A Transit visa i dont want.

Its sometimes hard to stop my mind wandering to distant places and thoughts long past.

Its hard not to notice how things have changed, how nothing is the way it used to be. Friends I have known since the day I donned diapers are busy changing diapers of their own offspring’s.

Others are busy filing for divorces while some are planning their weddings.

Most of have lost hair or are still in the process of losing what’s left.

It just aint the same, the concept of late night outs has taken a back seat, no longer do we wait for that midnight snack at a distant railway station. Or a weekend trip to wee hill station.

Booze and dope just aint the way of life anymore, gone are the earrings, the rebel within seems to have been tamed for good.
It’s a part of life or so I am made to believe. But is this what I want.

This is all strange to me, long ago I had promised my self I would never give in to the stereotype way of life, but who was I kidding? I am already in it.

The Buddha lounge seems like a distant past. Mates sitting around a lava lamp getting stoned immaculate is just a memory now

There are no more football trials, hours spent on a field trying to play ball are just reduced to nostalgic moments.

Such is life, you grow up, you get a job, you grow fat, lose hair, own a house, spend all your time trying to fix that house and make a buck ( pappi pet ka sawal hai).

It’s a transition but I aint sure I am ready for it.

I miss the freedom, the rebel without a cause. I do miss the life it once used to be.

Midnight musing

So the day ended or so it seems…its past midnight am home and I still cant snap out of the quasi reflective somewhat rebellious state of mind I found my self in all day.

Have a matter first thing tomorrow morning and I haven’t even read the file, its just not the kind of case I enjoy. Family law, matrimonial disputes, from a pure legal perspective its just down right boring, there is no legal research involved no ‘construing’… its just plain simple merits you fight your case on.

I still need to send a report to the boss, something she was complaining about over lunch, had it been another day I would have sent it to her by tea, but today was different, I instead sat and pretty much gave up on work. I dug deep and found my blog as my solace.

I wonder whats stopping me from letting go of this, is it the comfort zone? Am I too scared of stepping out and finding firmer ground. I wish I had the answers, but right now my bed and my book beckons me..

All I seek…

It wasn’t many moons ago when I used this medium ( read blog) to stay afloat, to fight the sharks that swarmed the very waters I called home. It was a long journey but one that helped me immensely.

Things have changed ever so slightly, all while this summer sets into autumn I am back where it all began searching for the answers ill keep searching as long as I walk this earth, as long as I breathe the putrid air.

Who am I ? and what do I want?

People have come and people have gone, some on their own accord and some by my own misgivings. They have all left their mark some deep enough to be construed as scars which shall stand out for all times to come.

For me, this life over the last two years has been pretty much about me, myself and nothing else. Lost in a sea of shyte I pushed away those who meant a lot , those including my self who mattered.

Its unforgiving how I wade through these tides of time. Slow like a time bomb, an impeding volcano I wait on those moments that shall set me free.

I would rather have my words flow again, be in a space where all is clear, where the mist dissipates and the bluest of blue skies sucks me into its calm abyss.

As I read those posts, those words I couldn’t help but wish things were different, I would give a fortune to run away from this mayhem and stand at the edge of a cliff overlooking the clouds a setting sun and a sea splashed with the colors of the sky.

Liberation is all I seek, freedom is all I wish for, to be in a place where I could be me, where I could be the man I used to be. Where freedom was the way to be.

Paradise encore…

It hasn’t been a day I can write home about, I was dreading this day for the longest time. I was hoping the sun wont rise today but it did and how?
The boss had been away, what bliss, away to attend a funeral and a wedding, life was near peaceful, clear days where the sun shone and the zephyr washed away the sorrows, but just like every day has its night and every beginning has an end, so did this phase.
I lay in bed, eyes wide shut, thoughts of falling ill and death were constant companions but between the twenty minutes I got for my self before I head out to battle, neither did I die or fall ill, what luck!!!!
A few smokes, a cup of black coffee and I was at work, sweating and stressing dreading the inevitable, the slave awaited the masters return.
She walked in while I was sipping on my second cup of coffee. There were no pleasantries exchanged just a list of work which needed to be completed in the next twenty minutes.
All stress and no relief is a constant companion when the boss is around, the associates (read as slaves) dread the return, the presence, it’s a complicated situation, its like treading the valley of death, where the only thing inevitable is the proverbial death itself.
When shall this sun set, when will I be free again. Thoughts of me walking into her chamber with a wee gun and shooting my self, make me happy make me smile.
Will I ever rise against this tyranny?

In the meanwhile…

What’s new in this life they call mine is a relative concept with no solid ground to tread upon, even why I haven’t written for the longest time has no answer… maybe it’s a collusion of factors I have no control over.

