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.

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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. 

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. 

See You Soon.

"But don't answer that In a bullet-prove vest, 
With the windows all closed I'll be doing my best and I'll see you soon."

It's been a while, I've been a little aloof, and the fictions were dreamy too, yes. But perhaps University exams do that to you, or maybe it was my annual pre winters blue. But hey, I'm back now only to be gone again. Elaboration being; my end sem exams are done with and I have literally nothing to do for the next month and a half except dance in two big fat family weddings, read lots of books, go all out with jams and chill with my favourite human beings AND write some serious fiction. Which is fine, it's the one thought that I'd been binging on all this while that my exams were on. 
I was in Bombay, a week back. I'm in Calcutta now. I'll be in Delhi in four days. I'll be in Pune in about two weeks.
Needless to say, I'm going to be all over the place and as much as I promise writing like a lover all of December, I can't promise if they'll be typed beyond the pages of my big fat leather diary. Simply because the whole month of December is going to be so fly. But I'll try, for sure. Otherwise... Bonne chance with the Fiction/ Poetry OD in January!

But Calcutta has made me write some. Like always. It's the one place I've always been inspired to come up with some tale out of some crooked thought. I have a feeling this month of December is going to give me a lot to write for, it's a good feeling. It's been a while since I wrote my heart out, I miss that feeling of fulfilment when I am able to pen down exactly what's in my head and put it to paper. So here's hoping that feeling comes home soon, and here's a picture from today. 

Piyushsterr & Nilsterrr meet in another city. 

I don't feel like talking much today, so I think I'll get back to my book now. I'll try to be around, but if I'm not, see you soon. :)

-Much love,
Nil. 

Untitled, for once.

Have you ever had that one stretch of uncounted hours when your mind shuts off to all the sense in the world, and you find yourself in a boat; a boat, in the middle of your mind. You can see the walls of your mind but all they ring of being cold air. The seams of the white in your eye have a tinge of red, your throat is chocked but you're biting your lip as hard as you can to not cry. You're a strong girl, strong girls don't cry. That's not what the world said, no. That's what you told yourself.
The little lamp of white light next to you gives you no comfort. If at all, it reminds you every minute that there is not a single door present in the valves of your mind, there are only walls; which do not even listen. No matter how much you speak aloud, you'll just bite your lips harder when your words ring back to you.

You don't understand this. You don't understand this confinement, you don't understand your mind. And you know; this too, shall pass; though this one sure is doing everything it can to make you ridicule a hopeful belief, such.

You're a strong girl, though. You're not going to cry.
Tell yourself that, just one more time. 


-Nil

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, it's a...different style of writing that I attempted, to free my head of certain epiphanies and visions that were rather vociferous. This post was inspired by a random photo of a lazy cat that came and cuddled next to my foot and I clicked a picture of. 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.

______________________________________________________________________

The lazy cat looked like she knew what she was doing. There was not a hint of abashment or fear as she kept slumping her hilt on a new spot every time the bedeviled waiter shooed her away, making strange noises. At another corner of the world, a boy sat down ridiculing how people phrase regions of the world as 'corners' when none actually exist, when there isn't a literal end to the world, and how in reality, we're all naive early men within who comfort themselves with ancient, impractical thesis. At that very moment, a stand up comedian in your home town makes a cat's purr the butt of his pun and a blink later, the lazy cat stirs next to your foot. While you distract yourself from the utterly boring conversation the lady ahead has to offer, you look down and the cat looks up. And right at that very second, the stand up comedian forgets his punch line.

A gypsy woman recites her burglary around the world to a six year old boy, while her scarf hides the source of her dreamy voice. A caravan stops eight stops early to pick her up and away it went, puffing smoke from its choking rear. 

Mars decided to shine a brighter blood red, and that simple celestial decision made an old man very happy. He smiled a weak smile that peeped brighter from behind his half moon spectacles.. He particularly missed his dead wife, tonight. 

While such preoccupations worried the world, the cat purred next to my foot. And when the waiter came to shoo it off yet again, it picked it's hind up and settled on the foot of another distracted conversationalist. The lazy cat looked like she knew just what she was doing. Unlike me. 

-Nil.

 

If irony were a hint, I'd be in trouble.

