Mr.Middle

Gerontophobia is the fear of growing old.Numberless people live with it because they fear the loss of all dignity and refuse to become a responsibility to someone.Instead,they choose death.
It's not growing old I fear,for that would be a blessing,a rare grace of life even in moments of utter disgrace.
           The thought of being on a boat in the middle of an endless of ocean ,half of possibility left behind,half of it,left unknown.The only assurance would be responsibility,because you're too old to have an excusable manner of letting yourself or people down but too young to be dismissed as a sheer mistake of your circumstance.
Neither the innocence of inexperience nor the full wisdom of experience contribute to the middle ages,that make it appear so lackluster.
                          Have you ever seen a table at a restaurant filled with middle aged men,chugging down beers to their bellies that could explode any minute by the sheer size of their ballooning and gawking at women that don't belong to them? That is revolting.
They make it appear as if happiness is not the food you ordered at a restaurant coming to your table finally,that all frustrations stem merely from the mental exhaustion of the years of expected peak performance.

I fear this loss of identity brought about by age,by knowing the half your life is over for good,that thin line dwindling between novelty and mediocrity.Half-wisdom and weary love.

Second hand book collection

To know that a stranger's hands once leafed through the same pages,and smelled the same scent  of a new
heaven hidden in these pages of print.

To know that someone out there had their heartbeat stop to the same words,the same syllables that take your breath away,

Death doesn't exist for these tattered books,neither does oblivion,they will live in multiple memories for years to come,and create new ones,passed on from generation to generation.The same little details  and reading in between the lines will make another kid smile in the years to come.

Sure,they belonged to someone else once who now betrayed them,but it was a betrayal for the better,

because it only means they will get newly christened again,learn that love will find them,and someone will make them their own.At the same time,preserve their identities,creases and folds and different stages of yellow complexions accompanied by age.

Holding them,piled up tall,close to my chest..I have this feeling.It's indelible.Here I am,looking at disowned or half-owned books looking at me,here I am,invited back to the land of magic.I stand staring at half of my childhood..spent in these stores and those long afternoons sprawled over these books that gave me the endless want of these books.

Trying to justify this feeling is like trying to answer why some families are happier than others,or why the sky drapes itself in funny colours at dusk  some days.There might be answers,but the mystery is the most beautiful part.Keeping it alive is love.

Like old souls they charm lives,sometimes,with the previous owner's name and other details scrawled on the front page,sometimes even a date.Like wine and cheese,they are better consumed grey.

A gift from a stranger without their knowledge,almost miraculous.Have you ever found yourself talking to a stranger standing next to you,assuming they were your friend and wondering what that person's thoughts are like?

Ever wanted to see all the stars at once,or desire to know all the people of the world with their stories and craved to make an impression on someone you din't know? There is such dignity in meeting a stranger,such grace in discovering the impersonal comfort that strangers offer?

Trying to fit in an entirety into an instant and preserving a still frame of a universal feeling.

Always a fan of living in the yesterdays,my eyes fill up with joy at the sight of these books,stacked in shelves,stuffed in cardboard boxes or lining the streets in an array.

Selling second hand books is not just selling stories,

it's selling the souls of strangers,to strangers,

weaving an uncanny kind of unity.

Don't get all metaphysical on me

                                                     

This post was originally intended to be titled "What's the drug of your choice?",but well,it did not seem apt enough to describe the sentiment I'm about to express.
All of us,every extraordinary mortal consciously or unconsciously picks a cardinal trait of pleasure to center their life around.The world was designed for diversity,so there are inevitable individual differences in what we choose to devote ourselves to,but the fact that we all possess this central tendency itself in a sign of unity.Oh,the irony.This is the very cardinal trait we commonly term "purpose" and finding it is why we survive.
We all choose our very own versions of a drug,an addiction to thrive on,to give us that adrenal rush.Add that zing to life,that kick that makes everyday exceptional.

But there's a valiant villain called pain,he who steals patience and hope from the recess of our strengths when we're not looking,a thief in the darkness,a lucid nightmare beyond control due to the state of sleep,but we always feel him.We sympathize with the bad guy.
Pain and pleasure,pleasure and pain,are they not the same? Don't get me wrong,I don't want to start sounding negative or take this on to a cynical footing,but claims at lives that are absolutely charmed and immune to disturbances are false.

Here's the part where it all starts to make sense in a story,when just as you're thinking "Hey,this is not interesting enough,where's the downside,where are the problems,the flaws?",the pain that spares nobody in its largess.We all talk of the purpose of life,but what about the purpose of pain?
A girl I know once said "There is pain in everything we do" and it's true.Sometimes so much so,life stops making sense because pain and pleasure blend to the extent where they seem inseparable.
It's in the big blows that leave us feeling so blue and bruised,like the winter's wind,that we're hurting for longer than we can tolerate.It's in that ever persistent dull stab in your heart  and even when you try hard to make it go away,it's hiding in that hole you din't know exists and casually ignoring until it decides to stop playing peek-a-boo and become a surface wound.There is pain even in happiness,hiding,prying,waiting to strike.
Pain is when you hear or see something and you can almost feel your heart physically aching,it's the feeling of drowning without water,it's the stone that weighs you down beyond words of wisdom and hope.Pain is when feelings fail to transform into words and take shelter in the language of tears.
He is in that surreal world you see through foggy eyes,blurred boundaries,loss of rationale.
He dwells in the death of your dreams,he looked upon your shoulder when you first understood death the morning your labrador died,he ticked with the clock in silence when your family fought the first time when you were four.He lingers in every failed effort,in the wild beating of the heart,fueling the fear of the unknown,wallowing in unrequited love,he swims in every puddle of sorrow that rolls down your cheeks,he smells the scent of nostalgia,he occupies farewells and creeps even into the happiest memories.Omnipresent,omnipotent.