The past months were spent setting up my new apartment, my very own pad strewn with van gogh prints and the much-needed air conditioning.

More so the work has been hectic and at times rather frustrating, have spent many an hour planning the impending and hopefully inevitable exit from here, though I don’t see light at the end of this tunnel.

I have reached a stage where I cannot handle the boss and her unreasonable tantrums much longer. I have during the whole process of trying to stay afloat forgotten where I am swimming or who I am, I wake up dreading the days she would be waiting on us at work sharpening her proverbial knives. It’s a rather shyte situation to find myself entwined in.

Gone are the days when I could write at will, with more time on my hands and a comparatively peaceful existence the whole idea and process was a simple collusion of factors enabling me to reduce every moment gone by to words on a piece of paper. However how things change, every word now is an effort its an uphill battle where the summit seems farther away than I can hope or imagine.

Just Me..??!!??

A white shirt tearing at its seems, brown paw marks on the front, a dirty blue jeans and a pair of slippers held together with a safety pin. A stubble from hell and greying wiry hair, its all relative, the way I look has nothing to do with the way I feel, stress and incessant boredom have numbed my existence, I no longer care about my personal appearance, its all subjective to the objective needs of my dishevelled soul.
Its like letting go, a soul trapped set free, to breathe and fly, I sleep only to rise, I eat only to sustain, I smoke to breathe again, its all in the head, its all around, its just me…

Life unplugged…

Sleep is a luxury I cant afford,like a million other pleasures, instead I sit and stare at this screen wondering what I can do to snap out of this abyss, I am just rediscovering music yet again, having deprived my self of this simple pleasure, I hope to embrace it just to find the peace that’s evaded me for the longest time….

This world, this place, this hole is a place I rather not be, not like I have a choice….
This persistent cough refuses to abate, the dog sleeps peacefully, every now catching a glimpse of me, making sure I am around,

Half past one in the morning, I sit my desk at work, unshaven and unruly I seek to find peace, the stale dinner seems to have worked wonders on the overtly sensitive stomach I proudly call mine. This life needs a new meaning, a new beginning, this life needs an overhaul ..a dawn.. a getaway.. and a lot more

Paradise yet again..

2nd April 2008
And the day dawns on me yet again, I wonder why …???...I wish I could spend the whole day in bed, listening to music and musing about life, instead I find my self at my work station sans my glasses, which my dog destroyed while I peacefully slept dreaming about the mountains and juicy steaks… such is life.

Blinded and bugged sipping on coffee that tastes like shyte, I ask my self a millionth time, is this what I had envisaged my life to be, Noel Gallagher croons in my headphones, the nausea coupled with a smokers cough makes my existence far more painful and unbearable.
Maybe I need a vacation, a job change, a new career, I wouldn’t know what it would take for me to snap out of this hole I find my self in, I had thought getting a dog would help my cause but alas I was wrong as usual…

Summer at our doorstep.

The cold abates, the zephyr mellows, soft like linen it caresses your skin, the fog melts away, summer is at our doorstep, sweaty uncomfortable days and torturous nights plagued with mutant mosquitoes stands up and demands attention.

I hate the mere thought of what lies in store, I cant help but hope time stands still, come March and the great Delhi meltdown shall become, like a pot over an unabated fire, Delhi shall boil over.

Mere mortals like me shall suffer, without air conditioning, and always dressed in a black jacket I like millions shall be a victim of the ruthless summer sun.

Lost..

If I who I am is what I have, and what I have is lost? Then who am I? A conundrum nevertheless, a question without an answer, a thought without a process, a minute without a meaning.

The never ending quest of discovering and re discovering leaves you grappling in the dark searching for the soul that seems to have flown away.
Some times it makes me sad though, just to realize that its gone, I have to remind my self that some birds just need to fly.. Their feathers are just too bright.. and when they fly away... the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice.. but still the place you live in is that much more drab and empty when they are gone..

The fountain of life, all confined in a minute…

Most of us spend every minute gone by without as much as giving it a second thought, like a mirage we let it dilute into the oblivion, failing to realize the significance of the minute in question gone by.

For most its just a moment, a moment of utter insignificance never to surface again. However what we do miss in the whole process is the structural value it adds to our lives, every passing minute is like a building block, a moment, that moment which makes us what we are,

Every second, every minute is a stepping stone to what we eventually end up being, a constant changing dynamic structure we call our lives is a result of the minutes we have seen pass us by.

Just another day in paradise...