It's been a strange night, not a quiet one in particular, not a silent night. A usual night, with every prerequisite element of normalcy. Except an epiphany; 


If irony were a hint, I'd be in trouble. 


What do you do when a realization of sort awaits you, like a person walking quietly to your door and is about to knock; what do you do when that realization is something you'd want to be hit with later, in future, in good time and when you're a few more days older?
That realization's waiting outside, it's presence has been realized by you, for you can see the hovering shadow of its dense existence outside the door of your acceptance. 
You've had thousands of people nudge you, to think, to consider; some even spelled it out for you-- but you let it go. Why? Because the subject of that realization had dismissed its rationality. It's proof. It's...being.
And you let it go, you asked a valid fact to scoot away, so life would be easy and pleasant for the two of you, without troublesome shenanigans and you'd still be at that safe harbor, with nothing to risk, and everything gained. Almost, every thing gained.


Now, what do you do.....when the very subject of that realization nudges you to rewind and realize in the past, but doesn't ask you to alter the present and yet promises a future?


What do you do, when the only answer whispered through that door is simple; What is meant to be, will be...
While somebody, is waiting, beyond that door?

-Nil. 

Mind bereft.

You know how people talk about how the soul leaves the body after death... Yeah, what happens when the mind leaves the body while alive and breathing? When motor skills resign to an abominable lull of procrastination. When the fingers mull over the same object not realizing it's sharp cuts, it's bald surface, it's porous texture, its purpose. When your dry lips don't remember the tongue, when the throb in your head isn't pain, anymore. When there's a miasma of  botheration and a nagging solution in the back of your mind, but alas the mind has left with the aircraft in your subconscious sense and the solution is tightly pressed with harsh hands around its mouth.

You understand it's an ephemeral feeling, but the arrogant speed of time makes you jittery and insecure. You've stopped acting, and every sense of reason is mating with every slightest hint of emotion. While your vision was capable of registering every color in erstwhile times, what you see now is a filter of sepia.
There aren't watches around you, and yet you hear a rather loud ticking. Rude and loud noise of aircrafts taking off somewhere very much around your being scream within your hearing range.
A decision of sort is awaited, and it humors you that you don't know what the question is; that is to be decided upon and yet, you know the answer.

Yeah, what does indeed happen when the mind leaves the body while alive and breathing? 
When you know your mind is in that aircraft in front of you, but your heart wouldn't let you take a step towards it ; When your mind takes off with that aircraft and you've finally, finally lost your mind.

(Don't ask why, just don't. Certain pictures don't leave you with an option but to write. And circumstances help, if not anything. )
-Nil.

I have a lot to say.

Hello, there. I wouldn't call this post completely fictitious, it's a...different style of writing that I attempted, to free my head of certain epiphanies and visions that were rather vociferous. It was stimulated by Van Gogh's Starry Night. And call it crazy, I found just the variation of the painting I wanted, online. So 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 may not make sense, due to the drastic transitions of odd imagery. But it's raw and unedited.
That should be intriguing enough.
___________________________________________________________________________________________

I have a lot to say about your catastrophic ways at romance.The kind which elevate your lovers just enough to bring them down on hard rubble, away from the skies and your red skirts. The deep rings of the ocean will coo deep within the marine land which would then birth the butterfly effect, around the world. You never considered the golden strings around that quiet cocoon which conceived an unholy crossbreed of the moth that resigned to growth.  All those tales which sing the hymns of Juliet aren't all that forlorn, anything that's been a part of history has stirred, moved, revolted, and been enshrined in script, in mind- though very few in heart.There's a brothel in your mind, perhaps there might be a temple, even. The point of reckoning being, there's a threshold to both them abodes. Each threshold holy to its indweller in their own ways.There's a sense of exhilaration in the careless free-fall of ash. That sense of exhilaration magnifies at the cinch attempt of beating that ash to dry paste. The salt and pepper like appearance brings about a silly sensation of appeasement. The heart has been an immigrant to seek, it can also be an emigrant to leave. Ultimately, words when spoken are relative, for they are evanescent once the will erodes and the thought is forgotten. What is fearless? The absence of fear may sound splendid, but uncommon. Is 'fearless' a state of insensitivity when the repercussions fail to inflict any sort of effect on you? Because then it wouldn't be such a glorious feeling after all.  In all its ignorance it may give me the attention that would tame me. However in the midst of all the shenanigans your existence may be party to, there lies an order in the desperate disorder of chaos. Now isn't that brilliant and inspiring?  -Nil.

