Sunday, May 28, 2006

Offerings

I can offer but little
But I offer it all –

The decaying body, battered and bruised,
Scars of defeat from battles unworthy,
The recurring dreams, dreadfully black and white,
Dreams devoid of reason, meaning or hope,
The blackened heart, faintly beating,
Freezing fast, going numb, dying,
The crocked mouth and wooden tongue,
Spitting feeble words; incoherent, inconsequential,
Can neither offer you the wine of life,
Nor the blissful poison of the night.

Yet, there are bits and pieces stashed away,
And some nights, the trapdoors give way,
And waves come rushing in, drowning all,
Light bearing row boats take the river of memories,
Candles are lit in the secret chambers of the heart,
And the dreams are no more black and white.
And the things that I write, on that night,
Sometimes strikes a cord or two.

That’s all I’ve got
And I give ‘em all to you.

Saturday, May 27, 2006

Show me a sign

Show me a sign.

[the Earth shakes, buildings tumble, fish fall from trees, sheep stops bleeting. The ground breaks open and a neon sign emerges with the letters U W O blinking on it in red and white and a message saying 'Drink plenty of maple syrup']

Sigh! If only there was a sign...

Friday, May 26, 2006

weatherman's log

Its been a good day.

- woke up to find it cloudy - always a good sign. Went back to sleep.
- woke up again around 12. Found the boys in the living room. They just woke up and was already at it; the older two was beating up the youngest. Mom told me to put an end to it. I of course did not pay any attention to her.
- Proton came in while we were having breakfast. We were supposed to go with him to look at cars. We overslept. He got even easily enough; Told us he bought the car and it was waiting down staris. We hurried down the stairs and found him laughing his ass off when we came up again. To think they call him the good one in the bunch!
- Lost 3 games of 29 (a simplified local version of bridge played with half the deck) in a row. Add to that another two at night. Jesus!
- Rudra (a friend) came in at around 4. Went for pizza in the afternoon.
- Walked to Dhaka Uni campus in the rain. Stopped at the pet shops on the way. Almost bought a pair of baby bunnies. Not the white ones. These were brown with white patches on their chest; the cutest little things. One was all balled up trying to wipe something from its nose with its hands(?). Then we got to thinking who'd be feeding them, cleaning poo and all and decided to continue the walk, without bunnies.
- Had a good shower. Felt nice. Was soaking wet by the time we reached DU. Had tea at the tea stall opposite the library.
- Walked to the bus stop. All 5 of us agreed the chick walking up front has good bone structure. She was carrying an umbrella. We had a bet if it'd flip. It dint. Lost 10 bucks.
- Took the bus back to Proton's place. Played some more. The loosing streak continued.
- Putul apu's kid, our only nephew is getting cuter everyday. He has black bidi eyes and the cutest toes. I am not good with kids. So tried to look busy with the computer. But putul apu wont have it. Made us all take pictures with him.
- Came back home around 11. Got wet again. Wrote a crap poem. Spoiled the day.

Blooper: Called Anon a 'chu*m*****' (an F-word) in front of ma.

Mental note to myself: Dont try to write poetry. Ever!

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

MSN SUCKS

Something happenned today which brought back a lot of old memories. By 'old' I mean really old. Like 20 years old! Yep, talking bout childhood stuff. I dunno if you'd believe it but I used to be a pretty good kid. [Sounds from a henhouse on fire]

Ok! ok!! Keep your gutts in people. Dont go yack yacking all of it all too soon. Theres more. Hmm...yeah the thing is if your kids are half as nice as I used to be you'd be the luckiest parent ever. [Yea, yea, I'm funny. I know...now just shut your hole and lemme finish.]

