Pen pals and postcards.

For the first time in the last seven years did I skip an end-of-the-year post. Perhaps it's one of the first changes that 2015 decided to bring along, but hey, for those who are still listening- the happiest new year, my wonderful humans.
My old readers wouldn't be surprised to hear about my perpetual incapability of recalling the year that went by, but like each year- it left behind a feeling. 2014 was a year where I really brought my game on as far as competing with myself is concerned, it burned me out emotionally and physically but I feel like it straightened me out in ways that wouldn't have been possible in any other way. I had never realized the kind of distress love could bring, so there, that's one more thing I've seen- the realization that love has a side that could be immensely futile was perhaps the scariest realization of mine in the last 20 years, but I think I'm alright knowing that now.

2015 is going to be a year of aggressive amounts of getting work done. Yes, it's the year to be ridiculously productive. It's the year where I'm going to push myself to start laughing my ass off on nonsense again, of going on multiple breakfasts to my favorite cafe and read or doodle for hours. I think I sort of lost that 'spunk' somewhere. I think I lost it in trying to find it in other people, or even some times believing that others will induce that magic in me at some point. Mistakes. A whole lot of Berlin-Artparasites and long nights of Bukowski did me well, for they reminded me of the importance of being ridiculous. So basically this winter has too many solo escapades around the city as soon as my Uni applications are done (if I survive them, that is).

From the 2015 Letter Project :)

I've started this new project of sort for 2015. I've been typing letters on my typewriter and sending them out to people, just because. I feel like the lost art of letter writing is a horrible loss, and if sending out a letter to someone nudges them to start writing them once again- it's definitely worth the shot. So I have a long list of recipients and I'm terribly excited about this! If everything works out alright, I may even extend this project to you fantastic readers. I thrive for wonderful things like pen pals and postcards, so this year is about reviving those old habits.

How have you all been? Tell me about your year and plans that drive you. I wish you all the most wonderful year, go badshit crazy and make this the most memorable 12 months that change you, that make you grow and make you thrive. It's a wonderful life, and that's a cliche for a reason.

To those of you who emailed me wondering if I'm still alive- you guys are the best. I'll get back to you all real soon. Go make wonderful things happen for yourself, keep the happy vibes alright? :)

All my love,
Nil.

(P.s- fiction coming up, realy sooooooon.)

We underestimate how places feel about people.

We underestimate how places feel about people. We forget the angles we left our chairs turned to, when we left the office- those chairs carried on our conversations about the files due Monday and Mrs. Preisley's date with Jerry last Friday. Apparently she found a ring in her glass of wine and spilled the drink on poor Jerry's face, only to realize the waiter delivered it to the wrong table. The ring in the glass had developed a severe crush on the wine's taste and didn't quite appreciate the perpetual smell of cabbage on the fingers of where it finally sat encircled.

We really do underestimate how places feel about people. This world has an arrogant charm of its own; it makes us feel very...small. Showing us surreal escapades of people around us and foxily hiding away the transience of it all. The world feeds on one momentary pleasure a time with each trampled heart that seeks validation of atleast ten people around him. He doesn't even realize how many times those ten people use the word 'I' in a day and doesn't consider the quiet corners of his humble bedroom sheltering his crunched up balls of paper which reek of a forgotten dream saying "I will".
He forgets the first time he learned to eat noodles with chopsticks without spilling some on the white rug, he forgets when his mom walked into him masturbating in bed when he was 14- he forgets his room saw him in a black suit for his first funeral, he forgets his room saw him stark naked with a bowl of grapes right below his stomach watching television. He forgets how many times the reflection of his lean body flashed by or stayed on the mirror, catching his eyes look unamused, his hair disheveled or his lips chapped.
He remembers to hide in his room but he forgets he doesn't hide from it.

It's really not just him, we do underestimate how places feel about people.

He spends atleast 6 hours every night pushed against his white pillows, so intimate as if trying to hear truths about his souls and demons through its soft bumps and depressions. He abandons it each morning and doesn't consider the angst of the cushion when he climbs out of bed, not so much as gives a second glance back. The pillow lies dejected  and used like a stagnant walk of shame after an intoxicated Saint Peter's night.

He doesn't hear the girl next to him hum to the song blasting from the bus radio because he spends the entire journey trying to move both his ears without changing his facial expression. He found the song foolish and mainstream Bollywood and decided the chronicles of his ear and their movement was an idea worthy of exploration. Once he left his seat at his stop, his seat lay unmoved and cold devoid the warmth of a human rear; "Cold soul"; the seat remarked, the universe agreed. The girl next to it kept humming.

We underestimate how places feel about people. Swearing and elbowing through our days, cutting lines, falling asleep in metros, getting over hangovers by staying drunk; objects and spaces remain lifeless to us, coping with our incorrigible  narcissism of only taking humans seriously. The universe cracks up at that every time.

Shy sunbathed corridors, tucked away backyard gardens with pumpkins growing in them, the rays of light through glass windows in empty college lecture halls, confetti and shiny wrapping paper balled into garbage cans after a birthday party; we arrogantly forget to notice the details of our everydays because we can only hear ourselves breathe and rely on empty critiques of people we want to believe know us too well.

Imagining what spaces we exist in every single day of our lives would say about us? "Now there's a ridiculous thought", said every human ever.

_________________________________________________________

How've you pumpkins been? :)
Love,
Nil. 

Dear Blogger,

I think Blogger is the easiest way to really see what and who you've turned into from what you were. It's the easiest way of forgetting people you met here and meeting people you never knew.
I have been blogging for the last seven years. That's a big number for me because youth often underestimates the potentiality of big numbers. The concept of 'long run' is often not so long and sometimes arrogantly short sighted.