Pain is inevitable.
There's no escaping him.
Although accepting him seems impossible,it's the solution.The same girl who pointed out the omnipresence of pain,added,"There is pain in everything we do,changing that into smiles is what you're all about".
She also said "If there in no love,there is no pain,If there is no pain,there is no love,If you have neither,you are not human" think about it,because without some degree pain,the purpose of life would be less valued.There is no perfection,no perfect creation,no invention of man or any creator without flaws.Even the perfect machine has friction that makes it real.Pain makes pleasure possible,he makes pleasure real and complete.In every ounce of pain,there is also the same amount of pleasure and that is why they replace each other and sometimes,even,coexist.
Another blogger,In not so many words, said to me "Pain is like fabric,the stronger it is,the better" and I try to create something out of the hole inside me,I realise I cannot fill it in,I can only try turning it into something that can be beautiful.Pain will exploit,just as pleasure will,they're the couple that fuels all purpose and creation.
Pain is only so much more captivating because pleasure almost always seems beautiful,we seldom question the purpose of pleasure,she seems to be a natural,pain appears ugly but in his depth there is a beauty that only sadness can convey and it is taxing to touch the essence of the sad kind of happy or the happy kind of sad.Pain is a part of us,as much as all the atomies that make a human being,he isn't an external force,he's an effect,a reaction,a fight that makes us who we are.Pain is within all of us,he is born out of our hearts,made out of us,just as we create pleasure and therein lies the source of all creation.It's the immune system of the mind fighting away oblivion with the help of the drug of pleasure.Hence,he weakens,suppresses but in the long term,strengthens.In the larger scheme of things,it's only pain we turn into wisdom.
Many claim that it's the ability to reason that makes us human,and it is this ability to realise the states of feeling and being are as interchangeable as the states of energy.To know that pain can be converted to pleasure,be changed and yet accept that it will always exist in some form and cannot ever be completely destroyed.
And that's the reasoning behind unreasonable pain.Someday it'll make even better sense to me,the purpose of pain.
Maybe there is none,it's just in his nature,pain is like poetry.

The glory days

Raindrops on car windows look like glitter when lights falls on them at night,as you drive to the supermarket where you'll walk down the aisles aimlessly,shopping cart empty."I just enjoy grocery shopping" you say to yourself.
You actually go there to watch a veil of smoke dance sensuously over the ice cream storage area,invoking your gaze to watch the screen of frost,a crowd of consumers walk past you looking for other things,or they look at you too long,and too hard,with the kind of scrutiny a scientist dedicates to a deadly microbe.
You need a brown paper bag with slits on the eyes to hide yourself from assault  and battery of gazes,later when you find yourself alone on a back alleyway or a footpath,next to overspilling garbage dumps,with a lone stray dog,you can puke your guts out into it,the smell of putrid smiles is nauseating.It has nothing to do with rainy days,you're used to them now.Start to wonder why ants and rants have such long straight lines,intersecting each other like there's no tomorrow,and conclude that coffee is a boon to all of mankind.It's only Friday night when the city's on it's streets,a flock,a fleet,shuffling to a beat they blindly grind their two left feet too each day,every week,for months and years,galore.It's a textbook excuse of a living.
A child of accident is a lucky one because he has someone to bag the blame on to,or maybe it just blows more because he shouldn't have belonged,had it not been for the lack of a second thought.Why,India needs the colors of fall to adorn October to make it warmer and colder at the same time,until you feel just fine.
The smell of celery is so enticing only to you,oh,the sweet smell of greens.Songs from different decades shuffle through your brain..Maybe you should zone out like a zombie instead of sending messages across hemispheres inside the globe of your head, when you stare at shadows on ceilings,maybe you should dance on the streets to celebrate what you feel.What it feels like to be a skeletal soul.Raw,raw,rugged,whole.Wholesome as a bowl of soup.
Indigo tiles on kitchen walls are soothing like magazine rifles are soothing against the cool skin of your temples.
Hitler and Gandhi were the same person in cardinal essence,their lives just spiraled towards different ends.
Why do dogs have that light in their eyes like sparklers on Diwali,who stole the light from your eyes.
You know that feeling when you skip through the lawn sprinklers on a summer day and get your clothes all dirty and your mother screams at you because mothers scream at children and children make castles out of mud,with little flowers at the windows,such skilled masonry and the drill perpetuates into long summer nights of hide and seek where you have to pee so bad,you can't breathe.Such imagery it suffocates you,like when you're standing on stage and your mouth forgets to move and your throat dries itself up,forgetting it can produce sound.What a wastage of memory space,nahi?
But yet you never forget to include the irrelevant details like rattling swings,ceramic bowls heaped onto each other,striped umbrellas,hot cups of cocoa and the sunlight on white spaces that looks like a rod of  rainbow colours.
Drink up your rose milk,or flush it down,the staircase where you sat talking to the stars still has the sharp edges where you once fell.The scar running along your back is memory of who became you in the eyes of those who watch. Where did you go,where did they go,the days galore?

