now it was only slightly charred
And his vision occasionally marred.

One day, during his evening chow,
He came across a moaning cow.
Billy asked him "What's up, buddy?
How did you come to be so muddy?"

The cow started on a blood-stained tale,
With bomb-blasts ans gun-shots, Billy went rather pale.
The cow ended saying "It was the World War I"
"But the last was II and then there have been none"
"Well, that is the thing that saddens me most.
You see, I am no more, I am just a ghost."

Cool, right? I smile every time I read it. Okay, I am being called. Gotta dash.
Ciao.

Well, my exams ended and the aftermath left me thinking about the more morbid aspects of life and the all together absence of it. I wrote a little something...

Will Someone Please Turn On the Lights?
Have you ever realised how insignificant life is? One day it is there, the other it is gone and the world doesn't care unless it is its own. Weird, isn't it, how the people who are intent on hanging on to life forever are the ones who lose it first, perhaps in the efforts of ensuring their eternity itself. The ones who don't wish to die, life is stolen ruthlessly from them. Maybe it is the same life that is mercilessly given to the people who wish for nothing more but to die.
Entire life. We don't think, like jackasses, and suddenly we stop. Look back? No, ahead. Much ahead. We look and try to imagine. The sad thing is we still don't think. Frightened, we turn away, resolving never to look again but we know; who are we kidding. We certainly do look again. Infact, the only time we stop looking is when we needn't seek any further. Curiosity killed the cat. The irony is that what the cat was curious was, after all, death.
Suddenly the world seems a darker place. Hollow. Empty. Meaningless. Outrageously hilarious. We struggle through all the trash life gives us and we still love life. Either all of us are comedians in our own different ways, or are simply insane.

So, how's that? Nearly there, right?