Yea I know you guys dont come here to listen to me brag bout my childhood self. And yea I know the title says something else. I'll get to the point. Well...I was just lyin there after watchin a 2nd class, Indiana Jones imitation, lousy ass, crap movie and thinkin bout all sorts of childhood stuff...how I started out..and where I got to...and where I'm going...and what might have been, for better or worse and all that crap. Been thinking bout where I'm supposed to be...how, everyday, more and more tricks are becoming harder to pull, how its taking a lot more time to figure things out,...the way things from a few years back seems to be scenes from impossible dreams, you know...the whole deal. You all think like that once in a while. Dont u? U dont? Good for you! Teach me the trick. WILL YA? Hmm. Now whats all this got to do with MSN? Simple - Its hot, I'm tired and too darn pissed off to be thinking about crap for too long. Dint feel like sitting through another movie so figured I'd go online and chat for a while and take my mind off of things. Whaddu know! I just formatted the PC today so, there is no msn. Wait, wait...I usually keep an installer as a back up. But what the fuck!! Its an old version!!

The ones who arent getting whats all the fuss is about, I use a dial up which, in its best behavior, goes like 1kbps/sec. So dloading a new msngr is a BIG deal. You fortunate folks with your fancy net connections will never understand it. Never! Never!! Never!!! [wailing monkeys]

Anyway...somehow I get it over with. I got msn. I install it. Now just wait 3/4 mins to sign in and voila! The fuck! Its asking me if I want it to retrieve info from my provider!! The shitty thing was doing this shit while I was sitting and waiting and panting like a dog and sweating like a pig! u shittin me??

Theres more! I type in an URL on the address bar, clearly, and ask the stupid IE to just get me there. What does it do? The smartipant decides to do an msn search!! OOO! How nice!! Now who the fuck asked it to? Why is it wastin ma god damned bandwidth and time like dat? A freaking page takes about 5 mins to dload yo! That does it! I'm going Firefox!

The ones who dont get it please feel free to drop dead. I'm going to sleep.

Sunday, May 21, 2006

Snaps and sketches

Havnt brought back much this time around from the trip. It was pretty short and most of it was spent on running around; two nights on the boat and 9 hours on the bus. Add to that the lunch hours and nap times. Aint much left of the 48 hours. Is there? There have been moments. Here are a few –

Masterpiece in the sky

[All the good boats were taken by the time we got there. The boat we took stank al over. It stank so much that we preferred staying inside the cabin over sitting outside and enjoying the river wind. Heaven took pity on us and decided to intervene. They had to switch off the power for ten minutes. We suddenly realized it was a moonlit night on the river. We got out of the cabin and moved to the front deck.]

The moon came out of the veil of dark clouds and shown its full face. It was more than just pretty. There was a solemnity about it that I haven’t quite noticed before. The adorning clouds seemed to fall into the trance and formed a halo around it’s head; the layers had all sorts of shades, - everything between faint gold, silver, black and blue. They twisted and curled up around each other. There was a profound religious feel about the scene; I thought it’d look great on a church wall. Hold your gaze for long enough and you can make out the face of Christ on the moon. The winged angels are already on the layers of clouds.

[I guess scenes like these sometimes have a very peculiar effect on common men. I suddenly felt a rush of inspiration to talk about the river, how it’s waves have been flowing to the sea for ages and how they have been coming down from the icy peaks of the mountains, how mountains came to be when Earth’s face got wrinkled while cooling down, and then how water would evaporate from the seas, and get iced on the peaks of the mountains again, and how these elements are all just following the natural laws of physics and men, too small an entity before any one of them, have loved, admired, studied and defied them all and how some of it goes beyond the laws of physics and all sorts of shit. You can imagine the look on my cousin’s face after sitting through a lecture like that. I am not sure if it was this perplexed look on his face or the sprint of obscenity from a fellow passenger in a near by cabin that snapped me back to consciousness. I’m sorry to disappoint you but his ‘words of affection’ were not in fact, directed to me (which would be just as appropriate) but to a person (God have mercy on his soul) he had met the previous day in a cultural gathering. I must say I found it very refreshing.]

A night to remember

[It had been raining all evening. We ventured out a couple of times in the rain but never made more than 500 yards through the slippery paste on the road. Only made the hotel floor messy each time. It wasn’t until very late at night that we made it to the beach. It was well worth the wait.]

