Confessions of a Traveler

III

The Geometry of Loneliness

Image Courtesy: Google

The geometry of a naïve,

Shapes with squares, triangles, hexagons,

Rectangles, half made, half broken,

Half born.

All red,

With liquid blood,

Still trying to thump hard,

As it always has been—

The shattered heart.

I stood near it,

With the candle of ignorance,

Lost on my way to those dreams

In which I thought I could see-

You, up close.  

Read More

I-Poems Continue

II

The Geometry of Loneliness

Image Courtesy: Google

In the sleepless eyelids,

I found the first tear drop,

In remembrance

Of the tree

At the end of the long road;

Of the rain,

At the peak of summer;

Of the moonlight,

In the dark;

Of the fragrance of flowers,

Of the smell of the soil,

Of the pain of love,

Of the joy of dreams,

Of the love for life,

Of the truth in lies,

And of the lies I slept with,

All my days,

Seeking you. 

[To be continued]

Read More

New series of i-poems

The Geometry of Loneliness

Image courtesy: Google

I

When your reminiscence arrived at me,

Like the fire on the bushes,

Like the cloud of protection,

Like the wall inside the sea,

Like the word on baked clay,

I melted and waited;

As the shadow of a bird,

In the heart of the altitude,

Moving, but static- still;

For the obtuse angle to be acute angle,

To move closer in degrees,

To your flesh and blood,

And embrace the Resurrection-

Of your closeness again.  

[To be continued]

Read More

The Geometry of Loneliness

Confessions of a lonely traveler, who started off for his dreamland 

“Love, hear thou / How desolate the heart is, ever calling” —James Joyce

Image Courtesy: Google

The traveler is primarily a dreamer. His dreams showed him that there was a destiny awaiting him that required his presence to achieve its fulfillment.

He trusted the dream and its call. That enabled him to revolt against his parochial family, his own homesickness, and lethargy. The dream supplied the impetus to move on.

The journey had begun.

The road was a picture of hope and the sun shining eternally above was a priceless gem. The traveler walked on.

The wind was a torrent of life. He sucked on it each time the gush of the invisible felt on his face. The traveler walked on.

All his memories were signposts reminding him where to return home. The heart of the traveler, though, felt the pull of a two tongued bate. He was missing something, someone.

Love—his heart was pulling at his beloved.

The traveler had left her in his quest for the Destiny. But he also knew that it is for this Destiny he was sent to live on this planet.

The traveler remembered the taste of togetherness and as a result, shadows of regret crossed his path.

The traveler could not walk on. The same heart that had given him the dream, now felt heaviness and sorrow for what the traveler had left behind.

Leaving someone behind—is it the same as loss? He thought. No, he said to himself. The traveler could not walk on; because his heart was struggling to give him proof that no one was lost. The heart did it through invoking all his memories.

Suddenly, the traveler realized, all his memories about his beloved existed and she was right here, inside his mind. But then, a silvery gleam slithered down his cheek—his tears.

The traveler looked around for a shoulder to cry. But there was none. He was alone. Each drop of tear was a confession. But the traveler did not know what the tear drops confessed. There was nothing to feel regretful about, there were no sins committed.

The traveler knew elaborate teaching from great masters, saying just take the next step, for beyond the next turn you might find your Destiny smiling at you.

But his tears did not stop and the loneliness demanded confessions too.

Now the traveler knew what to confess, but feared he would lose his dream forever. Still, the heart was adamant. And he said the words out loud. He knew that the road in front of him that was a picture of hope was paved on the expectations of those he left behind.

He knew that the sun that seemed a priceless gem was shining at the cost of someone else’s tears.

He knew the wind that filled his lungs with life, kept its trails on the prayers of the guardian spirits what awaited him at the place he called home.

So he confessed it all. He confessed he was feeling lonely, sad, torn, and lost and moreover afraid of losing his dream. He confessed... 

Image Courtesy: Google and Dali

[“The confessions of a lonely traveler” is my new series of i-poems. The series is titled, “The Geometry of Loneliness”.

Dear reader, please wait for the next post that will appear here tomorrow. It is difficult for me to post it today itself, as I am running short of time. I have a journey to make. Yes, you got it correct. The traveler, who started off for his dreamland is I. The traveler, who started off for his dreamland is you too.]

Chinua Achebe (1930-2013)
Image Courtesy: Google Images

I would like to dedicate this post to ‘the father of African literature’, Chinua Achebe, who died at the age of 82 when things are falling apart in a world which he paved with words and imagination, a fellow traveler.     

Read More

Private by James Patterson—a Book Review

Image Courtesy: Google

Everydetective story relies upon either a mind that concocts something disastrous, unacceptable to the social, moral and ethical codes or a person simply missing. The detective’s job would be to chalk out this enemy and bring out the complete picture of their antagonism through the investigation. That is where detectives come in. They often carry away the credit of the game and not the villains.

