Remember the failed attempt at writing that book I told you about? This was a part of it.

There is this land of another time
Where birds and bells in harmony chime.
Lush grass of royal gren.
Higher trees than ever seen.
Never a kinder day was found,
But at night things turned around.
Trees drooped down as if to crush,
The blanket of a sinister hush.
Rocks which in day gave the weary rest,
Unwelcoming with jagged crests.
It wasn't just the time for the bird of prey,
Every sparrow and fledgling simply turned its way.
The playful twitter turned into a shriek,
The bubbling brook into a gnarled creek.
It was as if the hours had set,
During the day the good would dwell,
But at night don't venture around
As all dark is set unbound
And I don't talk of hunters alone.
Despite the brightest moon which shone,
(Infact, I am sure you'd rather not see
Whatever is out to play with thee)
So hear the woods sing their song
To bring back the long gone.
Maybe they will one day return
And give the day a better turn.

It's okay. I wrote it long back, you know. It sounds kinda lame now :).

The Letter

Cleaning the cupboard
In the house we shared.
Cleaning out the things
For which I never cared.

A rusted pin, a broken pen,
A reciept of the laundry
And suddenly I discovered
A letter that you sent me.

It spoke of things I remember not,
You wrote when you were far away,
Of things long past which I forgot,
But I remember now, I remember that day.

You talked of wonders that you saw.
You wrote of things all new.
I kept it in the box full of others.
Now these are the cherished few.

A few days later I got another
And this would be the last.
It was from a lawyer saying
That you had died in the blast.

He offered me solace,
He said he understood,
But I listened to none
For I knew he never would.

I was sad. I was dead,
I was just quiet.
Forgetting you was not easy
Even though I did try it.

But that is all past and gone,
Though you shall never be
And I burn this letter hoping you'll get it
And maybe will remember me.

Bang, poof, and then some.

Back with a bang. But won't last this time either. Exams next week. Exams are so like natural calamities. Can't stop them. All you can really do is stock up food and wait for it all to blow over.
Well, I really have been missing posting things for a long time now, but... '12th standard' is so self explanatory. You might be interested in knowing that I haven't been idle in all this time. Far from it. Won some, lost some, what matters is participation after all. Have not precisely done much concrete reading. I am not counting Anna Karenina. You know, it really isn't as bad as people might have you believe. Sure, there isn't much that compels one to read it till the end, but it isn't like it can't be done. Admittedly, the parts about Anna's life are not... well... but Levin's story is genuinely interesting. His reactons and opinions on things, political, social and agrarian, are very worthy of thought. I might not agree with him, which I don't on various accounts, but it is still one way of seeing things.
Other than that, I read my first Segal (I know, about time). Prizes. Nice. Really nice.
I have also tried writing a book. Didn't like the way it was going. Mission aborted. I am currently on my second attempt. Hmmm... it is going... okay, I guess.
Also, I am on my path to rediscovering my taste for pizza.
Written two plays. Both were... well. In all fairness, the scripts were actually good. The execution is a very different aspect.
Have of late become very interested in the UFT. I am largely considered to have lost it beyond any help.
The education system, atleast the one here, quite defies its very purpose, don't you think. Why is there this unspoken law which ropes out half the school library to 2/3rds of the students? But let's not start on this. I find it much to maddening to talk of it politely for long.
Under consideration is a new blog in partnership with Cz. Let's see how things work out for that.
I shall try to keep this up for as long as I can, but I really can make no promises.
Till later then,
Ciao.

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?