Lost in the lonely lanes

During a super short visit this time to Lucknow, opened my library at home today. The library, which has over 2000 books, collected since I was age 10, arranged with every possible care, each book read so many times, and I still remember each one of those, in every possible way. Each time, I'd enter the room, open some particular shelf, and I'd know where lies the piece that wishes to talk to me in that moment.

And yet, today, something strange is happening. I am trying to find some favorites and there is not a trace anywhere. I have scanned three thick collections over and over again but there is no trace, no recall, no clue of any sort. I'm not sure if I am unhappy, sad, pensive, lost, dejected, or .....!

And it happens often now... I think I know where have I kept those things but they are nowhere to be found. I think I know where that piece of poem was but there is no rhyme that meets that stuck and forgotten verse. I think I knew these roads and city and streets and places but I keep searching for familiar corners sans a resemblance. I think I know where I had left those people but they are not there either.

Seems that for all those things, poems, places, people - I remained waiting there for far too long and all of them moved on, leaving me behind without a trace, no recall, no clue!!

अजीब शख्स है नाराज़ हो के हँसता है

It's quarter to one in the night and I am in bed to sleep. I suddenly recalled something - and now I've forgotten that too - and I laughed. It was something ironic, something tragic, something very difficult... And yet, I laughed.

Well, not the first time... I remember those exam days, when I would be totally flabbergasted and thereafter, would laugh a lot. Everyone in the exam hall would be more flabbergasted though and thought of me as a genius to laugh at such a difficult exam. I wasn't but that is what they thought.

What was I laughing at? The exam? No! The situation? No! The irony? No! Myself? No!

Well, I laughed at the constant irony of finding myself in the exam like situations, where I would be totally helpless. I laughed at my helplessness. Because that is one feeling I hate. I hate being helpless truly, deeply, madly.

Just for your information, these days, I laugh a lot!!!

Warped in a time-warp

10th day since reaching back the place which is designated as home. While the space is altered and reached, the time zone is warped somewhere in between. So I am regularly getting up at around 4.30 before the break of dawn. So I am routinely feeling sleepy in the afternoons by dusk.

But the jetlag has brought something more interesting and perhaps, nostalgically beautiful. As I got up so early daily, I either roamed around the house doing random cleanups or just sat out in the balcony, like right now. The morning breeze - cold, soft, and fresh - took me back to the days when I got up so early by choice. When I was in Lucknow, I'd get up at 4.30 and leave by 5 for a walk on the Gomti banks, in Rumi Park, or the stadium.

The same gentle and cold breeze with the same smell caressed me back then too. Just that, I was walking or running back then, not lazily sitting in a chair, writing a blog post which probably three people (including myself) will ever read.

Nonetheless, I am happy, for a change, to regain a chip of that nostalgia. Someone used to call me a long-term optimist. And here I am - finding joys of jetlags.

The life of Sisyphus

What would one do, when he is stuck in an alien country in a distant continent with no work, nearly non-functional internet, inclement weather, little inclination to read, and people one doesn't identify with anymore?

Wait!! Why does this sound so much like the usual life over the past few months? Ok, well, there is work but rest of that...?!!

Visiting New York with two friends-cum-colleagues for a conference. Weather has been harsh, conference has been boring, willingness to go on tours has been shaky, and energy to survive people even less.

Still about three days remain to reach the place called home. Although the willingness to run away from New York has been high, I don't know if I have craved for the return. Surviving one day at a time has become the norm. Constantly longing to be somewhere else, constantly willing to be someone else, and constantly wishing to be sometime else.

I wish if it was possible to just get lost or just hide. If it was possible to choose the company I keep or to change it to no company at all. I wish it was possible to be with those whom I wish to be with rather than those which social norms ask for. I wish it was as easy to avail as it is to write.

Someone in the hall just played the lines:

न उम्र की सीमा हो न जन्म का हो बन्धन...