In the last seven years of blogging, I remember deleting just one post in 2009. Apart from that, whatever I wrote was as good as set on stone because irrespective of the horrible grammar and the strange SMS language that was a fad once, I had no regrets about the person I used to be. In fact, it used to be amusing and at some level comforting. I was a good kid, and I think I managed to grow into a decent-ish human being. But a few days back I did delete a whole lot of posts from the oldest of chests on this blog (2008). I reverted them back to drafts; not because I was embarrassed by what a ridiculously hyper, unabashedly emotional teenager I was. I deleted those posts because I couldn't relate to them anymore. Perhaps sudden minutes of retrospect dab figments of epiphanies in you. Perhaps it was like that one fine day you wake up and decide to quit your job because you forgot why you started working in the first place.
It just had to be done.

You see, back when I wrote them, Blogger was an entirely different world. My list of Followers and Followings were this intimate circle where we trusted absolute strangers with our potent feelings about everything. Back then it was 'milestones' like the first day of my higher secondary schooling, or the longest spell of crush on a boy. For others it was family, work, and much bigger milestones. Some of these people became the kinds of friends who till date keep in touch and genuinely matter. I remember being the baby of the blogger circle.
It was absolutely beautiful how a bunch of URLs could mean so much to people who perhaps lived in different cities/ countries and yet knew overwhelmingly enough about each other.

But eventually over the years, everyone got busy. People moved. People moved on, too. A lot of the blogs I used to religiously follow are now not accessible anymore because they've either turned private or the last time they were updated was two or three years back.
I sure do miss those guys. They were good people and I hope they're all in good health.

I've had years like 2011 when I'd write so often that drafts over drafts piled on my dashboard, waiting to be published. I've had years like 2013 where I had so much to write that words failed me, and all I could manage was crawl up to 13 posts in a year. I've zoned out and zoned in, I've had painful spells of writers block and even worse spells of sheer laziness. But I kept coming back here. Because somehow I knew that somebody would be listening. And if it was a lucky day, somebody would be waiting.

 I have to admit, Blogger still surprises me. In waves of blue moons, once in a while I see old blogger friends leave a comment on a post when I least expect it. Even today, I bump into wonderful blogs of people I want to know better because their words make a lot of sense, they hit home. I'm thankful for such people sustaining the art and the need of writing. Some times I come so close to deleting this blog, but I think I've seen myself and others grow too much in this space to give it all away. Like I said, seven years is a big number for me.

So to all of you who are still writing, to all of you who stopped writing, and most importantly to all of you who never stopped reading- this is a sincere white flag for all of you, to let you know that our boat is still sailing and the ocean still looks just as beautiful. The air is thick with salt, but the words don't fail to come out in sneezes. :)

Cheers, Blogger. You've been a good listener.

All my loving,
Nil. 

Elijah.

Like a sudden raspy slap of the coldest swirl of air- her face haunted me, displacing each an every element of stability within me. My flesh grew pale, though the blood within never felt warmer. It was like a sudden rude grip by unnaturally long fingers around my neck, I do not understand how a face can be so hauntingly beautiful. It ruined me for life.
Her brows stayed home, though the lingering questions escaped the chilly calm on her face with just a tinge of a smile. I refuse to understand how her body, so white like a possessed corpse could seem so alive with the unabashed inactivity in her character- by just standing there with those piercing eyes, she was ruling my existence. If moments could bleed, this would be it. 

Her lank poker straight hair plastered the contours of her oval face like a wedding ring too tight for a finger. The streetlamp on top of her head made a halo of her frail figure that stood too strong, too tall to go unnoticed in the nocturnal camouflage of the snoring night. She was the literary equivalent of star dust, she said.  
Somewhere in the throbbing veins of her hand, I heard a universe call and somehow I believed it really did exist.

Ghosts, spirits, demons and angels seemed like myths of the past that crawled away, intimidated by this Mother of Zeus- if we were all to be thin air, she would be chariot swirling the sky.
So harshly real, emitting a flow-charted insanity of sort- I was left crippled, impotent- a wounded soldier whose words were slashed by hers even before I could conjure a thought. 

Nationalities, religions, myths and epics failed to define her aura that was like a walking aurora in the middle of a battlefield with bleeding men and parts of scattered limbs around dynamites. Her presence was so raw, that you lament over the inexplicable reality of her tenderness.

She churned my insides in a way that would set the democracy of my ideas on fire and would establish the anarchy of my emotions.   

And yet what I felt was the casually tossed idea of wanting to die because you were just that happy. And perhaps, right then I realized the original difference between happiness and elation.
I felt the pores of my flesh, the pores of my soul, the pores of my eyes widen up like open gashes of wounds and found healing in the nakedness of my armors- armors of my flesh, armors of my soul and the armors of my eyes.

I stood right there, once the moment had ended, and the sprinkles of its blood shone in the creases of my fingers. The bones of her haunt made a moment bleed, which is now. 

_____________________________________________________________________

Something I wrote for the Poetry Slams I've been doing the past few months. You guys are beautiful, to have stuck around :)
I'll be back soon, I just can't tell when.

-After a long time,
Nil.

Her Maddening Delight.

Anne said, the easiest way to fall back in love was the same reason she usually fell out of it. Her eroticism for a breath away, alone, aloof. Her territory, her sacred perch of yellow afternoons, the sound of her ankle rubbing the brown leather couch, or the rings left on the coffee table from the abruptly abandoned cuppas or glasses of whiskey and water.

Her mind was frustratingly similar to that of every book she read, of every spider she chased, of every thread she pulled off the seams of her white sweater. Her mind was everything around her, and so it shifted, as she kept arranging her living room over and over again. Put the lid on the pot back, shut the drapes and opened them again, pulled in the rug, re arranged the wine glasses, shut the drapes, and.. pulled out the rug, again. 
Her mind shifted. She was like the tip that dances round and around on a poly disk. Except her song had all kinds of lyrics, and was her own.