14th February

My feet were freezing, I lay cuddled on the driver's seat of my car, the day had dawned on me, and I had spent the night sleeping in my car, there was no particular reason for this blatant act of madness, it was sheer exhaustion coupled with nights of no sleep, which lead me to this drastic act of self torture.
The last few days have been as hectic as they come, a short trip to the west coast, hundreds of client meetings, a quasi verbal brawl with the Chief Justice, in all a superlative exciting package, and somewhere along the line it burned me down.

So there I was this morning, fresh from a night in my car, tired as hell, drained, life felt like it had it been run over by a freight train.
Am back at work, drained but alive, trying to get some useless research done, replying to the hundreds of legal opinions the boss needs.
From my vantage point I can see the boss sitting in a meeting with a couple of associates and I am so glad it aint me this time, every meeting with her is like walking barefoot on hot coal. And if it aint the coal it’s the dog, yes the wee dog, who loves snapping at you when the boss is around. Its funny how you have to work around the dog when you are briefing the boss. The dog sits at this vantage point on her desk right around all the files you need, and she just loves biting your fingers off every time you try and touch any of those files, so in all… it can be construed as fun.

This day shall roll on too, though all I can think of is my bed back home which patiently awaits my sorry arse… Evening come fast….

This is my Jehad….

This is my Jehad, this is my (un) holy war, this is my life, where I wake up to reality and wonder, why the world spins the way it does, riddled by hate, blood and deceit the world around me is tearing at its seams.

The nest I hide in, is my safe haven, but the minute I step out I can sense the rage, the anger, I can smell the pain, the poor suffering, children starving, begging, being forced into labor, everywhere I go, everywhere I look, I find emptiness, I find the essence of humanity being trampled by the reality of our existence.

It is sad that my Jehad is a selfish battle where I cant give anyone but my self happiness, I am alone yet surrounded by those who rubbish my claims and those who stand by me.

I cant stand and watch these blatant acts of self destruction, Kidney kingpins, overtly sensitive lawyers who cant watch to people share something as beautiful as a kiss, a leader who aims to tear the secular seam of this country, who threatens to treat humans from a different part of the same country as dust and dirt, I cant face to stand my fellow countrymen re- electing leaders who washed their hands in the blood of thousands of innocent Muslims.
This is my life, this is our reality, we are all surrounded by this filth, this is my Jehad.

The World Spins Madly On.

Every now and then I wake up and realize the world I knew, had moved on, it had changed, not sure about the good bit.. but it had changed aright, friends were either dead or married, not sure which one’s worse though.

I, on the other hand, still sit at my study, trying hard to appease the savior within.

It aint helping, frankly everything is moving too fast for my own good, am I losing touch with reality? I wouldn’t know, an answer I might not have.

Tuesday this week…


Another week gone by, one less week to live (the eternal pessimist within jumps with joy).. the cold is near bone chilling and I am loving every bit of it, dressed like a tramp I pass my days in sheer delight, summer is only a month away and the thought of it makes me wanna die.

Delhi summers for most who have never experienced it, is straight out of a microwave, dry, bone burning heat, coupled with frequent power cuts and genetically mutated mosquitoes from hell, and makes life less worth living.
If only I was the weather God, I would delete summer from my weather system altogether.
I am back at work on a useless Tuesday afternoon, and lunch is a few minutes away, Van Gogh and Michael Angelo (my two Siamese fighter fish, look as bored as I do). The apple snails munch on some carrot and a lettuce leaf, life in this workstation has never been this dull.

The only thing smiling here is the picture of Mahmoud (10, a rag picker in West Bank), I often stare at him, surrounded by trash, dressed in rags and throwing a priceless toothy smile back. I don’t know him and probably never will, but in a strange way he gives me hope…

21st January ...

Another moment of madness...

Construe this as a moment of madness, a moment where time stood still, faceless and empty like the thoughts in my head, a moment I thought would be my last, flashbulbs and cameras, social activists, Supreme Court lawyers and hundreds of journalists packed in room with a woman, a victim of rape and genocide in the midst of it all…

Dressed in a brown quasi overcoat acting like a shadow and consultant to my boss, I stood there taking it all in, slow.. the pain the woman had gone through, the struggle for justice and the eventual victory in our struggle towards achieving the impossible.

It was then that it struck me, more like an image in my head, a booming sound, earth shattering and painful engulfing the room, it could have been our end had it not been in my head, but I pictured it, laying numb in one corner breathing my last, numb and disillusioned from the blast that could have ripped the room, I am not intuitive (thankfully) .. but I felt it.

For all those we stand up against, men in power who hate us for hating them for the murders and rapes they shamelessly committed and supported, this could have been an opportunity to get rid of all of us in one effortless go.