Exodus Entrada.

Dear City,

I've mostly been told letters are to be written to lovers, to the dying, and some times, to the dead.
Well, you've been a lover- perhaps the only man who's been worthy of an intimate relationship after the death of Christ. You're dying, too- all your allies, bridges, and red lights have been walked on.
And perhaps, you're dead- because nothing new fosters within you, anymore. It's the same grass that has now stopped looking greener on the other side along with yellow mornings and shifting sky colors from yellow to orange bitten with a tinge of pink which melts into a purple with a brilliant hue of navy blue that fades into the black with fictitious stars.
Thus, my writing to you is legitimized to the judiciary of my mind, and thus we may proceed.

So you've prided yourself a good deal with the million pairs of boots that hit the city roads every morning, the coordinated cattle of pedestals who zebra-cross the road with every red light, the green bills that make their way to the bagel cafes every morning for breakfast along with the overwhelming gray sky scrapers; in one of which a boy of fourteen sits on his piano and plays the piano every day at seven. You have to your credit every millionaire and the thousand or two migrants that make their way to your sheltered dome of dreams turned inside out reality. You have to your debit the invisible peddlers and those dreams turned inside out illusions. 

You're given a play by play of each and every self. A little side of you is ignited with every lighter that is lit, a certain avenue has a couple swinging to streetlamps, and every sixth cab has a story of life and death in process.
You're a busy boy, dear City. A genre of busy that I've seen and lived while thriving in you. The city lights are now unfocused and form vague patterns of bokeh. They're still gorgeous, but pointless. 
So there you go. Another immigrant of origin and an emigrant of compassion ; Nay, I have no hopes, desires, expectations or compassion for your gates and highways no more.
I've lived you, and you've aged while my toes reached higher on their tips to see beyond the Queen's necklace of your city lights. 


I hope for my absence to resonate within your territory which has no vacuum or extra space even for the citizens, let alone the goners. Nevertheless, I hope for you to at least let my hue run behind the trunk of my car, while I travel away to a new destination. A destination that would be the recipient of a similar letter, a few years from now.


You've been good to me,
A Traveller.

-Nil.

 

Across the universe.

Of the few odd fortnights when you sit down and let out a sigh for none of the moons in particular, just a sudden act of simple contentment which surprises you,too. You blink a little more often with a silly grin on your face trying to realize the sudden lightness in your head, which has generously stopped buzzing.
Almost as if the universe was listening, the next track beautifully tunes on to a familiar, forgotten Beatles song. You literally roll your eyes at thin air, a mental salute at impeccable timing.

The head starts bobbing to the slow beats of Come Together and you can almost see yourself right in front of you, dancing to that very song with your closest pals into the night, the laughs, the girls shrugging off their heels and the boys loosening their ties. You remember the three pairs of hook ups around you and the thirty or two hiccups around the dimly lit terrace.


Michelle starts playing, and you're taken back to that one particular yellow afternoon when it was hot as hell and you were stranded in the middle of the road with a pair of torn green flip flops. That afternoon was your first proposal, ever. Well you saw one, anyway. A boy on his cycle with quiet lilies tucked in his school bag while the girl looked down at her feet blushing, who finally said Yes.
Boy, you remember fist punching the air and walking past them barefoot, grinning like a madman with eyes as big as almonds.

And the next thing you know, you find yourself standing in the corridors of your old school with the English teacher you literally preached; listening to stories of her time and her lady secrets hidden into yet another Beatles number. You remember her humming to Love me Do and complaining about how your friends and you have not a clue of the real songs by them Mc.Cartney and the boys.. about how Ringo would always be the Star. The first and the last time your 53 year old English teacher looked like a little dreamy girl to you.

