Everybody Comes To Rick's (click image to enlarge)

jaune 2 (click image to enlarge)

jaune

The Yellow Umbrella is a pictogram that conveys the message 'under the shade of joy'.

the instrument

Sadhana (Sanskrit term) translates as 'means' to an end

Alternate caption : Let us be kind if fate isn't

I.D. (click image to enlarge)

EXPLODE!!!

How much longer will it wait,
the steam,
unless summoned away by a dying fire?

-feelers-

---they might know how you feel but they'll never know how deeply you feel---

'slippery' as in slapstick! (click image to enlarge)

the Wheels of Change 2 (click image to enlarge)

the Wheels of Change (click image to enlarge)

Renunciation

i
renounce the capitalization
of the first person.

...i have to say with utmost conviction that the world, after having witnessed all the genocides so far, needs no other philosophy or religion than the one that teaches the virtues of equality & tolerance...

CRAVINGS

My feet
are tingling to walk on the sands
that leave no footprints.

(inspired by Albert Camus' afterword to his book - the outsider)

mea culpa

there is a crack in the soul's mirror
-the past,
& all the while i thought it was just a smudge.

Blurred Visions

Embittered and weary,
i'm on the look out for a tower
from which my voice can be heard.

muteness

the evil
casts shadows in the dark.
the moonless sky trembles.

THUNDER!!! (click image to enlarge)

Under hypnosis

The truth,
and the lie,
are a part of reality.

the cliff

I stand on the edge
but something is holding me back
- is it the force of life?

Freedom

Outside the cage
the choices are mine,
the consequences are mine.

Vendetta

To put the horror in your eyes
and to revel
while you squirm.

Schadenfreude

To see the horror in your eyes
and to revel
while you squirm.

Identity

You are
What you were
& nobody cares what you will be.

(the emphasis is a trap; introspection is the way out, & then some adventure.)

Superstition
is ignorance and so is evil,
but on a higher plane

The season

Drawn
to the gravity of the speeding headlights
the wings, for one last time,
perform the ritual
-the dance of death.

Conscience

When you look into a mirror
would you stare into your eyes,
and nothing else?

Lamentation

Through the seasons & a thousand different colors - we travelled,
and all i have got for you my friend
is a handful of dust & some teardrops.

Consequence

Water ripples, in spite of their symbolic transience & (supposed) infantile circumstance, can have a profound effect on the overall countenance of a lake.

Without posterity there are no grand designs. (David Brooks)

It's for the future
that the present ticks
but to be trapped in the lure of the present is to perish in the same tense.

Darker

Life is a silhouette
& against death
contrasts.

Bibliophilic reflections

Its a well-laid misconception which states that people can find answers to their questions in books. Books just give random answers and the rest is introspection.

Ibex (click image to enlarge)

Crowned with a head that harbors a migraine,

I thank the heavens for my 46 chromosomes

- for I am neither of their ilk nor their fury.

Pebbles on a riverbed (or just rhetoric)

Evil is where good isn't, satan reigns where God fails - the vacuum merely denotes a lack of faith and to challenge His omnipresence is to brazenly entertain a paradox by submitting to blasphemous qualms (reference: "If God be for us, who can be against us." - Romans 8:31). On the other hand it is also true that the evolution of humanity (& mankind) has constantly been guided by the fear of God. Various religions through the formative ages have taught that the goal of self-actualization can be achieved by faith that is further branched out into their respective means like the path of chastity, the path of discipline, the path of redemption, the path of spirituality - to name a few.
And the only way out of human suffering is to place total conviction in secularism that subliminally teaches resilience through the path of unconditional love.

Refuge

'twas a great relief
that in his art
he unabashedly resigned his stoicism.

on possibility (click image to enlarge)

Karma (click image to enlarge)

blend in...(click image to enlarge)

The theory of free will (click image to enlarge)

Darwinism - the essence (click image to enlarge)

The wisdom of the capricorn

It's with the head that we reason,
it's with the heart that we desire;
to choose 'what overrides when'
- is to lock horns with destiny.

Final chronicle

I lost you
between yesterday & today,
between now & eternity.

I drag
the soulless frame with a nonchalance
dictated by those little moments
- when I lost perspective
of will & destiny,
of passion & reality.

I become a slave
to hope & memories
to time & its certainties.

The paradox of religion & blasphemy

Autumn dreams

I sip into the deep fountains

of soundlessness

- the headiest wine of all.

I rejoice

in the memories of spring,

memories that drift like an unleashed kite

near the foaming clouds.