Her last lover; James, was a simple man. Above average intelligence, didn't look to sour and fell short of the need for affection. So he was your average Joe, every third man you walk by in the city. Anne and James took long walks by 5th avenue, they made love almost every night before the night was midnight old, and they went for brunch every Friday to Rose Cafe. It was quite a pleasant companionship if you must only read my narration, but James felt lesser and lesser the man of Anne's heart and more and more the man of her habit. 
The long walks along 5th avenue felt like aimless wandering; amusement lying in the sky, the trees, the birds, the buildings; save among each other, save the pointless fingers entangled almost as if to let their fingers practice bending, curving.. The love they made was a tiring physical act, and yet the steam blew away oh so long long back, perhaps last new year's eve. And brunches at Rose Cafe being the corner of the cafe, table for two, where the menus weren't consulted and salad on number 4 and the steak on number 9 were ordered, or actually nodded to the waiter. 

One fine February afternoon whilst walking barefoot at the park, James told Anne,  "..but my dear Annabelle, do my words even reach you? You seem to enjoy silence much more, than my wonder about your day", to which Anne frowned, after a deep thought that lasted as long as dry sugar on top of hot coffee she said; "Your words are going over my head.. And I'm not even going to look up, to catch those thoughts, my love."

And with that, she turned around and walked along. Leaving James and his words hanging in air, and her brown oxfords on the grass. 


That wasn't only poor James's story, but also of Keith, Gilderoy, Kevin and Simon. All these eligible bachelors wore their hearts on their sleeves and stuck a rose in between their teeth, all for beautiful Anne. But she wasn't too swept by those careless and careful charms. Her feet only pushed the ground beneath harder as she walked around the city, buying cups of fresh strawberries and cones of vanilla, and spending lovely solitary evenings at the city library all by her pleased self, every Sunday.  It was like she was her own maid of honor. 

And during one of those days in the week itself, could be a Monday or a Thursday; Anne would find a Harry, or a Billand and would high tea over Schubert and Bach. They would muse over Donatello's shadow relief sculpture and and Titian's vivid landscape. There would be easy indulgence, which would almost feel too convenient to be romantic.. but they'd meet over brunch or tea another Tuesday, anyway.  Two out of three times, the Tuesday would go lovely. Maybe even proceed to one of their living rooms. But one out of three times, the Tuesday would proceed to one of their bedrooms, and that right there, would be the glitch in the day, following weeks, and ending within a few months. 

Fleeting. She was a fleeting, hungry soul who looked ravishing in her eventual indifference to most people and her sudden (almost abrupt) endearment to objects and people. Ideally, such a girl must be one with a cat, but her petite sniffs and sneezes would drive away any fur around the cornucopia of her mind and home. 

But finally, there came Ruth. Anne met her at the porch of the house opposite hers. Picking up the delicious looking clear bottles of milk, while Anne couldn't decide which one of the two had a better figure.
Did her heart just skip a beat? Uh Oh.

Oh, their days together were ravenous. Walking with a skip in their beat and dancing skirts hovering high around their skirts, the two women slid their arms around the curves of each other's waists, thoroughly enjoying the boldness of each curve and drinking in kisses in the middle of daylight. Devastatingly in love, they celebrated the terrains of the other's body like it was an unfamiliar site and touch; outlining the pouts of their crimson lips, and tangled curls receding into hurried buns. 
It was delightful, absurd and absolutely horrifying. And for the first time in her life, Anne did not want to rid herself of another depression on the pillow by her side, every morning. 

In such perfection, there was no sense of humbleness. Anne and Ruth were atrocious and misbehaved women madly in love, and they vowed to never stop. No longer did Anne worry about the mundane; for her, every day was a red card of unruly behavior on apparent moral grounds of most people, which kept her entertained and affirmed and reaffirmed that she was alive, and very much.. at home. 

And with that feeling so omnipresent in her heart, Ruth left. 
Just like that. As abruptly as her heart skipped a beat one day; just as abruptly as the first hint of pressured transparent cursive on a paper that follow the blue, that disappeared with the ink getting over. 

Anne didn't try to look for her. Because she found a note on her side of the bed which read; 


"..we were all once young and wild in love, taking leaps of faith which eventually turned out to be a reckless desperation to feel real, and finally ended with revenge in the name of separation."

Ruth was James's sister. 

__________________________________________________________________________

(because I was pissed off with section 377. Come at me, bruh.)
There you go, fiction roll, unrolled. (:
Much love,
Nil. 

Musings of the last 31st.

Greetings, to the participants of the last day of 2013.

There you go, another year about to disappear into the winter sky and here I am, with my annual musings on the 365th day of the year.
And as usual, I'm frozen because I have nothing to write. That doesn't suspend the countless ups and downs that '13 went down with; it's my annual incapability to recall the year. All I can recall is a feeling. And it was perhaps.. not the most shiny year. But then again, my years have the principle of bipolarity that has to always be maintained. Thus, some the worst things along with the absolute best happened.

Although I'm usually swamped by a feeling of sadness when I end the year, this year however, I cannot wait for 2014 to get here already. And for the first time, I've decided on resolutions and I'm counting on my over competitive drive to maintain them.  (and kill me, eventually.)
The first one being, I've decided to write every day. Yes. Every single day. Even if it means 5 lines, so be it. But my black diary must be filled up by this date next year. I have realized that my horrible accounts of procrastination have made me regret the unproductive result of this year, and not having purpose is physically painful for me.
The second one being, to quit being the strangely reserved person that I've somehow managed to become over the past year. The reason for which being inexplicable. I have realized that I've surrendered to a nutshell as far as being thoroughly vocal about perhaps my feelings about the closest people in my life (which is ridiculous because that wasn't a practice I would ever consider in general.) And so, begins my resolution to start being a careless person again. I thoroughly miss it. I miss being absolutely maddening a person.


So there. I don't have much to say this year. I don't want to play around with emotional metaphors and similes, this new year post. I'd just like to take your leave now by wishing you a very happy new year. Tomorrow is a blank box with a teeny number on it, in the calender- do it right. :)

Much love and may y'all stay blessed.
-Nil. (:

P.S- and yes I want a cat. I REALLY WANT A CAT. 2014 ARE YOU LISTENING? or mom ?

I have a lot to say.