"You say goodbye, and I say hello...hello hello hello! I don't know why you say Goodbye, I say hello" was the first and the only line of Hello Goodbye you remember of the one real drunk night in a far away city with a friend who's as good as a stranger, now. It was a happy night, and they were good times, and all good things came to an end, and you left it at that.
"You say goodbye, and  I say hello.."

And finally, the song your mother sang to you since you were five.. Lovely Rita, probably one of your youngest and oldest memories. You laugh at your mother all by yourself tonight, remembering her pretending to play the piano like a drunk man every time she sang the song with her checkered apron on and red platforms.

The night rolls on to the last song.. you know it's the finale when you hear the song of young days and younger hearts singing to And I Love Her. He was the one boy and you were the one girl, and that was the one song. And you keep telling yourself it doesn't make your heart skip a beat, still. You keep telling yourself that it was long time ago, and you just keep telling yourself a lot of things. And finally, you give up and smile.


.........and once silence fills in the room again, you realize how stiff your body's become from sitting on that chair for a while now, you come back to reality and grow up all over again.
Yes, sir. You grew up with all those songs. And whoever you are, make sure that 'one odd fortnight' happens a little more often, and make sure you salute those four boys with impeccable timing. Make sure, you remember those songs, cause the universe is listening.
The universe is listening to The Beatles, right now.
 

(Because I'm in my yellow submarine..yellow submarine..yellow submarine.)
-Nil.

That of a jester.

No, it isn't blissful. It isn't very brave, either. Of all the things that you convinced me for what you were, disappointment wasn't quite a noun present. But then again, I fail to make anything out of you, all of a sudden. I've damaged my own confidence to its debris, for I have not a hint of what goes on in your head; what's been going on in your head. You're the death of a Confrontationalist. The meaningful stays within you bottled up, while all the meaningless rubbish you reiterate from time to time gets on my nerves, what a fool you are. Or what I fool, have I been?

Your repartee stymies me, they aren't enjoyable anymore.

There was a sense of kindness in your eyes, which you try to elude now. There was a sense of honesty in all your joys and laughter, and just why don't they feel sincere anymore? 

You look to me, like an insecure creature of the wild who's been betrayed by its animal instincts.  You're right to be cautious, but what I see is denial. 

Please don't make me regret what doesn't deserve to be, go right ahead and prove me wrong. You're terribly precious a comfort, unabashedly and unjustly important. Your ignorance is sinful, it isn't near to bliss. 

A sad joker haunts; take off that hat, throw away the red ping pong on your nose, your paper painted face must be washed, fall out of that green suit, and wipe off that chalked smile.

Come back, dear boy. Recognition awaits you.
 ______________________________________________________________


(Don't ask.  Brain farts have been taking over my existence and I promised fiction, yes I did.)


-Nil.

Just like last morning.

The mind wakes up to a surreal morning, angry remnants of desired conclusions bustling in a hurry over the caffeine of last night's sleep. The yellow morning should have been pleasant, but the pupil only adjusts and readjusts itself to see clearly despite the painfully throbbing window panes of the mind's eye. Lips half opened, close into a pursed defense when the dizziness increases, palms shoot up to comfort the face with familiar lines and own skin, but the series of dreams left the mind agitated, the body at unease, and the hair uncombed and thoughts just as riddled as the knots that would be later tugged on with the green comb.
The anxious shoulders work up the courage to move, the body shifts places and travels to the colder region of the bed, to get rid of the warmth of the place where the body slept for eleven hours and the place that felt like a recently exhausted engine of an old angry truck. Focus zeroes down to the small tattoo of the dragonfly on the ankle, and slowly the five senses regain and recollect the origin of the body. The sixth sense hushes down the constant nervous yelps booming in the speakers somewhere far away, within the soul perhaps?
The day compliments itself with the whistles of the iron boy, skipping and hopping to the neighborhood households to carry away crushed white shirts and bring them back crisp by the evening for another day of 9-5 slave hours for the guy next door with brown polished boots and the corporate car.
The cat purred in its sleep beside..The world was slowly making sense.
Water!, the tongue rebels. As the Adam's apple is bathed with the cold noble liquid, courtesies the refrigerator, the body subsides to the calm, the quiet, and understands again, just like last morning, who it was, what it does, and where it belongs. 

Courtesy- NILADRI BHATTACHARJEE.

-Nil.