I look beyond myself

into a voyage of discovery...

waiting to fly

with the mirth of the falling leaves.

Regret

- For all the things I wanted to say but could never say,

For all the things I wanted to do but could never do,

For all the things that came and passed by, but once;

And for each compromise there was regret

And for each regret there were some frozen moments. 

Evolution

And to whom shall Man be ape to:

a foreigner to our soil,

or to ape itself?

(pondering over Nietzsche's Ubermensch)

Shackles

Slaves don't have wings

and its such a shame
to be one by choice.

Remoteness - the heart still yearns for a glimpse

Thousands of miles away,
thousands of moments away,
thousands of memories away,
O' dear one.

Phoenix

To burn to cinders
in your simmering passion,
& to rise again
in the abode of your love.

Chagrin (Click image to enlarge)

Take your call (Click image to enlarge)

Foreplay - an allegory (Click image to enlarge)

The Egotist

He gloats
as he wanders
in the 'House of mirrors'.

Painting Green

Wailing in the shadows
Cast by the tree that bore no fruit,
Her eyes glimmer with the dream of the distant sands

That bore the footprints of Kokopelli.

(Kokopelli is a Native American fertilitiy deity)

You may say that I’m a dreamer

Fading with the miseries of uncertainty
And the horrors of gun-smoke,
Yet searching for hope gone astray
In the stench of the killing fields.

(Inspired by the original movie by Roland Joffe, title inspired by John Lennon’s song ‘Imagine’.)

To miss the last bus home... (Click image to enlarge)

The passing

He drifts across the stage, suspends midway
and gives a performance.
Some applaud,
others give a thumbs-down.
When time beckons
he scurries for the exit.

A discreet teardrop 
reflects the dance of spotlights.

Innocence

Little children
Tease the wrinkles and the plodding walking-stick,
Like a firefly
That mocks at pieces of a broken lamp.

Visitor (Click image to enlarge)

Sepia - II (Click image to enlarge)

Sepia - I (Click image to enlarge)

The Crossing (Click image to enlarge)

Minus the dimensions (Click image to enlarge)

In death there is no being or knowing,
In death - the endless nonexistence.

Voice of the world (Click image to enlarge)

(The story of the war, and thence history, is always told by the winners.)

For a few decibels more!

The crowd swings in a wild trance

Feigning tonight is their last chance,

Some just shake a leg and surrender

While others jive their passions to the thunder.

(Best wishes to Jags on his new venture)

My green valley

How far away is my green valley!

The day dismounts the sun-basked saddles,
Two or three flies buzz over a milk cauldron,
A lone woodpecker works on its chosen bark,
Supper signals from a distant chimney…

Memories of my green valley

The warmth of an old armchair,
The echo of rhythmic hoof-beats,
The fragrance of dust-blown lilies,
The sight of flickering lanterns…

Alive! (Click image to enlarge)

My country, my planet

Take people out of a country and with them will be flushed out the culture, the history & all the traditions. What will we be left with? There’d be no political ideals, no patriotic fervor, no religious pride, no senseless hedonism. All that remains is just plain geography (and its factors). Then what is that elusive misunderstood concept that we refer to as ‘my country’? It’s not the physical mass of land nor the waters and mountains, it’s just a sense of belonging, and an identity that we crave for and afraid of losing. No common good can ever happen or be imagined unless we expand our sense of pride to ‘my planet’.