Private is the first in James Patterson’s new series of novels featuring ‘world’s most exclusive detective agency’, taken up and rebuilt by Jack Morgan. Patterson co-authored this book with Maxine Paetro, who worked with him in 1^st To Die, the first book in another series titled, “women’s murder club”, a very disappointing book in terms of its plot.

Maxine Paetro
Image Courtesy: Google

What makes Private special among other ‘detective novels’, is that it has no such poignant antagonists. The story rallies through the personal dilemmas and agonies of the characters, which presents them tangible. The main characters do not appear stock characters in usual detective stories, which is an advantage of this book. His characters are not as ‘real’ as Holmes, but they do appear human and vulnerable, sometimes, a lot.  

Jack Morgan and his ‘Private Investigations’ do not rely on deduction method, like Sherlock Holmes, the classic investigator. Instead they use analytical method, with the help of state of the art scientific equipments and brilliant analysts. Jack Morgan is not alone in Private agency to solve crimes, but he has assistants too, like Justine Smith, Rick Del Rio, and Emilio Cruz.

Private Investigations takes up three complicated issues in the book—match fixing in American football, a series of murder of young girls, and the murder of Jack’s best friend’s wife.

Jack’s character is a millionaire play-boy type, with a narcissistic trait. But these shades in his character are blurred due to the overwhelming impact of the devastating near-death experience during the combat in Afghanistan. The novel begins with this particular event and makes its readers expect some heavy mortar smell and all, but disappointingly so. The memories of this event, even though he survived it, haunt Jack throughout.

Many women enter Jack’s life and many leave. This, doesn’t however, leave a deeper impact upon him when compared with the mortal combat episode. From each of the women Jack receives respect and friendship, adding charms to his otherwise lonely life, thereby projecting his own remarkable qualities back to himself. Isn’t this one of the secret narcissistic instincts that makes him follow the path of admiring feminine company?

He shows the tendency to leave the company of any woman he is close with thinking marriage would be disastrous, like his parents’. Here, one might think Jack’s compass turns only to himself, prioritizing himself at various angles and dimensions. Still, not entirely true. When Jack hears about the news of suicidal attempt from Colleen, his latest girlfriend, he rushes to the hospital. Colleen took the decision to end her life when she realizes Jack has negative feelings about marriage. Jack is seen broken and ashamed of his own lack of direction in this scene.

James Patterson
Image Courtesy: Google

Jack also appears to be apprehensive of the need to help his twin brother Tom Morgan, a gambler, by paying off his debt and admitting him to a de-addiction centre.   

Justine Smith’s character is another links the story of Jack with the serial killer of school girls. She investigates the case. Justine’s has many similarities with Jack. Both Justine and Jack seems to occupy the major portion of their lives with their familial worries and wounds inflicted upon their minds from the past. What makes Justine different is her emotionally charged attitude towards the school-girl killer. Both Jack and Justine come together whenever they need each other and this is not just due to the fact that they both work for Private, but also because they were betrothed to each other as engaged partners in the past, before Jack met Colleen and Justine met Bobby Petino, a prominent attorney. After this, for jack and Justine, relationship became impossible. This part of the story is told by the characters and narrated through their memories.

It is also important to note Jack’s attitude towards his father, the founder of Private original. The senior Morgan appears at the start of the novel, “serving life for extortion and murder” in California State Prison at Corcoran.  Jack, with all his self-centred righteousness and “hero business”, has no good feelings towards his old father. For senior Morgan, Jack is his own reflection. However, in jacks’ mind, the old man is just a “narcissistic SOB”.

Scarlett Johansson
Image Courtesy: Google

Then, Morgan senior hands ‘Private’ over to Jack. This book is the starting point of the all the Private series. The next book after Private is Private London, which is already released. The agency has branches all over the world and so it is quite possible to set the story anywhere. A recently announced Private India is another in the series.
     

Private has all the necessary James Patterson ingredients in it—short chapters, mundane language, allusions to pop culture, TV shows, personalities, songs, etc. In Private, it is mostly Hollywoodwith special appearance such as Harrison Ford and Scarlett Johansson.   

Maxine Paetro’s presence is visible mostly in a vague byline under the label of James Patterson. This is the common destiny seen with many co-authors in the James Patterson books. Still, like every good brand, the Patterson brand delivers all its basic promises.

Image Courtesy: Google

Tom Morgan rebels against Jack, but he is not ‘elevated’ to the status of a serious antagonist such as Prof. James Moriarty. And the other baddies are not much capable either. This is why, perhaps,Private, is only good for the bus stops and airport sojourns. Since, it is always those antagonists that play their wicked roles torturously perfect to make the heroes’ struggles worth fighting for. 

This book review is sponsored by Mysmartprice.com

Read More

Losing the Way

Image Courtesy: Google

The world has become so narrow that one group of people now have to keep a day for themselves, in order not risk a whole lifetime. Happy Women's Day!

A faint glow I see,

In the path in front of me.

I find the glow attractive,

Pleased by it, I move closer,

Use it to see farther, further.

I take a turn in the path,

Find everything there drab and used.

The rupture of hope from reality,

Leaves me stunned to feel

A strange poignancy,

In the depth my heart conceals,

Inside its walls within my bodily barriers.