We heard the music well before we saw the sands. An orchestra of Sarinda, Khol and Mandira (instruments used in folk music). Mixed with the sound of the waves the songs gave off a somewhat unearthly resonance that put you into trance immediately. We sat down on the empty beach chairs a little away from the group of musicians. It was windy but the direction was right and we could hear the notes clearly from where we were sitting. It was a full moon and a full tide. The sky was a translucent blue which met the gray sea on the horizon. The waves came splashing white on the white white sands and all of it bathed in moonlight. With all these going on before the eyes, and the wind dancing around like crazy and the music playing in your mind, you find yourself gasping for breath. Your feel your heart chocking, twisting, tearing inside your chest, ready to burst out and shoot up in the sky at any moment. You don’t know what to call this but know that you should go with it while it lasts. You take off your glasses and the frosty view suddenly seems to make sense more than ever. Your body moves with the music without you knowing it. Tears roll down your face; you know not for what. You feel your soul lifting you up, carrying you over the waves and beyond the horizons, beyond the moon, across the skies and back. In that fleeting moment you see its face – the face of the immortal trapped inside your mortal being.

Friday, May 19, 2006

Weather Forecast

It is going to be very, very, very dry the next few weeks.

The Mule

I admire the mule
It’s earnest dedication at work.
No time wasted on feeble words,
No breath wasted on futile dispute.
No load too heavy
- The idea employee.

I envy the mule
Its naïve indifference
To things nice and things grotesque.
Never distracted by thoughts,
Never moved by emotions,
- The beast God disowns.

I pity the mule
It’s ever-yielding being.
It’s sacrifice of no consequence,
Its lack of grievance,
It pains me to see, that beast in me
- The beast not meant to be.

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

writing on paper

Writing on paper again, without the help of copy/paste, spellchecker and pretty characters. But am having a lot more fun.

When I was younger and knew even less words I used to have a lot of fun. Had to make do with whatever was there and they were still good for I loved them all. Now, with time, my ‘mastery over words’ but barely improved. Only the preoccupation with fancy words have added the stink of rat in everything I write.

But am here now, trying to let the pen loose and go with the flow.

it

Don’t ask me to label it,
For I do not have a name for it.
But I can assure you its there.
And with a judge and jury present here
I can swear it on my honor,
Or whatever is left there.

So what am I to do about it?
I’ll ask the cigarette I just lit.
“Nothing doing; just press DELETE.
Go in any deeper – you wont make it.”
May God bless you;
You wise emitter of smoke…

Monday, May 08, 2006

Suppose one day

Suppose one day
Come what may
I’d write that one song
And sing it all wrong
Over and over
All day long!

Suppose on that day
I’m gonna say
Goodbye to the lies
And look into yr eyes
And tell you to go fuck yrself
To get out of ma skies!

Suppose that day is today
And theres no other way,
So I’d dress real nice,
And have champagne on ice
Then for one last time
We’d roll the dice!

Since this wonderful day,
Gotta come somday,
Why make such a fuss?
Why not miss the bus?
Before the gig is up
Why not push the luck?

Sunday, May 07, 2006

boring shit

I’ve been thinking bout stuff and they got me real frustrated. My frustration is two folds. You will find the first fold a trifle juvenile. Its quite silly actually. Well…might as well blurt it out. I cant figure out a thing for myself that someone else hasn’t written about already.

DUH! Weatheman’s no rocket scientist. So what else is new! - I KNOW! So lay off of it people! I am not talking about that. I am not talking about figuring out how a TV works or how you dope silicon chips to make semi conductors and stuff. I am talking about simple things you see, like what makes people tick, and what happens when they tick - meaning of life and all that crap. Ok? Hmm…so its that. I am mad that I cant feel, or sense or figure out a thing that somebody hasn’t explored already and written about more beautifully than I ever could.

Of course I didn’t just figure it out! I figured it out long time back the day I wanted to kick Robi Thakur off of the roof. There I was, standing on a perfectly nice roof on a perfectly nice evening with a perfectly nice heartache – something really new and painfully bitter and wonderfully dreadful – something truly unique that only I was privileged with and what do you know! - The old guy stole my exact thoughts and put them in a book a hundred years ago! Gotta hate the guy!