Greetings, World.
This is one of the I Have A Lot To Say  Series. I wouldn't call this post completely fictitious,  this is basically a slightly off beat style of writing that I tried my hands on; to free my head of certain epiphanies and visions that were rather vociferous. This post was inspired by the photo you see. Just like the other post of this series, the following is somewhat a cornucopia of strings of thoughts, that came in one after the other while I was in the strangest mood, and I never stopped. It does not follow any order, nor do the tenses. It may not make sense, due to the drastic transitions of odd imagery. But it's raw and unedited.
That should be intriguing enough.

__________________________________________________________________________

There are too many people in this world, there are too many people talking and there are too many people doing. There are a scandalous number of pairs of eyes moving their eyeballs symmetrically as the world slowly revolves and some thing or someone in space watches the pitch dark expansion of nothingness beyond the Earth's atmosphere travel round and round and round on those irises.
What's absolutely shameful is that perhaps save the delicate, almost unbelievable surface of the World, I highly doubt anything or any one out there in space would ever want to indulge in us, too much. Every eighth second, there must be a man thinking of molestation, and every ninth, there might be a woman beating her son.

In Geneva, a boy of 11 just found a cat's whisker floating on his tall glass of milk. He's too sure of it being a cat's whisker because that was maybe the only part of dead Lou he could keep to himself. Dead Lou was buried last evening, and was perhaps purring dug deep in his backyard. He carefully spoons the whisker and puts it in a jar with that spoonful of milk; "There, Lou. You can have it. You know I hate milk."

Somewhere in India, a eunuch embraced a new born boy and danced around the hall, with him next to her chest. All the others clapped around her in circles and blessed the boy to grow up and be a man. They meant that blessing in very different ways, than we might understand. While the mother sat in the corner of the room, sweaty and worried, anxious to hold her baby boy again. "These people are too.. different, for my comfort" she told her midwife.

Irritating habits of the master were whispered back to the dog whisperer by Jimmy the bull dog, while lying lazy under the Tuscan sun. One would be tempted to imagine such a scene playing in the theater, somewhere in some city. Sappy stories of animals and their distressed masters seem to always enthuse people and give them a 'reason' to try and understand living things better, a reason to love better.

While cellphones rang over brunch, people carried on three separate conversations with three other people while at the table with one person. That one person didn't quite struggle for attention either, her cellphone maintained the needy behavior of most of technology today, so that was fine, really. The brunch went fine.

And in some corner of that very country, a girl wished to turn deaf, dumb, and blind, because there are too many people in this world, there are too many people talking and there are too many people doing. There are just too many of... too many. And maybe the last time the world was silent was when the Earth's atmosphere wasn't so friendly.
"Those were the good times.." , she said.
______________________________________________________________________

I wouldn't say the long impasse has passed, but it's on the verge to leave. Here's a start, and hopefully from now on, the silence won't be too long from my end. Thank you, for sticking around. :)

-Love,
Nil. 

Flame fleeced.

History.
The one word that brings back ruthless, bold, unabashed flashbacks of you. And him. Or her. Or whoever. You must have loved, or you must have thought you loved. All of us do, all of us love the idea of falling in love. So getting back to the point; History.
We're often so sure about the concept of it being the past, that we often forget; once we see it staring at us in the present. You see that one face, and there, you find yourself thinking of what was. How you were, how this person staring back at you used to be, with you. You give yourself the liberty to feel appalled at how that face is the same, and yet nothing about it reminds you of the person it belongs to. Perhaps a crease or two more, on the forehead. Maybe some more impatience in them pair of eyes, than you remember. The lips could possibly be more dry, and the ears could seem naked because there isn't any hair sitting on them, hiding away their shapelessness.
And yet, you push your grounds by still considering that your faith on that face may be stronger than its appearance.

But as you blink a few more times and don't let the light leaks of your ridiculous faith blind you, you slowly realize that the face that once moved you so much is gone. The flame that burnt high and low, quivered on top but kept still to the wax...is gone. There's nothing that overwhelms you about that face anymore, there is nothing that makes you want to cry. The expression in your heart is smug. It wants to walk away, and carry on with the life you finally moved on with, in the absence of that face.
You feel like you're sitting on the other side of the window, and the only way you look at the other side is through an old, lace curtain. It flies around with the wind, letting you peek at the real thing once in a while, but it's hidden again, and it stays that way. And you realize, it's not hidden anymore, it's gone.

Flame fleeced. The remains of that blaze are nowhere to be seen around you, for they withered away with that side of you which became history, along with that person's departure in your life, once.

You realize, you slowly fell out of love. Because beyond a point, that face didn't love you back, and you couldn't love thin air, could you now? 

-Nil.

Because you were sure.

Writing, sometimes, can be the most stifling feeling in the world. It robs you of all your privacy, and ruthlessly strips naked every bleak corner of your mind; your imagination, your hopes, your desires, your everything; printed in ink on an otherwise flimsy blank paper.
The stain of ink in coherent intelligible figures can humiliate you, and make reality ten times withal real. It can be the tightest slap you remember all your life, while the slaps in your childhood seem like sweet gestures of warnings by Mother to mend your twisted ways that ultimately lead to your fall; on such a blank paper.

I don't understand why we're so stubborn. Why we're constantly rushing to plunge into every possible scope of entanglement and openly wish, hope and pray we never find our way out and breathe again. We like gasping. I think we like this mess. I think we're so used to it, that fresh air feels wrong, now.
The mind enjoys being in a perpetual state of frustration, and our language seems to be that of constant sarcasm and cocky-ness that only earns some more of the two from the other end of every communication we indulge in.

And what's terrible, is that this is mistake we're ready to make one more time, and then another time, and the time after that. Because we're just so god damn scared of being free. Of having our own space. Because we think that would be the world's way of abandoning us.
It's ridiculous, loathsome, and repulsive; this constant urge to keep doing something. And when we try to clean some wax off our minds, and sit down to write about the happier things in life, all we pour out are our dark little revelations and regrets. Because you just goddamn can't lie to a goddamn paper. It's powerless; your mind thinks. Who will he tell? It'll just stay. It'll yellow around it's corners and age away, perhaps with ink blots and cigarette burns.

