Little Boy Blue

Little boy blue, up above so high
Wake up the shepherd, the time is nigh
Check up on life, make us some bread
Lose yourself, get rid of the thread

Where is the cuckoo around your wrist?
"What good is that thing in the mist?
I traverse spacetime slice by slice,
God may not, but I do play dice,

I am what I see on the way
Just wish I could get through this day.
I can't be, I wish they were not,
unhealthy happiness besought."

Little boy blue, you are no fun
"Well, happiness is just a bad pun."

In the rain

Do you think I’m not,
What I once used to be?
Can you sing me a song
And alleviate me?

Or maybe, buy me a shell that is thicker than this

Bid me goodbye and I’ll go amiss

Can’t stand to wait for the finish

I’ll do fine sitting in the rain

Can you give me a hand

With all this burden of lies?

Can you pass me the wand

That has me hypnotized?

I will run through the sky, like a tickled up bee

Is that a stupid analogy?

Can't remember last time I felt funny

Since you've been missing in the rain

Are you reasonably hurt?
Or should I try even more?
Try to see through the dirt
There's a castle of yore

We can build back this way, we can make it alright
You'll build the bridge, I can be dynamite
All this trouble to kill the boredom inside
It's easier sipping up the pain

Easy now

The divine sigh

Chafing the skin

Exposing every sin

Didn’t mean to get so high

No choices anymore

No time for you or time for me

No pain, no joy, no epiphany

No hinges on this door

A different plane

Lines converge and lives diverge

Now cremate this final urge

Not easy being insane

This languid ride

Uneasy truths, unnerving stakes

Pummeled pride, broken brakes

Perched lonely on a tide

Dissolving light

Expanded eyes, dilated dreams

Loosely held by opening seams

Liberated, but not quite

Disjointed faith

Uncomfortable paragons

Immoral kings and shoestring pawns

Can't use much but wraith

You & I, we've been through this

It’s the way of this world, my friend
Making sense of what’s absurd
On a scale of one to ten
Life is just a four-letter word

You can try to give me reasons
But in the end it’s all a joke
There’s no such thing as a free lunch
Although all you eat is smoke

Yesterday when it was raining
The water came up to your eyes
And sanity is an insane thing
Truth is lie in a disguise

And I’m standing in the river
My cold feet shrunk beneath my soul
I’ve got nothing left to give her
This is where I lose control

There is hope aka Aila ek aur poem!

Into the depths of briny deeps
Into the blue cap overhead
A gentle whisper softly seeps
Shaking the souls of the undead

And no one speaks to break the lull
The half-burnt whisper turns to ash
And buried in the cold rubble
It marks the embers with a rash

In echoes of a distant time
Is veiled the final semblance
It rises from the past sublime
To clear the smoke of indifference

And tiny hope does lay afloat

Ca Ira, the heavens resound
We hide inside the snowy coat
Upon a cloud of eiderdown

Flying Trapeze OR Iambic Pentameter

I like the way you swing
It makes me sweat
I’m cold and hot and I
Can’t breathe alright

The rope it breaks you fall
Into the net
You crash and break your head
I lose my sight

Make me a Poem

Nightmare illusion, nicotine backlash
Walking on thin ice, bleeding from broken glass

Burning the blue skies, they're turning green to me
Line-breaks and timequakes

I'm an illusion stranger, Haha! I'm a charade
I want you to push me over the brink
Don't want you to guess anymore

You have no idea where I came from
We have no idea where we're going
Lodged in life
Like branches in a river

Flowing downstream, caught in the current
I carry you, you'll carry me
That's how it could be

Don't you know me? Don't you know me by now?

Walk on

leaden eyes, guilty mind
it's okay to stay behind

comfortably numb is fine
no good standing in the line

heaven's good, but hell's okay
and who's bothered anyway?

win or lose, there is no strife
either way, you'll get through life

cos all that you touch
and all that you see
all that you taste
all you feel
all that you love
and all that you hate
all you distrust
all you save
and all that you give
and all that you deal
and all that you buy
beg, borrow or steal
and all you create
and all you destroy
and all that you do
and all that you say
and all that you eat
and everyone you meet
and all that you slight
and everyone you fight
and all that is now
and all that is gone
and all that's to come
and everything under the sun is in tune
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon.

A dose of the maestro

Been reading a lot of Ghalib these days. Apart from his genuinely romantic verses, his poetry seems to carry a lot of the rock music attitude. Though not exactly rebellious, and I'll refrain from using the much glorified adjective "pessimistic", but it surely borders on negative determinism, or fatalism if you will.


परतव-ए-खुर से है शबनम को फ़ना की तालीम
मैं भी हूं एक इनायत की नज़र होने तक

( परतव-ए-खुर= Sunlight, शबनम =Dew, फ़ना =Annihilation, तालीम=Knowledge, इनायत=Favour)

Meaning: As a dewdrop knows of its destruction by sunlight, I, too, await somebody's favour towards the same end

Of course, optimists( what is their motivation anyway?) will point out that it is only a pessimist's interpretation of a beautiful description of the parallel between a dewdrop and a human being. Let them.