With no metal detectors, not a single security personal this could have and would have been the easiest way to target the civil society activists who have raised their voices time and again against the tyrannical and barbaric genocidal rule of the few we oppose.
Thankfully it was all in my head, I survived this and so did the hundreds with me, but for how long is a question I rather not have an answer for.

Egg Curry and Justice- A scary dichotomy

Guess there is only one way around this, I need to dig deep and start aiming at posting things on a daily basis. (aiming for the stars am I?), but anyways there is no harm giving it a shot.

15th Jan 08,

Another day gone by, spent at the Supreme Court, wondering if this is what I wanted from life, a constant duel, the never ending bickering.... the bohemian pot smoking me feels all deprived and ignored.

Black coats, a whole hoard of judges with inflated egos and accents from hell, (half my time is spent deciphering their distorted speech).
I cant seem to get the thought of quitting this and moving to the mountains to smoke some pot and farm some apples out of my head.
But anyways I passed out at Court yet again, sweet dreamy sleep engulfed me, where I even dreamt of hitting Brett Lee for a six ....was a welcome change from watching and hearing a senior counsel argue why coal mining in West Bengal needs to be stopped, or where a bunch of Indian Sadhus stormed into the court room waiting for the much awaited judgment on whether Ram the Indian God actually existed. ( I am not sure if the US supreme court has ever been moved on the issue of the existence of Jesus Christ). Anyways keeping with the trend of the Indian Legal System both the matters were adjourned…( ever wondered why it takes litigants in India years to see light at the end of the tunnel)


Back at work, the boss was screaming at the court clerk and a client, the weather seemed cloudy but far from stormy ( the weather reports entail the mood of the boss… )
Hours went by… researching… drafting.. more researching… some more drafting and re drafting when I finally decided to take a break…

Was sitting with T taking a break over a cup o' terrible milky tea and discussing my day at the court with the new interns, who were letting one and all know how I passed out while waiting for my matter to come up on board and the conversation settled on the intricacies of how afternoons are spent in court rooms, where judges and lawyers 'like, fight and dig deep to stay awake but fail miserably, the soft snore , the droopy eyes and dropping heads are a common sight.
It was then that it struck us ( T, I give you full credit here), how the lives and the justice of this country rests in the hands of a bunch of sleepy men, who have stuffed their faces with the only edible ‘thing’ available at the Supreme Court cafeteria – the egg curry.

Out of the shell…? Almost

A three month hiatus, and I still cant write…its all in the head and its all screwed up, suppression seems to be a thing of the past, the me within is beginning to rebel, signs of rebellion loom large over the horizon, endless hours of staring at my fish are finally paying dividends. There is anger, a dormant volcano is about to explode, unleash hell, wrath and more. This should be fun.
Gone are the days when words would flow like an ocean breeze, where everything around it had a word attached to it.. gone are the times when living everyday was a reason to write, to share…. Ominous signs? Maybe.. I cant be sure… But it might all change..

Midnight Musing...

Life is finally all about the moments, but there's always the larger plot to consider... a lot more goes into making those moments. In life, the moments are the plot.

Moments to Cherish...

Away from the reality they call my life I find peace in the abyss, those corners I run away from, the darkness I am too scared to call mine. I stand alone like a whole hoard of people, but I find peace in the little things I can call mine.


The fish donning my desk, cannibalistic but beautiful the wee black stripes that swim in the watery prison, the music that plays in my ears, Nick Drake, a talent gone waste, someone who died young but left his mark, that voice deep and touching.

I can only think about that evening at Shane’s place when I had given up all hope of getting through with the mother of all essays a year and a bit more back…. that’s when Shane and Nick drake gave me shelter and hope… a hope that made me see the sun rise that Easter morning….the clouds that threaten to wash away the heat every evening, the long drive back home, surreal, my existence a caldron of emotions and sunsets… of orange skies…
Moments gone by, leaving behind a mark… a drunk Phillipe calling me in the middle of the night howling over his lost belt while he hung perilously from Kelvin’s statue…. the night Wolfgang Ruckert stopped the subway coz all of us had to get back home to get more wasted… the time when Angela helped me fly back home to discover the truth… or the time when Christine sat and gave me hope… or the time when Kate encouraged me to go and fetch my dreams….. these are memories all mine.. all precious… I cherish these moments and more when Atif my slave chopped all those onions and looked the other way when I stole his smokes…or when zareen shared dinner with me from a million miles away when I sat alone in that lill prison I built for my self... walls to high to scale…
I sit here.. an empty bottle of whiskey shares these moments with me… Nick Drake still sings …. Just the way he will for all times to come… I am not alone, I have a million thoughts to share this moment with me , but none better than those who have spent my precious moments with me…