But that's the point; it stays.

And you can't do anything about it, because? You never used a pencil. 
You were just so sure about everything, remember?

-Nil. 

Eve of 19.

My 18th year was going to end with the end of this blog, because I firmly believed that all good things came to an end. And it was best that way, for it left you with the prime of every feeling, and not the remnants of those feelings fading away.
But a rather wise friend convinced me otherwise. And perhaps, she's right. Because I was holding on to this blog for the same reason, all this while; it's the one constant proof of my life to have never waited for all the happiness and chaos. It just went on, and you all saw, along with me. And perhaps, that's what gives us all hope to realize everything passes; every day, no matter how downtrodden or euphoric it may be... passes. And you live through it, don't you? In fact, you cherish most of it. You not only cherish, but you goddamn love most of it. And the bits that you'd rather not say... pass. And you grow, because each and every emotion, each and every thought, each and every blink, and each and every broken smile pealed another layer off you. It revealed some more of you, to the world, but most importantly; you saw yourself even clearer, you were just that much stronger, standing tall.

You ought to unfurl. You ought to wither away. Because only then, would you have gasped for some air, and only then.. would you have breathed.

Here end the first 18 years of my life, and I'm breathing because I'm on my own, and I'm good.
Year 18, you were the longest and the most entwined road I could ever choose. But I'm glad you happened, because you spelled one thing out for me, for sure; that one phase of my life is over, and the one that's about to come will be that much crooked. And I better twist and turn along, to make myself exactly what I want to be made of. I'm glad you happened, because you spelled out disappointments in a way that no other year has ever, for which I'm ready to appreciate every bit of happiness that decides to show up.

It's important to be happy, it's important to be happier, and it's important to be happiest; but what is absolutely crucial, is to be happy. :)

Happy birthday, to me.
I hope I get a New York cheesecake.

-Nil. 

Beauty bereft.

(Photo by Vanta.)

They had been abandoned by the ankles of the woman who became the prayers of every beat resonating around the universe. The woman said they scraped her ankles and made them bleed of bruises. They were accused to have lost a bell here, or two there. Apparently, they didn’t sound as sweet as her dance looked. Just how was she to dance with them on?

And thus, abandoned, they were. Carelessly put away into the unabashedly ignored attic of the gigantic house; the one that they had won her, from His Majesty.

 Every evening, they’d be bitter kissed by another layer of dust... Flies and sly ants would walk past the intricate blue thread work and the gold of each bell which weren't as golden anymore. The edges of the table on which they sat withered with time, and the room would birth nascent cobwebs and the dirge of grey into which every element of the room camouflaged
.

Every element, but them. They sat on that very table like a bold mother, pregnant with a secret. The sheet of dust would only gather in the broken ends of each bell and accentuate the rest of the body which spoke of age and art. Of flawlessness, of music, of dance… of a kind of beauty that ceased to exist once they were taken off her ankle.

They sat on that very table, listening to the woman dance somewhere far away in the court of his majesty. They’d see her taking her first bow and her last; they knew every breath she’d inhale after every fourth beat. They knew every flaw in the continuation of her hurried steps, and yet those steps were birthed in the womb of those; the ones that sat cold in that old, trivial attic.

What a pity; thought an anonymous wise man. A wise man who existed in the motes of dust around the old room, who existed in the aroma of rose water at the majestic palace.

Her feet tremble now with the new pair of golden bells on her mended ankle. They tinkle after her feet hit the ground, not with them. They’re a proud pair of 500 bells, and yet they sound faint, shy, or rather… coward like. And the irony is, the woman knew.

Bereft from what completed her next step from the first, she tussled with her tenacity to dance like that celebrated figurant she’d become in that kingdom of his Majesty; the kingdom where people kissed their fingertips to her rhythm, to her graceful glide that progressed unobstructed on the marble floors of the court, like the breeze of the season of art.

And yet, the beauty of that figurant faded as she tried harder and harder… for the essence of her dance lay sitting on an old table; bold, aged, and yet gorgeous; in those blue and golden pair of ghungroos. Quiet, incomplete, and bitterly proud; bereft of those bruised ankles. 
________________________________________________________________________

First proper piece of the summer, written in a strange strange mood. There y'go. Awaiting your feedback :)
Much loving,
Nil. 

Paperplanes of May.

Every year has a particular month that changes how your life has been for a period of time; let's just say that has been the reason for my absence. I don't know how often will I be around now, this summer is going to be a little more of my-space-bubble oriented, but I'll try to keep you guys posted on the happenings of ole Nil's life.

My love for pictures and summer tones be back. The camera is travelling all around in my big white bag, despite the rude heat making life difficult. My fancy phone is away at the repair shop. Thanks to my perfectly normal clumsy self, the screen of that perfectly maintained phone is now shattered. I'm using a phone as good as rock, and as last season as calling glares; "goggles".
But that's fine. There are no facilities except calling and texting, so I'm good. It's done a brilliant job at keeping me away from the human population as such, and helped secrete some serious thought process and ideas from my lazy brain that was sleeping thinking it was still winter. So it's going to be a summer of 8tracks.com, pulling every mote of thought out of my head and working on a fiction project I've decided on, and a whole lot of ice tea and mojitos. Sounds like a plan my alter ego had been craving for. Little boxes of a lot of space is going to be the mood, for this summer. And a whole lot of summer-y pictures. So until the fiction project takes a stand on paper, I'll post them pictures here and keep you entertained.
No promises, though.

Thank you SO much for all the support in the last post. This safe haven of mine breathes because of you guys, who save it from soiling away. So stay tuned. Nil can never really shut up, can she?
And a humongous Thank You to the lovely bloggers who thought of my blog being worthy of awards. I've added them to my hall of cyber fame- y'all are so kind. (:

Until I catch them paper planes of May, open them up, write on the papers and send them back to you, enjoy the obnoxiously immodest heat. Summer is bringing it on.