Anyway so that’s the thing. I’d been thinking about how humankind is the blend of day and night and that is what makes them better than angels and demons and that they don’t need to work too hard to go either way cause the best is actually in the middle and stuff and everything seem to fall in place along that line and was feeling pretty good about it too. Wasted a whole hour at work trying to put the above nonsense in words and whaddu know! It just had to be in the darn book I’m reading!

“that I belong with the strong-hearted who walk narrow and thorny paths where flowers are also to be found, amidst howling wolves – and singing nightingales.” [Gibran, Thoughts and Meditation]

There you have it in two lines and I wrote like 20 lines and they still didn’t mean nothing. This sucks! Well…still I guess I can console myself by saying that the age old truths, however simple and clear, tends to be misunderstood and misplaced by men and there is but no harm in repeating them. (Or taking a shot at it at least.) I can live with that.

And then the 2nd fold hits me and gets me down again. How does it happen when its all so simple! Why does men always discard the most obvious, simplistic solutions to go for a downright stupid one, which needless to say, is a lot more complicated? And why on Earth do they have to keep repeating it in regular intervals when history makes it clear that they aren’t good for anybody! Ok let me make it simple - take racism for instance. Here you see a thing that you call a man. It has two legs, two hands, eyes, ears, head and everything. Hey! It even smiles when you feed it, cries when you beat it and dies if you kill it! Just like you! But wait a minute, look at its skin! Its too white, or too black or eww! – Its brown! Now there’s a good enough reason to hate it!

Ok, another one. Most people thinks there is a God, and God is just, created all things, created all men to be equal, beat the crap out of the devil and kicked it out for bullying people, wants all men to be good, wants peace, wants everyone to be happy. Say, it seems everyone has got the same message from the lord! Hallelujah! Lets just all get down and do what he wants. But wait just a freaking minute! NO! Its not the same at all! His God asked him to face East and mine wants me to face North! Your God lets you eat pork and mine wants me to eat chicken! Her God loves vanilla and his one goes for chocolate! Now there’s a good reason to kill each other! But first, lets kill the kids! That’s a hell lot of fun!

Saturday, May 06, 2006

Blackout

Blackout took the neighborhood a little after midnight. All electrical noises silenced at once. Once the momentary confusion subsides, and the eyes and ears get accustomed to the night, the mind begins to see, feel and sense things that are ordinarily overlapped by coarser ones.

First to be felt is silence. Gradually you begin to hear the gurgling of insects, the occasional name calling of house lizards, the flapping of wings of little bats and the squeaking of rodents. Add to that the monotonous tingling of a wind chime in one of the balconies up front; you’ll never know which one. At first they all seem random but slowly a pattern begins to emerge and they all fade into the background.

I can’t see the moon but there is moonlight. You can make out the outlines of trees, lampposts, telephone wires and TV cables silhouetted against the grayish forms of the buildings where people have retired for the night. There is no light in the windows to distort the landscape. The black of the night, the silver of the moon, the faint blue of the sky came together to form the perfect shades for the forms you see and the patterns in your thoughts.

A gust of wind makes its way from the direction of the road to the west. You can hear it coming through the alley moving dirt, dust and debris on its way. You can hear it come through the iron gates and flooding the walkways. The trees suddenly wake up and greet the wind. Some of the older leaves let go of the branches they clung onto for so long and goes with the wind. The younger leaves wave them goodbye. No tears shed, no long faces, no regrets. The wind moves to the east.

Silence fell for one brief moment before its broken by the sound of footprints. They are followed by the booming voice of the night watchman at the east gate – “ANYBODY THERE?”. “I AM HERE” – came the response from the west gate. Not annoying whistles, not scratching noise in electronic devices, not clang of metal on metal but human voices speaking words, communicating with and reassuring one another and many others fast asleep, wide awake or in a state in between.

May be this is an event of no consequence. Or may be these voices have just created a ripple in the night air and the wind will carry it away on her journey. May be, years later, in a different place, someone will stand under the night sky and lend his ears to the west wind. May be, just may be, if he listens for long enough, he will hear the voices calling; reassuring each other and myriad others.