फिर कुछ इस दिल को बेकरारी है...

For some days now, I am thinking of starting a poetry vlog.

Yes, yes... I know you remember all those dead, failed, or shut blogs. There were two on economics and public policy but I made those too rigorous and eventually, deleted them. Then there was one with my poetry but it became too popular and I deleted that too. The photo blog ran for, maybe 10 years and although tiresome, I still had a lot to post there. But then, I made a commitment - the next post there would be when we start a proper temple at Ram Janmbhoomi in Ayodhya. There was at least one more blog lost deeper in the memory lane.

But as always, this time, it's different. First of all, there are too many things to say to too many people in too many ways... And as you know, too many bridges are burnt now. So maybe, a bridge here, a step there will do the trick.

Also, it will be a video log (therefore called vlog) this time. There's a lot of my poetry, which I want to recite. And there is a lot of back story and context with each one of those. Somehow, you know, writing has been tedious and perpetually delayed lately. I hope it goes easier in video than writing. Another reason of video instead of writing is that I write mostly in Nazm (equivalent to free verse). While ghazal has a meter and therefore, rhythm of its own, nazm requires a rendition.

So the thought is bubbling and maturing in my head slowly. And as always, I'm running short of time because of all the other nothings I have occupied myself with. But this time, I hope to be vlogging better than blogging earlier.

Alone!

Had a dream last dawn... or was it the same old nightmare? That I was to meet all the old friends... Old as in friends from primary school days! 3 people particularly - and none of them identifies me, none of them has any recollection of me, none of them is friends with me.

And that may all be true for today but it was a dream... (or was it the same old nightmare?). And that all happened in the past. I am alone today. And I was alone in that past of that dream too.

I was feverish, I sweated, and I woke up. Disoriented. I tried closing my eyes, tried telling those friends that I am me, tried recounting everything, tried recalling others (and perhaps they also evaded my memory).

I don't know why I see the same dream (or was it the same old nightmare?) again and again, where I am so alone in the past also. It's not that that I am any less alone now. But yes, nostalgia and past used to be a safe place. Where I was happy. Where I had friends. Where the time belonged to me.

Now, in that dream (or was it the same old nightmare?), I am alone in the past too.

You know I have given up!

A.S. - There is no You. There is no Me. This you I am conversing with is me only. I know I am in a lonely place.

You would have noticed that I have not been writing lately. You would know about both the blogs being nearly dead probably but I have not been writing even elsewhere too. I have not written in my diary, I have not completed those morsels of poetry, and I have not even written on Quora or Facebook as such. I have not even written where the expectation was the highest - research papers. I have simply given up on writing, you may think. Maybe yes! But have I given up on writing alone, you may wonder!

I will tell you something today. I have given up on writing and I have given up on poetry. I have given up on photography and I have given up on traveling. I have given up on thinking and I have given up on living. I am just scraping through - counting days, breathing sighs, paying for my sins done or coming, and I am just waiting for the day when it all ends.

Someone reminded me of an old post here - about suicide! Well, suicide is a cowardice and suicide is a bravery. Am I coward or brave, you may wonder. Well, you know I am neither. I am not coward because I loved and fought for it. I am not brave because I loved and couldn't fight for it. Yet, I always fascinated about life, death, suicide, and standing on the peak of the crag of life, waiting to fall in the abyss.

And while I stand there, seeing all my life flash through, and more life passing by as I disinterestedly live on, I never thought it would be so heavy. The weight of one's own existence, the weight of a double life, the weight of living...!!!

Do you feel irritated now?
Do you want more words?
Do you still want to read on?

I am sorry but I can't help. You know I have given up.
Can I interest you in a song instead?
Go listen to Leonard Cohen -

**If I, if I have been unkind,
I hope that you can just let it go by.
If I, if I have been untrue
I hope you know it was never to you.
Like a baby, stillborn,
Like a beast with his horn
I have torn everyone who reached out for me.**