Muchos of love and all that jazz,
-Nil. 

Nothing less, if not more.

This post has been published by me as a part of the Blog-a-Ton 38; the thirty-eighth edition of the online marathon of Bloggers; where we decide and we write. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton. The theme for the month is "The Woman on Platform Number 10"

______________________________________________________________________ 

Nothing less, if not more.

On such yellow afternoons at the café, she mostly sat on the corner most table with the three legged chair opposite to her, hunching, as always; humming to the poly disks  she made Ted; the waiter play for the entertainment of all; and for pampering her own nostalgia. This particular Sunday she was carrying an old poly disk which surprised her on being found that morning. Mostly her afternoon routine would have her walk into the café, pin point and call Ted to come along her table and take the poly disk of the day to the gramophone, however this particular Sunday… walk into the café, she did. Sat on the corner most table, she did. However the poly disk was not parted with, it sat perfectly round and old in its case, in front of her, while she read  what was written on the centre of the disk with an old marker;

“And I, all I really want is you
You to stick around
I’ll see you everyday
But you’ll have to follow through...” 

It wasn't the first time in the day that she read those few lines. Though every time she did, it felt like the first time and it felt like thirty years back, all over again. His handwriting was as fresh as the 20 year old boy staring at her from her memory, his ‘Y’s were always longish, she smiled. Another similar yellow afternoon stared at her in her mind; an endless road on which they walked while he hid a square case behind his back and walked with her;

“…and why are you hiding that big poly disk which every tree on the road can see?”

“…I was hoping you weren't a tree, but happy birthday, Jolene.”

“What did you record?”

“A song that might remind you of today, of now… of maybe me. And what we are at this moment. And what we could be in the next. Nothing less, if not more.”

“…what’s more?”

__________________________________________________________________

“No music for the café today, Miss Jolene?”, Ted stood next to her looking down at the poly disk. She looked up at Ted, an embarrassed slow red blush creeping into her dusky skin. But she recovered quickly.  Abandoning emotions at the time of need was an old habit of her head strong existence.

“why of course, Teddy. This one just has one song though.”

“Oh, looks like an old gift, is it?”

“Yes. A very… old gift, indeed.”, she smiled in an absent minded way.

“From a friend, was it?”

“He was…more”

“What’s more?”

___________________________________________________________________

As the needle of the grand instrument touched the top of the revolving disk, a much too familiar tune took her back to that old sunny afternoon. The long road ended at the threshold of the old station. Clasping the poly disk case to under her arm, she briskly walked with him to platform number 10.

“So… what’s more?”, she asked impatiently, catching a glimpse of the mouth of the train pulling into the platform.

“What’s more… is perhaps the day you remember today, of now, and of me; of what we are at this moment, and what we could be in the next… and you sing along to the song waiting for you in this disk, on another day, in another moment, for me.”

“What makes you think I’ll sing for you?”

“Oh Jolene, my beautiful. One day a stranger will ask you about us, and you wouldn't know what to say--”

“Because there is nothing to say, there never was, and there will be.”

“ You've always had something to sing, when you've had nothing to say.”, he smiled that crooked smile that peered through her eyes, and leaving just that of him, he went away.

Jolene stood quietly, waiting for the smoke of the train to burn her eyes, just so she could be angry at the engine for making her eyes moist. Strong girl, Jolene. Strong girl. He must go away, you must be free.

____________________________________________________________________

“I asked what’s more, Miss Jolene?”, Ted playfully yelled from the other corner of the café while he turned the music a notch or two higher. The song rang in her ears;

“And I, all I really want is you
You to stick around
I’ll see you everyday
But you’ll have to follow through...”

…and Jolene tried saying something but she was chocked, and so she sang along the chorus;

“You will have to follow through
These reeling emotions they keep me alive
They keep me in tune
Oh look what I’m holding here in my fire,
This is for you….”

Jolene had nothing to say. And so, she sang. She sang for that day, for that moment, for him. She sang for what they were at that moment, and what they could have been in the next.
 She sang while she stared at the empty case of the poly disk that said;

“For the Woman on Platform Number 10,
 It was never less, it was always more, wasn't it?
-Love,
More.”
_______________________________________________________________________

The fellow Blog-a-Tonics who took part in this Blog-a-Ton and links to their respective posts can be checked here. To be part of the next edition, visit and start following Blog-a-Ton. Introduced By: Random blog surfing, Participation Count: 02

 Awaiting your feed backs!

-Nil. 

Philippic rhapsody.

I'm almost awkward to initiate conversation here, yes I know it's been so long. But oh well,

Greetings, World.
Yes, I most definitely missed y'all, and hell I missed you- Blog. I don't remember the last rant, only because I've been doing something so terrible lately; keeping it all in my head. Moving on to shallow conversation; a very happy Holi to all of you. Bet you guys played with colors and jazz and for those of you rotten rears who threw eggs at me from racing cars; GOOD JOB DOUCHE, THAT'S PRETTY MUCH ALL YOUR SKILLS FOR LIFE.

Yeah, not much of a Holi person. Gone are the days when it used to be dry, pretty and colorful. Nothing about ink and grease please me, so yeah no thanks bye. In other news, a year of college is almost over. Just about now, I have a My Life Is A Lie moment, because I don't even know where that year went. I kept doing things, running around, thinking I'd eventually settle down; except, I haven't. I'm still finding my place, at some level. And because of this terrible running around, I've pretty much forgotten weekends and the concept of 8 hours of sleep. College is overrated. I love it, but it's overrated.
Tiny juniors from school just finished with their Boards, and I fail to see how. THEY WERE TINY. And they're now figuring out their college options. O.o
In another two months, my freshmen year will be over. In two years, my under grad will be over. No seriously, what is wrong with the world?

As you might have noticed, I'm in the mood to rant the brains out of your mind. I want to keep talking to I feel like the scum in my head gets out, you're welcome to stop reading, I won't mind. Of course I will, so leave quietly if you must. If you read on, you'll be a part of that 0.9% of the world I tolerate like right now.
Did I mention, at this point in life, my favorite career option would be to be a waitress at a shack in Goa? Good life. That will be the good life.