You hear footsteps on the walkway that never bears footprints. You look towards the westward sky to look for your stars. A whisper is heard – “ANYBOY THERE?”

Speaking my mind

“I grieve to hear the language of the spirits prattled by the tongues of the ignorant. It slays my soul to see the wine of the muses flow over the pens of the pretenders.” [*]

Flea of dogs, freeloading parasites, slimy maggots – you who have armed yourselves with platinum tipped pens, trendy attires and the pretentious air of sophistication, do you feel the scorn of the poet in the above words? I think not. For you and your kind have not the heart to feel nor the faculty of mind to grasp the meanings of those words which have been told and retold, written and rewritten, in the pages of the books you industriously collect to decorate your living rooms. You learnt the words by heart but a dead heart that would forever fail to nourish the blood with the breath of life and truth in those words.

You are the sons of ‘Gabbers’. You take great pains to polish your speeches and choose your words carefully to impress others like you in society tea parties. You speak eloquently of things that are either of no consequence or of things that are, were, and will forever be out of your reach. How dare you frown upon the honest seekers of truth? How dare you question their words? They would rather go with obscenity than speak your language.

I am sorry my bottom feeding friends. I should not have been so harsh on you. After all spirits of the poets ask us to treat lowliness with kindliness. You are not to be loathed but pitied. You have been born to a soulless, truth less, worthless life, which will just go on, feed, procreate, perish and be forgotten. Your fickle self and feeble words will fulfill but one purpose – produce first-rate poo paper for your rich patrons for whom you so aggressively abused, mercilessly mutilated and shamelessly falsified the divine verses spoken by the rag-clad bearers of truth. Of course, in brief moments of clarity you understand that it is the blessed soul of the enlightened and not your well groomed behinds that God holds dear and your attempts to get even is but futile. May the lord take mercy on your souls.

Who am I to raise my voice against you? I am but one of many ‘oppressed by the clang of steel and clamor of factories.’ My words are as ‘heavy as freight trains and are as annoying as steam whistles’. It is true that like you I too have sold my soul on numerous occasions. Flashes of gold have blinded my eyes once too often. Never the less I say it with pride that every gold penny I take from the treasure chest of temptations, I put back with interest and the interest is paid in blood. Like many I was born with a wooden tongue and a soulless heart. But the spirits spoke to me and made me drink from ‘the cup of poetry that dwells in the soul’. It has given me the eyes to see the ‘fake messiahs’ in your midst; and that my friend gives me the right to stand here today and speak my mind.

“And you, the real poets, forgive us. We belong in the New World where men run after worldly goods; and poetry, too is a commodity.” [*]

[Kahlil Gibran, Thoughts and Meditations]

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Beast in Me

[Guess there is the beast in everybody. Even in the sheep dressed in wolves clothing.]

The beast in me
Is caged by frail and fragile bonds
Restless by day
And by night, rants and rages at the stars
God help, the beast in me
The beast in me
Has had to learn to live with pain
And how to shelter from the rain
And in the twinkling of an eye
Might have to be restrained
God help the beast in me

Sometimes
It tries to kid me that it's just a teddy bear
Or even somehow managed
To vanish in the air
And that is when I must beware
Of the beast in me
That everybody knows
They've seen him out dressed in my clothes
Patently unclear
If it's New York or New Year
God help the beast in me
The beast in me

- Nick Lowe

A good day's work

Lets see what did I do today.

1. Fallen behind work again (no shit! That’s the price u pay to waste your time on shitty poetry)
2. Fooled around.
3. Caught the Shironamhin concert at BUET. It was worth the trouble,
4. Tried to break a puzzle and failed! Its all true. I am getting dumber everyday; brain cells dyin out all too soon. Been forgetting names for a while now. No wonder I’m writing crap all the time. L
5. Tried to write a simple program to verify the result of another puzzle. Guess my logic ran away with my mind.

Planet of the apes

RB n ZBRB and ZB in their natural habitat

Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Who stole the Great Wall of China?