'Fat'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pi3bc9lS3rg


As a little girl,I always wanted the texture of skin like a watercolour painting,
a fine china nose,carved out like dainty flower  on a bone china teacup,
I wished and wished that my name would be 'Rose'
and I dreamt of running as fast as other six year olds could.

Pink was the colour of my whole,entire wardrobe,
slick,straight hair,adorned forehead,babydoll fringe,
and my little feet fit into a Mary Jane collection I took pride in.
Everything Barbie, and tea sets and dolls defined,swimming pools
and cartoons and colouring books- all I ever wanted from life.

My sister and I,we dressed almost identically,
except the identical outfit colours contrasted-pink was a colour only I owned.
Soon,I was 'too big' to fit into pretty clothes anymore,
my feet outgrew the junior section size,'not for you',
 the look on the salesman face read.

Hurt was my precious world,tainted pride,
my parents shushed my sentences that came out
like a lisp,tongue stuck to palette,they scolded,
'no longer a child',I was doing it for attention.

They made me a circus clown at five,
 I walked the stage feeling wronged,
hating me for being too tall for a ballerina,
Thinking,"those dainty little girls are so lucky".

Once I found a transparent pink bead in my shoe,
that looked like a diamond to my naive eyes,
I treasured it,but  lost it too soon,
like all the broken shards of bangle and broken teacup glass
I picked from the sandpit at school

I missed being carried,lifted up by my parents,loved
before I was too tall,too heavy,too much
of a fuss I knew not how I had become..
'fat' was the new word for me.

The youngest of the lot,annoying baby sister,
life is a bully,and I learnt the better part of this,
the night I waited an hour at my only friend's doorstep,
because her mother thought me a waste of time and mine,
screamed down at me from the balcony.

Names,what's in them,many given to me
"orange" and "lemon" in games played,a buff,
never taken seriously,"pregnant" because I couldn't run fast enough,
"unhealthy" when we were first taught what it meant.

This predilection meant,Love was not meant for me,
In a futile future,he said "no" because fat and ugly is all he could see,
no poem I wrote,no beautiful dream I dreamed
could justify this harsh reality.

A child,I did not understand the meaning of most of what fat meant,
but it sounded negative,the tone it was hurled at me in,
hurtful and mean,so I believed,believed,
that it was all I could ever be,"a disease",

Like that doctor said,the one who said "obese",
Walk it off,don't eat much,
unhealthy.Cry now,hope you feel bad about it.
No one ever said to me"don't take this shit".

What remained?
An identity?

Fat.
A broken record on repay.
Sometimes,
I still feel it so strinkingly,
a joke to others,but just a shape it should be,
why can't I ever be good enough just as you see

Why do most not choose to say just pretty,
over "pretty for a fat person,she" ?

You

    

To say that you're a part of me,

are colours my eyes have not learnt to see,

Or maybe colours I cannot describe well,

like the glass wings of a delicate yellow dragonfly,

transparent and iridescent fail to express.

Knowing that I crave for the comfort of

 the warm blanket of your skin.

Ridges on your palm  are the lines I fear to fill,

yet these are the same hands I grasp in 

the darkness of House of horrors,the hour of need.

The theory I apprehend to learn 

the night before an examination,

Uncertain,but I know I can answer 

the phenomenon which is you ,

even if it sounds this cheesy.

                                                     

The intricacy of incest

Is incest really as wrong,as tainted as it's made out to be?
I am lost for words,to describe what I think and feel.
If it's a feeling,an act of consent,why should be adjudged immoral by society?
Love does know no boundaries,
The risks are many of biology,
As they say too for homosexuality,
but why,do we let convention decide how we breathe,
Noone chooses love,love chooses them,
and how is it any different than a choice we are all entitled to?
Who are we to decide and dictate what to feel and when and for whom?
We were born free,they say,then why can't we just be.
And why are our minds framed to think so conservatively,
why as children are we not allowed to ponder free?
We're young and we believe we're the change we want to see,
but almost two decades of rigidities are hard to unfreeze.
We question what makes us feel what we do feel,
but we forget to question if our ideas can change completely.
Why is it that marriage in kin is an acceptable form ,why only consanguinity,
but out of wedlock,it is considered "sin against humanity"?
Leave alone society,leave alone sin,and biology,
is it still a question  of morality?
What makes us make that choice that seems an anomaly?
Mere absurdity,or is it reasonable rationality?
Is incest really as wrong,as tainted as we are made to believe?