The Shadow and The Soul.

Tonight, I saw a dark shadow in the caves. This shadow came to me as a reminder, playing hide and seek in the crevices and behind stalactites and stalagmites. I was being invited to a game, someone whispered. If I could catch that mist, the fog, then knowledge would be mine she promised.

I smiled. Wryly, and barely. But I smiled. Why would I want knowledge? Is a battle within the heart not enough? And I Ignored. I looked around for exit as I remembered I had been doing before the shadow went swooshing past. Touching me with her coldness and threatening me with the unknown. Oh I like the unknown. I crave for the unknown. Did she think she could have scared me?

And again, the mist went swooshing past.I could have so easily grasped her had my hands been outstretched. But they weren't. I had heard of the legend of Dr. Faustus. No, I did not intend to sell my soul. And knowledge brought suffering, it did. So I turned again, blind and fumbling, but the exit was lost.

I was not hopeless now. Hopelessness had become a way of life a long time back. Then she took pity.


"You are ignorant" said she
"I know" shot I " Even though it does not bring me to the fools paradise"

She left.

Then the shadow came to rest and spoke :
"Knowledge brings pain, and it brings you medicine so that they may be healed.
Knowledge will make you aware of the chains in which I have bound you. Yet it shall teach you how to slip out of them. "

Without darkness there can be no light.
The earth rotates.

The shadow was me. The lost soul was me. Within the globe of my heart, one half sleeps and the other acts. Then upon awakening, the sleeping half condemns the acting one as it prepares to fall asleep. They tear at each other. Carnivores, blood-thirsty, ripping apart the womb fated to encase them.

I still fumble for the exit. It still eludes me.

Through the Looking Glass.

In the post before last, I spoke of choices.

Now that post was very inarticulately written, but as S told me, it's all the age da.Maybe it happens to all, but currently, it's humanity and its current condition that truly disturbs me sometimes.And many more things besides. I still have steps to tread before I develop a distinct apathy that makes survival a happy affair. Though in alternate stages of my oscillation I doubt if I haven't too much of it already.

Do we choose the coloured glass through which we look at life ? Or maybe they are presented to us, gifts or curses as we make them out to be?

I look at life through Red coloured glasses, and this shouldn't come as a surprise, given that I've literally bathed myself in this colour since age 8.

Which coloured glasses do you look at life through? Find here.

Then share.

Holy Mess.

There are people and there are people.The first category of those who feel affinity towards and hence inhabit pigsties. I admire them. Their prowess at being able to extract the one piece of paper from piles of scribbled ones, important ones, ticket stubs and pamphlets that they got at the Sealdah station amazes me. They can have every piece of clothing from their wardrobe in a heap on the balcony railing and yet be able to tell the clean ones from the dirty ones (I secretly don't believe that but if this is what they claim, who am I to cast aspersions on their level of hygiene?) I simply marvel at their ability to sleep and snore on a bed that has a bedsheet not washed in weeks. And I find it profound that the only inanimate object given some semblence of respect is the PC/Laptop. These superior beings usually land from Mars.


And then there is the second category of people . Lesser beings like me, who, out of circumstances are forced to inhabit pigsties. The circumstances in question maybe (a). Having category 1 type of people in family or (b). renovation/ painting job in the home that turns it into a pig sty.


Circumstance (a) is unfortunately permanent. You are stuck with it for life. Yet if you are as resourceful as I am, you realise that there is a way out of it. Divide your home in pigsty/non-pigsty zones. Even if your room is the only non- pigsty zone, it really helps. Encroachment can be avoided by use of vocal chords. I have extensively used it over the years and this was the only reason I did not win Indian Idol 3.
Circumstance (b) is temporary and lasts roughly only for about a week. But if circumstance (a) combines with circumstance(b) then this do ki shakti throws people like me completely out of focus.


Any kind of mess throws me out of gear. It reduces my ability to concentrate. It irritates me and agitates me. I find it difficult to get any kind of work done, let alone the studying I should be doing for my exams starting on the 16th. My surroundings are directly proportional to my productivity and I feel disturbed if I am in the midst of cacophany.I empathise very very strongly with any one in Rani's position in Chalte Chalte. That ought to explain it all.


P.S My crap writing capabilities though, I am baffled to say, remains cooly unaffected.