Musings of an evening

Yet another evening. The cloak of music helps to feign ignorance about the happenings around me. They say that destiny happens when you least expect it. At this moment I could long for nothing more than a warm hug and an appreciative smile. 

I have been thinking about the loss of language a lot off late. The only language that I know and feel competent about is now an impendiment to making conversation. It doesn't matter how many ways that I know to express myself if all that does is to draw a laugh from the people around me. It feels odd when the jokes are not funny enough when said out aloud. The effort taken to enunciate every vowel out loud robs the joke out of any remnants of humour. At times it feels like being back in the high school.

I am sitting in a coffee shop reminded of the conversation that I had with P. She mentioned her friend who would go to coffee shops and cry from loneliness. At least I am writing and not crying.

I remember saying to a friend that I alway keep a 30% margin of going wrong with what I wear. Though sometimes it goes more wrong like it has today.

It felt very strange and awkward to sit across a friend and watch her as she got ready for a date while I got ready to pack up and go home and sleep alone. There was a pinch in her infectious energy. I felt very odd when I saw her make out with a boy who would have asked me out if I had not pushed my back to his face. At that moment I wished if I could just disappear. I felt like th outsider that I looked. 

The choices of meal options to be chosen in my last trip had to be the trickiest. I know that I have never cared about meat but when the whole perception hinges around how well I order food and distinguish one form from the other, It made me feel so out of depth. It made me realise how much I missed travelling alone . It is lonely but it gives me so much freedom to choose the form of food that I want to have and the places that I want to go to. 

Singed

I wish we had never met. I wish that you had never responded to my messages. Why did you have to remind me about what desire felt like? Why did you have to show so much interest in me? Why does distance have such a big role to play between two individuals? Why does distance have to determine the course of the future? Why can't you and I unite under the open sky and walk as one? It is unfair that I pine for your attention whilst you drink away with somebody else. Your melodious voice still rings in my ears. I long to hear your voice again. Why did you always have to call me an hour too late? An hour which is so difficult to spend now. I had forgotten what this fever had felt like. What this unending pulsation of the heart had felt like. I threw you off but I can also cushion your fall. If only you would give me the chance to do so. Why did you have to paint those words into my head? I can forget the voices, forget the names, forget the faces but these words stick. These words have occupied the vacant space in my head. These tenants won't vacate so easily. This languish does not leave me. It has me in in thrall of you. What do I do about songs in my head? The songs that I wanted to play for you. What do I do about the smile that came on my face with the mere mention of your name? What do I do about the longing desire to run my fingers on the nape of your neck. Yes, I m good with my hands. And they ache to act. I am smitten. And I had forgotten what it felt like to be like this.

Alas! I continue to burn.

Home

what is home? a bunch of keys that i have been in possession of that open a lock which i know is home. the bunch of books which lie stacked neatly in a corner on my book shelf is my book mark for my home. the building of mortar and bricks changes after every couple of years. the bend of the street leading to the home changes after every few years.

the lack of permanence is unsettling. My memories are divided over the cluster of years that have been spent in each house that I have stayed in. I sometimes get nightmares about the room where one of my landlords used to stay. It is a recurring image of that house.

My home is not a memoir of my growing years. It is more a marker of where I stand in the present. I feel more affinity towards the suitcase that carries my things each time I go back to my city and to my  house.

Sometimes I wonder what it would feel like to watch the tree grow that my mother had planted in front of our old house. I wonder what happened to the eucalyptus trees outside one of our houses. Would they still sway with the wind? Would they still cast their shadow above everything? Those trees have long been chopped off. But my mind still holds the memory when I tried to touch the silvery bark in the hope that I would never forget that those trees existed. Those trees were home for me.

In my current rented accommodation , I scatter familiar objects such as my lamps and books acquired over a period of time. They are my anchor. More than the building of bricks and mortar which houses me. As I get ready to vacate yet another house and and move to yet another dwelling, I will carry these same objects to maintain the string of continuity.