The rest of the college week is off, and I plan to write. It's been unhealthily long that I've come up with some piece that I'd be content with. I've just spent too much time entertaining absolute and pointless bullshit and that's enough now. I'm going to write some.
My end sem are around the corner, and I really need to get started with getting back to being a nerd. I miss it. I miss spending endless hours studying when nothing can bother me, and I feel purposeful. And once exams are over, I plan on going away from Delhi for a while. FOR A GOOD WHILE. To get a breather before second year starts and life becomes crazy again. A few of us from DramSoc and MusicSoc have plans of lifting up the productivity of the societies so we can look at ourselves in the mirror and not feel guilty about wasting our lives. I feel like we worked like idiots this year, which is why the end results were never there and we just felt wasted with migraine.

Wow, I fail at emitting happiness. Said the over competitive bastard.
Since I suddenly feel very awkward again and I don't want to talk anymore, here you go; a few pictures from different places my happy feet (lol sure thing) traveled to.

 There y'go. And now, I shall go listen to The Swell Season and hopefully that will inspire me enough to write something and show some bloody passion. Goodbye, lovelies. Thank you for reading. Grumpy Nil happens once in 86 years, I'm sure none of us will be alive for the next one. Is it me or am I really inappropriate?

Much loving,
Nil. 

The embers of a racing mind.

I can almost feel the curvature of my first thought burning away as quickly as the wing of a happy butterfly would ash away to; when inched  to an ignited matchstick. The head of the second thought was the origin of such friction and so has been the cycle of my thoughts, lately. Burnt out; even before one could live. 
A pandemonium of events uncannily containing similar emotions, all of which turn into a chaos inside a breathing room divided into two; my mind needs space. 
Examples of how fragile the think tank of our anatomy is have been in abundance, recently. And some times, I wonder; aren't we all a little tilted in the dark side, at some point?

"A calm man always has a war within him.. which is why, he is calm." ; I heard an acquaintance say, with a smirk today. And the glint in his eyes at the moment convinced me of the autobiographical statement, casually passed to push the puberty of understanding him. 
Since then, a very different spotlight surrounds his figure even in day light, when I look at him. And then I wonder, don't we just look at people? Isn't that all the shallow effort we put in to understanding the immediate wall of concrete we live in, after all? And then we wonder why pity surrounds our existence?

"Atleast this patch of Earth I'm standing on, is my ashtray." ; That was the parent of arrogance, her tongue talking. To our questioning looks, she didn't defend; she stated; that the patch of land she stood on was loyal to her weight, it was loyal to the foreskin of her body and mind. The patch of land was hers to spoil with all her ridiculous and whimsical ideas, to all the forms of salt that secrete out of her brown skin, to the lose strands of hair that fall out of her scalp to rid themselves of the overwhelming amount of turbulence beyond their roots. The patch of Earth was her. It was made out of her, and thus will wait for her slowly ashing body to come back home. The breed of such women was lost, we thought?

" The relevance of the human will and word is tragic, to say the least." ; I thought, after that one friend closed the door behind him. That one friend who was an undertone to the first quarter of my life, who was the proof of my childhood and who was the ear to every voice that made it out of my throat; and the ones that didn't. Years and years of mindless banters and baseless words exchanged in between found their way to my ear drums and I realized how relative human words are; for once the intention changes and the will demolishes, those words don't even exist enough to be called empty, anymore. There is no vessel to them, only tainted air of something that used to be. 
And one day, all those inconsequential conversations will skin the time you lost out on, alive. 


-Nil.

Sunday enthusiasts.

Sitting in straight lines of disorderly sequence,
they fit next to one another,
a feather long gamut between each.
A different flock, each day
and Sunday seemed their favorite of the lot.

One would fly away,
only to circle around and settle next to another.
Another would clumsily flap in protest,
though the order of the makeshift lines were taken much solemnly.

One or three would ash away,
the criminal phenomena of electricity was common a knowledge,
they'd complain of its ruthless deeds,
and yet settle on those black wires, indubitably.

Perhaps it was how the rest of us looked from above,
tiny, black and feeble stick figures;
running around doing things that were humorous to them,
they all fancy a good laugh,
our kind was a curious one to theirs.

They weren't wanton sadists,
neither were they reckless optimists.
They were fond of the sky that was intimate,
and Sundays, that favored clear skies.

So sit, they did,
and watched over us.
Flew away once in a while,
however absconded, rarely.

And so finally, the poetry block is over :) Hoorah.
-Nil.

A tall glass of water.

She spoke much fondly of bees, she often cackled to the buzz and drew yellow and black ones on her palms. Uninterrupted would be the curled strand of lock that played high and low tides on the left side of her face, while her long legs escorted wild thoughts with the pace she sauntered at, in and around the world.
Her bifocals were just as much a part of her face as her arched eyebrows; as sure as the tip of her illustrated nose; which always reached a destination a second before the rest of her chassis.
She often let daylight lick her like a cone of strawberry and vanilla. One would oft see her sitting unusually away from most people; soaking the dissonant sun with her long legs stretched and her face separated from the sun by the blinds of her eyes. She peeked with an eye open, once in a while.

To every one who raised an eyebrow at her vicissitude way of life, she'd say "Hey babe, take a walk on the wild side." in Lou Reed's deep voice, and leave just the way she entered; like a whirlwind.
Apart from the 3 fingers on each hand with questionable rings, the other two would mostly be drawn on by neon highlighters. Her obsession with patterns left an impression not only on her apparels but on the bellies she wore which some times had little metallic balls  filed lines or curly circles doodled on them. Every mote of her existence had an ethereal and evanescent element on its toes, and yet she was as real as her loud Aztec leggings or the little ball of silver on the right side of her nose.

