Run Away

A recent realization.

Everything I have ever done or will do seems like

for winning a ticket to run away.

I have nothing to say

Why do you want to listen?

Change

As I looked outside from the window of the PMT that creaked with acceleration around the corner, the sparkling lights of Hotel Sun ‘n’ Sand greeted me. The posh glossiness of the hotel along with its plush interiors submerged me into a world of dreams, a world so different from the Pune I know now and the Pune that I had walked into, to clear an interview that would decide my future.

5-star hotels in every city are so different from the pulse and lifeline that the region emanates. It’s a feel good area of up-market happiness. It has crystal clear swimming pools, fixtures and sculptures accentuating architectural details and aesthetic lighting to view picturesque frames to satiate postcard visualizations. Fresh laundry services, sumptuous roasted sausages with wine and dripping chocolate brownies replace the wadas and the misil pavs. Warli art restricted to framed murals recreate transient cultural ambience to link tradition with modernity.

But I notice change. Indian boutique hotels and palace properties in Rajasthan bring together the magic of Incredible India. Branding India, a campaign so smartly understood by Amitabh Kant that it created a historic turn over in the tourist sector of this dynamic country.

As the unknown bus travellers ahead of me ogle with hope to enter the coveted premises of these palatial escapades of luxury and dreams, I notice them more than the shiny twinkly lights of the starry hotels.

I realize I have changed.

I am no longer a tourist in this city. I am very much a part of it.

The warmth emanating from your every ounce,

Heavy breaths balancing my thoughtful pounce.

Finding replications

Festivities bring fun, laughter, joy, amazement,love and meaning to people.

But to me I do not know what it means because it is the time I miss my city the most.

Its been 3 years since I have missed Durga Pujo. I do not know how I lived without it.

I guess sometimes things just erase from your life. I do not know when Pujo just disappeared from mine.

It will never be the same again. That is why life can never be the same when you are living in a transit.

Sometimes you sacrifice. Sometimes you move on.

I hope stagnancy can be inviting some day.

And one day the pious feeling of standing in front of Ma replicates in another land, another place.

These are my prayers... from a far away land, a distant place.

Who are we?

Today, the pure power of deep skin cleansing and a strong spurt of a mouthful of frothy, pasty plaque fighting protection is indispensable when we begin our day. The aroma of re-sealable packs of Bru and strong slurps of Nescafe at nights demarcate are insomniac activities and the break of dawn.

The lather of the soft creamy ‘bathing bars’ to therapy healing shower gels make us squeaky clean. From the checkered Burberry Brits to the chocolate boy Axe’s, we smell well but smell no different.

We consume cholestrol free oil, yet we gorge on ghee smeared parathas and motichur laddoos. We run with pace on the tread-mill with the ipod plugged in, yet we climb briskly on escalators and press elevator buttons repeatedly. The low cuts and the slim fits we like to flaunt after ogling at mannequins behind glass walls, not quite thinking that the same pair might look hideous if not well fitted.

The khus syrup has given way to Breezers, the nimbu pani to LMN. The subtleness of All India Radio has been stung by the hotness of Mirchi. Even Floyd’s rythym, Metallica’s beats and Beatles melody trapped in compatible discs are being released open by the green ‘mu’.

We have become comfortably numb.

Who are we?

We are today’s consumers. The life-line of today’s brands.

The sky stares at me with its vastness. It is dreadfully empty today. No shiny specks glittering in the dark macrocosm. No moon emanating the white aura, just enough for the legibility of the words in my Nabokov’s Lolita, which I attempt to read with intent sitting comfortably next to my high-rise window pane.

The very same words in the e-book, which I happened to stumble upon, on one of my many net browsing expeditions, might bring a soothing satisfaction to the monetary affordability one faces at the billing counter at Crossword, but it cannot substitute the charm of a book being held with one’s very own hands. Just as you held me when we departed.

The conversations and glances that we exchanged with ease have turned into combination of binary digits of zeroes and ones, waiting to be transported by electrical signals. We were growing slow, yet it seemed fast. And now with signals claiming the fastest 3G ever, everything seems slow. When did this distance grow?

We stare at the same sky, I wonder. Flickering and stagnant lights of the entire city create an oxymoron so powerful that makes me realize the distance yet not the difference of you not being near. Time will pass and so shall the buildings change, with their red lights flashing at regular intervals to warn susceptible heightened dangers to stay away. So will the distance between us grow.