My house will change again after the past 4 years that I have lived in this city. I will carry with me my memories of these last few years and my collection of paintings. Move to a new place and create yet again a semblance of home.

in my head

i want to talk to you. tell you everything. tell you how my day went. how i fantasized about you kissing me. how good it feels when you laugh at something that i have said and answer sarcasm with further sarcasm. i feel a connection, albeit an imaginary connection with you.

i know that i don't exist for you. but when you respond to my messages in the middle of the night, i wake up from the sound of the ping. eager to talk to you lest i lose you again. you remark on my sleeplessness but i m sleepy eyed from the want of talking to you.

i look forward to meeting you and talking to you. the other day i imagined how it would be to lie next to you, cuddled in the curve of your body. and then waking up to the smile on your face.

the futility of these thoughts dont escape me. but i m helpless at the prospect of having found someone who understands me or even the illusion of it. i want to see your beard. you look rather good in it. i want to run my fingers through it. run my fingers on the back of your neck.

in my head there is a picture of two us travelling in your car. you are dropping me back home after what has been an eventful evening.. we have laughed, eaten and enjoyed our wine. we listen to the music in your phone. you remark on my wistfulness and i answer with playfulness. the night goes on and never ends..

we have lived in the same city for decades but our paths have never crossed. i wonder about what if they did.

while you drank away

why do i continue to run after things that are unattainable. i can't buy your affection or draw your attention or provoke a reaction. it stands for nothing but maybe thats a lot. its been an year yet not one thought about me crosses your mind.

you don't have to wish me like an autobot. you can pick up the phone and wish me in person like a human. 

i miss the shared laughter but the conversations seem forced now. your gaze is shifty as if you rather wished that you were elsewhere. i try to tell myself not to believe in nostalgic nonsense but the memories draw me in. they are unescapable. 

you find my friends funny and likable but i repel you like a plague. or so it seems. my attempts at calling a truce failed. you don't want to look back and thats ok with you. but in my shrinking circle that means a lot.

i try to escape this vacuum and vortex. but the offhand references to your pictures bring it all back. i hate to say this but i think that i m a bit jealous.

Lull

A big lull. My head strains to remember images. Streaks of sun rays passing through the clouds. Moss soaked stones. Long walks in lake covered by mist. Innocent faces learning how to whistle.

The constant beat of tabla thumps in my head. Steady, slow and constant. It is a brisk lonely walk. Everything is a futile effort to break this noise in my head. Even the momentary silence is attracting noise. Wish everything was as simple as this flawless melody of a song. This effortless flow of one beat into another, one rhythm into another.

The images wont stop floating. Symphony of wind instruments at the biggest concentration of minds ever. This followed by a walk in the Harvard Square.

The tabla kicks in again. "Brisk Lonely Walk" plays again. This melody is what is holding me together. Preventing me from collapsing into abyss. The mind is laden with bullets that I wish someone could remove surgically because I don't have the will to extricate them on my own. The mind wants to rest. But restlessness is a big battle to be fought and won.

Nothing can stop the onslaught of tomorrow. The only thing constant in this mayhem is this stream of sitar flowing into a violin flowing into a tabla.

I want to sleep. Sleep with a mind so exhausted so as to eradicate its ability to talk and think.

Fighting the cold

frustrated and angry. i know that i m not getting younger. i am aware that my once black hair are slowly finding more of grey to give them company. it does not get easier. i m waiting for this famine to end. its getting dark and its getting cold and the night seems longer than ever before. my eyes though want to defy this phase and don't fail to look around to spot the odd one out who might want to share my eccentricities.

i m lost in this world. the sidewalk is slippery than before. the slush is thicker than before. the shoulders brushing past me are cold. the gaze is questioning and unwelcoming. even the crowd can't envelope me in its midst and i stand out as the only outsider in a group of regulars. the tongue stammers and halters. and i try to make myself understood in a voice as loud as humanly possible and in an accent as neutral as possible.  the walks are long. but the sights are soothing. my heels hurt from so much walking but i dont want to stop lest the stillness gets to me.

sometimes the only way to get forward is to keep walking. to keep fighting the cold and numbing out the areas that pain and hurt. i can't wait for Godot.