She was a strange girl in a stranger world. Everything bizarre was another route to happiness, every print on a cloth was something she'd have to doodle on her wrist that very afternoon and every page of a book was a paper plane with a lot of words on it. Interesting, she thought.
Interesting, she thought. She stopped the world in her head, stretched her long legs on the floor and spoke to the sun.

- Nil. 

Oh the unspeakable things.

"Oh if you knew what it meant to me,

Anywhere but here."

Hello, World.

It's already the 12th day of the year and not only has everything been racing its pace but I've been running along. College has been immodestly demanding of my time, starting 8:40 am morning classes to theater and Acapella rehearsals after college. By the time I'm home, I'm dead. I have no will or energy to argue or agree. I just like to retire to my space; a quiet dimly lit room, some good music and my laptop.

2013 is going to be the torch bearer of interesting events. The first two weeks have already proven my theory and thus, turned facts it is. But anyhoo, music has been keeping me sane. Lots and lots of music which I listen to, which makes sense and I keep all that sense bottled up inside me and try my best to not blurt it out to the world. Cause it'll only make sense as long as it stays with me. Most things turns unnecessary, as soon as they're peeled by the world, eh?

Book I'm currently binging on- My Friend Leonard.

Random winter-y picture from this week.

So the next few weeks are going to be crazy busy. The next ten days have lunatic hours of society practices, followed by the Lit Fest which I hope to head for this year, for sure. And then we have Comic Con coming up, for which, might I add, yours truly shall be volunteering. Should be fun. Free comics, goodies and friends to run around with. Works fine for me, for now. (OH, and free fruit beer. Jussayiiin'.)










 I'm currently obsessing over this song. It makes so much sense that it's pretty much overwhelming, to say the least. It's just the kind of mood I've been in, and it's just what's been in my head. It's almost like I spelled out everything I couldn't figure out to someone, and she made the song for me. Just like that. There y'go.
So yes, I've been shaking my head all evening and will continue doing so for the rest of the night about how a song can make so much sense. At the oddest time and in the oddest way. But then again, that's what songs do. They make you sing along, and I'm singing along, alright. Give it a shot, it may make sense to you, too.

(Courtesy: Vanta.)

So hopefully, there's going to be some fiction coming our way. I've been slightly stuck with a godzillion stories in my head and yet having a brain freeze when I get down to typing it out. Hopefully with it being Sunday today and me catching up on what I compromise on such nocturnal hours, I'll be able to come up with some more fiction labels. But first; sleep.

Good night, or good morning.
Much loving,
ole Nil. 

On the 366th day.

To the 366th day of 2012,

you're the only gap, the only thin line between what happened in the last 8760 hours, and what will happen in the next 8760 hours. You're the only manifestation of cognizance and expectation, now. You're the only source of remembering myself from yesterday and waiting for myself, tomorrow. You overwhelm me, a little. You overwhelm me because you're the only day of the year that makes me feel forgetful, inevitably; every year. I struggle to remember the little details that never seemed little enough at the time of being, and yet they flutter away to a very forgotten space of my consciousness today. The only difference is perhaps... that usually, I come around to remembering. Except, this year; I don't.

Apart from the obvious, this year feels like the kind I'd want to forget with coercion, and yet remember with all my heart and soul. This year started with a note of the perfect new year, however the 'perfect' did hit its ocean bed, not just once, but many a times. But then again, this year reached it's peaks too. This year pushed me just a little more to realize myself a little more, this year made me lose out on people and eventually find them by the end of it. They weren't lost, after all. Close enough, but not enough.
This year bought in people; oh yes, there were new faces. Blessed be the coincidence (or not),  but those faces were needed terribly in my hour count. Thank you, for walking in.

I wouldn't want to be unfair. Every year has its best hair days too, so did this one. This year's been one of the biggest milestones to achieving what I'd set out for; this year was me at my headstrong best. This year had me wandering, and yet not being lost. This year had me lost, and yet willing to wander some more. I don't want to mention each and every memory this time, like I usually do every year; simply because a certain primary element of those memories was missing most of the year. But then again, maybe next year's new year entourage post will have me quoting more memories than ever. But what matters is the feeling I have within me, right now. This year has tested me. It's seen me at my fragile best, it's seen me at my strongest. Things fell apart this year; I walked on to newer things, this year.

So there, 2012. On the 366th day of you, this is me still smiling for you. You had to happen. You needed to happen. You needed to happen just so I realized a few; very few but indispensable epiphanies that were knocking on my door, for a year now. You had to happen. You just had to.

Happy new year, World.


-Nil.

Thank you for not making sense.

A pandemonium inside your bony skull and within your heart that's the size of your mere fist can some times, absolutely paralyze you and hold you still in the middle of a hot, working and busy day. The kind of day when even your subconscious mind should ideally turn dumb, deaf and blind; to ensure no manifestation of mindful disasters. Mindful, mind you; not mindless. 

Such a pandemonium usually means a lot of noise which only gets louder once you plug in your earphones, and every song almost sounds satiric, mocking to your misunderstood misery. 

But say thank you, for not making sense. After every file of obviousness that's been neatly stacked into your mind, and every little box tightly packed away into quiet corners of that coffer throbbing inside your chest.. after such achieved order, we often trash away the not so obvious which wasn't highlighted with a neon marker in the rationality of your mind or consideration of your heart. But often, those little eightysixed details end up actually being the full stops to years worth of bemusement. 

What happens when all those file are scattered on the floors of your mind which is used to being in an apple -pie order? What happens when all those little boxes are blown off their lids and all the four walls fall apart with everything inside meanders out?

Beautiful happens. 

Because all of a sudden, every orderly detail stands next to the ones that are not. And like trifling chipped ends of blue tiles, you connect the dots you thought that were already connected, only to form a completely new pattern, and you witness the same story you thought was over; from the same pair of eyes, except this time, with a sensible mind. 

Yes, I said sensible mind. For in all the chaos of nonsensical shenanigans in your head, all they did was form a nebula of affairs; from your mind, and from your heart. 

It gave you a chance to make sense, once again. 

- A much tranced out,
Nil.