गम-ए-हस्ती का 'असद' किससेे हो जुज़ मर्ग इलाज
शमा हर रंग जलती है सहर होने तक

(गम-ए-हस्ती= The pain that is life, जुज़= other than, मर्ग= Death, शमा= candlelight/flame, सहर= Morning)

Meaning: What else other than death can be the cure of the disease that is life? A flame burns in all colours till morning just as life shows all colours till death takes over.

No multiple interpretations here. Ghalib was the first rock lyricist ever!

सारे जग में कहीं नही है दूसरा हिन्दुस्तान

Probably the closest description of our beloved countrymen i've ever come across.Kudos to Javed Akhtar for the beautiful yet not overly emotional verse:

हम लोगों को समझ सको तो सम्झो दिलबरजानी
जितना भी तुम सम्झोगे उतनी होगी हैरानी
अपनी छतरी तुमको दे दें कभी जो बरसे पानी
कभी नये पैकेट में बेचें तुमको चीज़ पुरानी
फिर भी दिल है हिन्दुस्तानी
थोडे अनाडी हैं थोडे खिलाडी
रुक रुक के चलती है अपनी गाडी
हमें प्यार चाहिये, और कुछ पैसे भी
हम ऐसे भी हैं, हम हैं वैसे भी
हम लोगों को समझ सको तो सम्झो दिलबरजानी
उलटी सीधी जैसी भी है अपनी यही कहानी
थोडी हममें होशियारी है थोडी है नादानी
थोडी हममें सच्चाई है थोडी बेइमानी
फिर भी दिल है हिन्दुस्तानी
आंखों में कुछ आंसू हैं कुछ सपने हैं
आंसू और सपने दोनो ही अपने हैं
दिल दुखा है लेकिन टूटा तो नही है
उम्मीद का दामन छूटा तो नही है
हम लोगों को समझ सको तो सम्झो दिलबरजानी
थोडी मजबूरी है लेकिन थोडी है मनमानी
थोडी तू-तू मैं-मैं है और थोडी खींचातानी
हममें काफ़ी बातें हैं जो लगती हैं दीवानी
फिर भी दिल है हिन्दुस्तानी

This is part of the newfound patriotism after two months away from homeland. A fullish travel diary type description of the sojourn is imminent, but somebody has got to help me get over my laziness. For those looking to write some devnagri font themsleves, download the software Baraha

Who wants to live forever?

Mama,oooooohh......I don't wanna die,
Sometimes wish I'd never been born at all

Words just keep ringing in my head.It's a great,great song really.But the words assumed a new meaning for me last sem,when the news came.

IIT Kanpur student commits suicide.

It was a junior of mine.I never actually met him.I heard his name only after his death.But then I saw his face in the papers,and I became cold.Of course I knew him.So what if I'd never talked to him.But I'd seen him around plenty of times.He lived in the same hostel as me for an entire fuckin year.
Of course I knew him.

Why did he do it? Nobody will ever know,I suspect.Reportedly,he called his house minutes before he took the drastic step,and didn't really give a hint of the turbulence in his head to anybody.Academics?His CPI was a more than decent 8.Some people say that he mugged all the time and still couldn't get beyond 8.That he was frustrated with getting a 'B' in every damn subject.I want to believe it,but i can't.

What bothers me about it?everythingI guess.I guess everyone is disturbed by a suicide.But I have this rather disturbing thought at times.What if the cause wasn't really as big and he had realized this before he died?

He jumped from the 6th floor to his death.I'm a mild acrophobic.Part of what scares me about heights is the time it takes to reach the ground.I recall jumping from the 3m diving board in a swimming pool and the part I hated most was when I was suspended in air and was conscious enough to realize it.This is what brings me to think;he jumped from the 6th floor.Perhaps he was guided by an extrememly strong impulse,thought that is highly unlikely.But still,I shudder to imagine that he might just have regretted his decision after he had actually jumped.What if that was the case?What if while he was travelling through air,perfectly conscious that those were the last few seconds of his life,he started to think that maybe he shouldn't have done this? That it wasn't so bad after all,whatever it was.Maybe his life was flashing rapidly before his eyes,maybe he had in his mind an image of himself as an infant and his mother holding his hand.Maybe at that very moment,he thought he wanted to see his mother again,and again and again.The brief time in which he hit the ground,then,would have been unbearbly torturous.I keep thinking about it.Just can't get the thought out of my head.

Mama, I'm falling from the sky
mama, did it need to be so high?

When will I ever hit the ground?
now my mind is beginning to wander around...

...my life,I don't want it to flash
before my eyes,I just wanna crash

I don't know what I'm doing,I'm sorry
in death,as in life,I will be a worry

But please please don't cry for me
just look up at the sky for me

I'll not be near,I'll be very far
I don't even know if I'll be a shining star

But I'll see you from the sky
Oh Mama,I don't wanna say godbye

Why did I choose to die
Mama,I'm still falling from the sky...

Hard time killing floor blues

Hard times here and everywhere you go,
time's harder than ever been b'fore,

And the people are driftin', from door to door,
can't find heaven,no matter where they go,

Say you got money,you better be sure,
these hard times will drive you from door to door

Makin' it look easy is tough all the more,
I'm still knockin' on heaven's door

You better take care now, where you go,
you might just end up mopping the floor