When thousands die everyday because of hunger, war, disease, hatred...A wise man once said, 'Is there nothing else in this world other than 'you' and 'me' and 'us' and 'we'?...
When millions perish unnoticed...is it okay to drudge mechanically, making lives, building careers?...
When we hear of genocide...is it enough to shed a few tears, heave a sigh and have intelligent conversation about the meaningless suffering?...
How are we to make a 'difference' to this world, sitting in offices, manoeuvring a mouse? Who will help those who need to be taught about health and rights and education and life?...If all of us do our 'own thing' and pretend that such people, such a state does not exist...is only a figment of imagination...a cinematic illusion on screen, to viewed in awe amid mouthfuls of popcorn and coke...then who will make a 'difference'?...
Sometimes I wish I could go to a remote part of Africa and serve a greater cause...But these are just thoughts...Tomorrow I will go to office as usual...And I will fit in perfectly in the jigsaw called 'modern life' and will forget all about these ponderings...till another film or book will cause a Catharsis of emotions...and I will again sit down to write about what I feel I must do...Then I will feel noble and virtuous and moral and right...and then will I slip into a slumberous satisfaction...But never will I go to Africa...

You're as boring as the white paper...without the words written in ink...
You're as boring as the night sky without the stars...
Even in diseases, you're a Bore...Because you're a consumptive disease that gnaws away the life painfully slowly...and lacks the drama of a cardiac arrest !
You're the incessant dial tone of a telephone...monotonous, predictable and always the same...
You lack the everyday sights and sounds...
You lack the zest of life...
You're a fullstop lacking dimension...

I'm falling into the throes of darkness...
I fall, I weep, I bleed...
As darkness engulfs me like a shroud, I think of my life gone by...
A life well-lived?...May be...
I don't know how many lives I've touched, or ruined...I don't know if I actually wield that kind of power...
As I sink into the impenetrable darkness...I see you...
I see you in all your glory...I see you as pathetic...
I see you the way I saw you the first time...
I see you the day I fell in love...
I see you the day I loathed your touch...despised your sight...

I Thought of Writing...

I was being repeatedly interrogated as to why I was not updating my blog...Well, I thought that since I usually spit out some really morbid shit, I should temporarily defer my intellectual outpourings to a happier date...So to inspire myself that the world is not a totally unfortunate place and that I too am capable of 'happy' thoughts, I decided to revive the nascent optimist in me by reading some 'fast-reads' kind of novels...(Notice how I say 'nascent' and not 'dormant'...) Well, blunder of all mother of blunders I picked up some tongue-in-cheek Indo-Brit/ Indo-American novels where the protagonist (all girls, mind you...)are in search of their ever-elusive Indian roots (in oh-my-God-please-don't-bend-over miniskirts...ahem)...Books on the usual identity crisis of the ABCD (American-Born Confused Desi)... Stuff to read on the train perhaps or may be, if you're hit with a temporary spasm of insanity like yours truly...
Now, I'm hardly writer enough to call the kettle black...But as is the way of the world, if you can't do something...you can become its 'critic'... To be honest, these authors have some tolerable sentences but the books have that forced idea of India full of salwar kameezes, arranged marriages and lack of women's liberalisation (Makes me wanna elope in a bikini to the nearest women's rights meeting right this instant!)...
Again we won't pay much attention to my rantings and try to keep the focus...After the rather 'sad' tales of ornate yet conservative Indian culture vis-a-vis the exaggerated freedom of the Western world and after putting myself through that self-inflicted ordeal, I picked up the 'Collected Stories' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez...
And I am ecstatic in my declaration that Marquez too is preoccupied with Death and life beyond it...He basically explores the unknown..whether it's the experience of Death or life after it...His language is brilliant... His vocabulary is rich but not rich enough to give the reader mental acidity...Marquez plays with images that signify Death---grave, shadows, insects... The stark reality of the pain that his characters endure before they can finally succumb to the Inevitable was excrutiating even for me as I read and became part of the text...
Marquez delves into the dark recesses of our minds that shuts out the ugly, seedy side of life...that wants to remember only the colour and fragrance of a rose but fails to ackowledge the sensation or pain of the thorns... He forces you to recognise the reality of Death...Death is the only Constant thing... It is not to be feared but to be waited for... Marquez shies away from romanticing Death, much unlike our Romantic Poets... He gives Death its own identity, its charm... Death gets the opportunity to free the Spirit from the agonised Body...But Death fails to redeem itself as there's no freedom for the incorporeal being that flits through walls, rooms and gardens... The Soul trespasses into a new weightless, spaceless world but cannot gain complete trancendence... The inner Spirit is trapped in this other world as it was in its original mortal abode...

Disclaimer- These observations come after reading the first 3 short stories....More on this as I read...But the important thing is (I don't know whether it is good or bad) that I am back with my Faithful Companion--- 'depression'--- with a renewed zest...