The pain tells me it’s time,

To realize what I saw was just the glow,

Or what the glow wanted me to see.

The unique language to decipher,

The signs of the path I took,

Were imprinted in the walls of my heart,

Hidden behind the bars of my ribs,

I followed the glow to be what I am,

Leaving what I hoped, dreamed, coveted to be,

Alone, unattended, uncared for, unloved,

Just to die and rot in the desolation of ignorance.

I pray, let me be.

I search for the pain, to show me the way,

Where I could find the world of renewal,

Birth and rejuvenation. I close my eyes,

To see in darkness,

To see what is left of me,

In the glowing distraction

Of routines and role plays.

Read More

Strike-Day Chicken

When times are slow and harrowing, humour is the best way to stage a relief drama. This is a satire, so it says what you understand from it, but perhaps in a way that is not the way you should understand it.

Image Courtesy: Google

For most of us in India, February 20^th and 21^st were like Sundays.

Not in the way they appear on the calendar leaf with red ink and all, but the way they are taken by the silent, sleepy, lazy minds of ours. We sat in our chairs and sipped hot warm tea and watched TV all day long. There was nothing else to be done. We had an additional set of holidays.

Image Courtesy: Google

What I am referring to here, is the trade union strike for forty eight hours, nationwide. It started on Feb 20^thmidnight. They had announced it weeks before, so it was easy, in a way. There was no need to worry about shortages in rice or soap or coconut oil. Feb 20^thwas a Wednesday and most of us came back home after work on Tuesday evening with a pack of chicken or beef or pork, that was, according to the availability.

As our place is getting increasingly narrow-minded in terms of religion and cast, chicken turned out to be the best-buy meat in town for any occasion. So if you did not want trouble buying pork or beef, you could resort to chicken. Another trouble in getting cattle meat or pig is that they are available only in special places. In order to reach there you have to take two or three buses in line. So in order to avoid such troubles of added bus ride after the day’s tiring work, and also to avoid spending more money on bus fairs, most of us came down to chicken on Tuesday evening.

We stood in front of the so-called “chicken-stalls” or butcher shops that can be found anywhere and everywhere, to buy freshly slaughtered fowls in curry-cut-pieces. Those who knew how to cook the legendary Malabar biriyani bought chickens in ‘biriyani-cut’. The line went a long way on to the main road and people stood close to rushing traffic and dust ignoring the dangers, dreaming about the steaming bowls of fowl curry flavoured with cinnamon leaves. You could survive a hundred Hartals with that flavour. Oh, my!

Image Courtesy: Google

Those among us, who were into drinking alcohol and know only one version of celebration, that is, screwing their heads off with drinking, kept their queues longer and steadier in front of Beverages Corporation. Only in the main city and government allotted places one can find the centres of Beverages Corporation. But that did not matter; some of us were ready to stand for hours in the line. The dream of two days with no work was more than enough to endure any long-hour line.

Those going to colleges and schools took the opportunity to play cricket or football in the deserted roads on the strike-days. There would not be any vehicles running or institutions working. Or took to video game CDs and DVDs and celebrated the days by watching movies and fighting virtual battles.  

“There is no question of right or wrong in freedom,” says J. Krishnamurthy. The freedom that our fragile and naked ancestors gained for us, even without firing a bullet would let us live with this guarantee. No one would ask what is right or what is wrong.

February has only twenty working days. Cut two days from twenty, if becomes eighteen. This was a sad part, because two days’ less pay could be considerably harmful at a time when the price tags run the length of size ten Bata shoes. But it was ok for some of us, because this two-day strike was a humble attempt to bring the government to notice how much the workers in this nation are suffering because of less payment and price hikes.

Most of us believed that “service providers” or entrepreneurs cannot be counted as ‘workers’. For most of us, it was easy and better to think the managements as the bad guys. But who is a ‘worker’ then? If someone works as a porter, isn’t he providing and managing his agility and strength for the customer? Isn’t he the manager of his skills to lift heavy weights? A teacher; isn’t he or she selling his teaching skills to the consumers—here consumers are both students and the institution.

Image Courtesy: Google

Then, who was it the strike for? Most of us think about this paradigm shift and are aware of it. But we cannot undermine the chicken being cooked and the movies in the Telly. And some of us are realistic enough that they are afraid to say things out loud. Some of us prefer just ‘thinking’. Thoughts are secret enough, aren't they? And thoughts are better, because we can think and simultaneously watch our cricket matches.  

Sometimes, truth is like preparing chicken curry. One must avoid some unwanted parts from the chicken in order to make the curry better. To make it sound better and entertaining some instances do not appear in this article. They are concerned with those people who had their marriages planned on these two days, those who needed emergency operations, those with heart palpitations, those visiting their relatives from distant places, etc. The list is long and is obviously tiring. Unfortunately, it has less political-entertainment value to it. So those issues should not be mentioned anywhere.

By the way, most of us would admit, the chicken was tasty and full value for money. 

Read More