Hyderabad blues

You know you are in Hyderabad when…

· The biryani in ur plate is equal to 3 square meals for other south-Indian counterparts,
· You find a Irani café at every street corner,
· Irani chai means ‘one by two’ (and the waiter asks if you want ‘samose’ or ‘biskit’ to go with it),
· You hire an auto-rickshaw and find either a Salman Khan (sporting a lousy hairstyle - from ‘Tere naam’) or a Shahrukh Khan poster staring at you,
· You can live in the city all your life without ever having to learn a single word of the regional language,
· ‘Paradise’ doesn’t relate to performance-enhancing pills, ‘Blue Sea’ is not about aquariums and ‘Pista House’ is not a place to shop for dry-fruits,
· You actually know the reason why the city can’t be rendered the sobriquet ‘Lake city’ (even Lord Buddha will vouch for the same reason),
· Yellow, red and green flags are passé, pink flags are in (for political reasons),
· While finding your way out of the labyrinths of old city always keep in mind never to ask for directions...because the direction to any place in the city means ‘seedha jaao’,
· The city wakes up somewhere between 8 and 9 in the morning,
· Your boss (if he’s a Hyderabadi) would never ask you why you are late because he’ll never be there to notice it,
· Like in any other Indian city you’ll find people speeding up the wrong side of the road, but if you gather the courage to question them they’ll retort with a three-syllabled profanity that starts with ‘M’ and rhymes with ‘bhevde’,
· Saturday nights are like any other nights,
· ‘Night life’ is widely misinterpreted…according to the locals it is thought to be a vague term loosely attached to define work culture in BPOs,
· You go to a multi-specialty hospital and observe that every other doctor on the panel has the surname ‘Reddy’,
· Pelvic thrusts and rigorous dance movements accompany popular drum beats, locally called ‘do maar’ and ‘teen maar’(down extreme south its fashionably called ‘kootthu’),
· You wonder if drinking beer (more beers are sold here than in any other Indian city) helps cultivate a care-free attitude – ‘beer peeo, bindaas ho jao’,
· The usage of the ‘M’ word (mentioned above) is assumed to be cooler than the usage of the ‘F’ word,
· The DJs suck here…particularly if you are a big fan of pop, rock or hip-hop,
· Marine drive minus the sea and buzz is Necklace road,
· Looking at burqha-clad women is immoral, staring at them is criminal, winking at them is fatal,
· Loitering in the ‘Lamba’ theatre campus is considered lecherous but watching internet porn in your drawing room is fine (after all ‘We are all part of the same hypocrisy' )
· Due to inadequately publicized tourist spots most locals would stare at foreigners as if they are from a different planet,
· You realize you don’t have to stay in this city for too long to fall in love with it.

Wishful thinking

It’s such a blatant paradox
That as a child we just can’t wait to grow up
And as an adult we long to be a child again,
But never to learn to revel in the present moment.

Suspended beliefs (Click image to enlarge)

Profile of a 'Yes-Man'

Part 1
I resign my soul,
My identity and my wings of freedom
Only to be sucked into a sugar-coated flytrap.
Conformity, unquestioned, is suicide.

Part2
Scared of their own shadows,
Haunted by the acrid smell of fear,
Subdued voices, surrendered minds & misled lives
- Welcome to the world of conformists.

(Too far removed from his own identity a conformist is like a bastard, always afraid of his past and, predominantly, of himself.)

Madness (Click image to enlarge)

...the pessimism streak continues.

Coffee (Click image to enlarge)

Crossroads (Click image to enlarge)

(In a rather cheerless way this post relates to ‘The metaphor’, posted May 31st, 2007…but taking the wrong bus is better than missing the last one home. What's ur take?)

Joy (Click image to enlarge)

Oh, this is the joy of the rose:

That it blows,

And goes. (Willa Cather)

Frozen (Click image to enlarge)

Now and forever (Click image to enlarge)

Longing (Click image to enlarge)

The metaphor (Click image to enlarge)

(The 'metaphor' is similar to the essence of the post 'Final colors' dated 24th May '07)

Mediocrity has its way, and so does gibberish!

The so called ‘creative’ clowns of the Indian ad-houses are sporting a field day with a conceited attitude that they can get away with anything more degenerating than slapstick because they presume their audience to be fuzzyheaded morons who waste their time wagging to the heavy-duty emotions of tearjerky soaps and “pre-scripted”, and yet, very lucrative talent shows. Keeping all the prejudices apart, the producers of such programs are happy that they are offering the public what is demanded of them, and the current trend of the falling TRP ratings speak a lot about such ‘public demand’.
Debating about the hackneyed path that Indian advertising is treading these days, we can observe that as we flip channels across the tubespace we jump into some stupid commercials that make us wonder why the ad-makers are grossly underestimating the acumen of the average Indian viewer. On one hand there is the commercial of an ITC-launched snack brand that portrays a stereotypical lungi-clad, charcoal-smeared guest playing puppet to the strongly syllabled usage of a South-Indian language, and on the murkier side is a veteran TV-actress who repeatedly stretches a piece of lingerie to prove its super-elasticity (she comes on as if she suffers from a strange kind of fetishism). I guess, on a meagre shoestring budget, even a municipal school team can come up with better, fresher ideas.

Gibberish should stay where it belongs...in the drains.

- Sunil D'pudi

From the inside (Click image to enlarge)

(The poem's last line is inspired by the title of John Mellencamp's song 'Rain on the scarecrow'.)

Final colors (Click image to enlarge)

The truth (Click image to enlarge)

Blues (Click image to enlarge)

Color Purple (Click image to enlarge)

What's your kind of humor? (Click image to enlarge)

The Maverick (Click image to enlarge)