Soul Stripping on the Net

  It had been a month since he texted her. Should he, shouldn’t he? Sid had already typed out the message. So, what he wanted to do, was a long-foregone decision. What moral compass still kept him from pressing on the send button was beyond my understanding. But as his wisest, (and self-decidedly, best friend), I still said, -Nako re. Kashala ugach dokyala shot? Sid pressed anyway. Her blue ticks were off. Knowing what was to pass was the same old cantankerous sound of a depleted vinyl record, I called for the waiter. -Sunil, ek Blue Riband cha nip ani ek fresh lime soda. Ani he repeat kar. The last I said pointing to the left-over bones of chicken lollypop. Ping. Sid’s phone buzzed. -She replied. He whispered. Wtf. She was supposed to ghost him. Why is she replying? -Kay ala reply? -She wants to talk. -Fuck. What had you written? -Kahi nahi. Just. “Hey. How are you? All fine?” -Sid I don’t think you should talk to her…Divide kar doghat. As Sid poured us t...

Waiting, stood up, on a hot March afternoon. The sangria slides down easily. A waterfall of wine dowses the tongue, rushing to make good the wasted time, cool down the parched throat. The parched heart too? Now I’m just begging for sympathy. The Wakad v. Warje debate on the only other table seems more interesting than force writing this poem. But such is life, and one has given up to it. Alcohol on hot summer afternoons, now humid due to climate change, aided by damned offers. Thus is life. Thus it is given meaning. Unemployed. Unplanned. Unloved. That’s the story of this old ‘un. Such a story that every unrecognized English song on the pub playlist tugs at your chordae tendineae. Yeah. I learnt bio. Back to this attempt. The random breeze that flows through this unfanned outdoor seating sweetens the sangria. The random flittering butterfly brings a smile. The hospitality assistants staring at this lone dude downing glasses gives them a thing to talk about. At least someone i...

  What is living? One would ask a scientist who would describe it as being alive- a negative in the sense of not-dead. A situation where the DNA has no ability to replicate and pass on. Though that may be functional and the truest sense, that is too mundane for any drunken writing. One can actually begin from the emotional sense. Or, when do you feel the truest alive? Or when do you generally enjoy the feeling you are experiencing? That is probably one among many instances that being alive felt ecstatic. What surprises me is the political memory- where people forget the injustices of four years for the sops of the election year. Men forget the pain of any preceding time-period to experience joy. In the sense that the joy is the award for the pain. Why? Why? Why do they think that joy and pain are a couple? What fucked up our collective psyche so much as to accept this insidious ‘pair of opposites’? And who decides the equanimity of magnitude? What is the SI unit? --- Anish ...

  I’m surprised by people who have energy to live. For people with optimism, or joy, or even the sheer will to trudge through the quagmire of decisions, responsibilities- to have these qualities surprises me. Like how? How can they bear this burden?   Are they allwise? Actually knowledgeable of their qualities? Of their decisions, execution of ‘responsibilities’, the ‘burden of decisions’? The fact that their optimism has blinded them to the belief that being blind is ‘living’? Am I that feeble, ignorant, and weak and unwilling to reach this stage to feel the need to live? To make decisions myself and abide by them? Is it time for my ego to shatter?   Or are they mere servants? Of decisions they are afraid to take? And would like to blame in circumstance? I ‘have’ to do this? I ‘have no choice’? I ‘must do this’? Am I the wise one – the awoken? The one who refuses to bend? Or am I so full of myself that I can’t see some omniscient truth?   People say th...