I went to work today after four days to find ZB and RB playing with google Earth. It was 12 pm and they’d been at it since the morning. I couldn’t join them since I had too many emails + junk in my work mailbox (333 to be exact). When I went to check up on them at lunch time they were still at it. It seems they found everything in it except the Great Wall of China. They were pretty upset about it. The moon pictures really disappointed them which showed nothing. (This account of our ‘typical’ workday should give you an idea why the three wise guys are in constant fear of getting fired. :$) Then we got to talking about it after lunch. We pondered over the possibility that may be the Great Wall never really existed!.

(Dhang!)

Probably it was one of those longest successful hoaxes in the history of world. If it did exist, then why didn’t the moon picture reveal it like it was supposed to?

(Dhang!!)

Hmm...and what if there is no such thing as…as the MOON.

(Dhang! Dhang!! Dhang!!!)

Hehe…we aren’t fooled so easily you know! The disc in the sky? Moon, shmoon! Just get ZB a pc and he’ll make hundreds like it in a minute. It’d only need like…15 frames. Double that if you want to do a good job. So who put it there and why? Its obvious that whoever put it there also stole the Great Wall of China! They did it to cover up the most heinous, dubious, surreptitious plan in human history which is………………………………...well if we knew what it is then it wont be such a mystery. Would it?

But fear not good citizens of Earth. The three wise guys are on top of it and are going to get to the bottom of it, even if it means not doing any work till the very last day. They are gonna be all over it, till its all over.

Monday, May 01, 2006

if this is what hell is like I'm gettin off the bus

Its 4:30 am on a work night. Been tossing and turning on my bed. No sleeping pill in the medicine cabinet to end my misery. I’m not an insomniac. In fact my cous (the pretty one of the bunch) made a corny joke which had something to do with my wife leaving me because I go to sleep too soon after hitting the sack. Oh well…before you smartipants out there start getting ideas let me just tell you that thinking about the most obvious aspect of conjugal life, i.e. sex, is NOT what is keeping me awake tonight. What else is there? How about the insane heat wave that’s been keeping most of the Dhaka dwellers awake these days? And yes. Most folks here do not have air conditioning here. Sheesh! Now…where were we? Oh yes, was talking about my bed being too hot to sleep in. The best is yet to come. The pillow smells like somebody I used to know a long time ago. The timing is just wrong! Normally it’d make me feel all funny and stuff. But tonight romance is definitely not in the air. Its just plain annoying! Pffft!

goodbye gab

When we are kids it was easier to blend in. It was not because all children think alike – cause they surely don’t. It is probably because children are not as preoccupied with themselves as ‘mature’ adults. Kids don’t think about all that social crap that spoils it big time for everybody. Just get some kids together and they’d figure out things to do; They’d get along and play or they’d beat the crap out of each other but one thing is for sure – they wont be bored.

As we grow older we move out of the playgrounds to ‘broaden our horizons’. We conquer new worlds, redefine boundaries, befriend new faces and all. But sometimes as the world becomes bigger around us, our own personal space in it shrinks. You got hundreds of people out there who know you and think u r ok. But how many of them gets you? Ok so people don’t have to get you to be around you. Fine. But its nice when u meet somebody who does. Eh?

In the daytime you are out there, larger than life, making things happen. You aren’t doing them alone – you are surrounded by many. Sometimes you are on the lead. Sometimes you are following others. You build partnerships everywhere and if you are lucky most of them work out. Then after a while you move on to the next thing, form new alliances, build new partnerships. You shake hands with your old mates and promise to keep in touch. You write, call, meet up regularly for a while. Then one of you or both of you loose the number, or get busy with stuff, or leave the country. May be you’d bump into each other months later. Sometimes the reunion turns out great. You end up having beer together and talk about old times and go over the old jokes. Sometimes it doesn’t go so well and you exchange business cards in a hurry after a few awkward moments of ‘catching up’ and let out a sign of relief as you jump into a cab. Its all good and you get the hang of it easily enough. Its all good.

I am very good at good-byes. I handle them extremely well. I’ve seen enough come and go to worry too much about them. I’ll have to say good-bye to a friend soon and am not looking forward to it. Its been a while since a good bye got me thinking but it cant be helped; got too many jokes that worked.

Gonna miss you man. Hope you burn in Hell.