18.06.2009.

It is bright and sunny today. After a drizzly overcast week the sun is up shiny and bright and the blue skies… the startlingly bright blue European skies that I so like. I’m a sailor. The sea and the sky and I are not the same blue everywhere... we are a myriad of hues. I borrowed a friend’s car and went for a drive through the scenic North England countryside with the wind on my face… humming Sweet Home Alabama with Lynyrd Skynyrd.

On the way back I stopped at a steak joint for a meal. I love steaks and it would have been perfect if I had had a juicy well done steak and drifted back home. But then life isn’t perfect. I met someone. What happens when a relationship meets an unhappy end? Uh well plenty as so much comes to an end with the death of a relationship. The phone doesn’t ring as much… no matter how many times you sneak a glance at it. Minutes and texts go unused, weekends suddenly present themselves with 48 hours… the book shelf proves indeed a friend in need. And with time we settle into the routine of living each day. But what about the other relationships… the ones that sprouted & grew into saplings from the now dead union? Do they end too? If wronged I am a cold, unforgiving, un-forgetting and fanatically vengeful man. Someone who would keep a vendetta untouched by the passage of time. But today I didn’t know what to do, unsure if I should summarily label hate in bold capitals on this chance encounter. The person I met had nothing to do with the end. She was merely an instrument of time in bringing a certain walk, a sudden laughter to the forefront of consciousness.

Boxing is seen as a violent sport, an abundance of vicious punches thrown at each other. But those who know boxing know that it’s not the fists but the feet that make up boxing. A dancers feet… lithe and agile that carry the subtle shift of the boxers weight on the feet. A good boxer can sense even the most imperceptible shift of weight – his own or that of the other.

I am a remarkable failure when it comes to social graces and though I sensed her eagerness I am grateful that she is good enough a boxer to have sensed the subtle shift of weight, to not have come and spoken to me.

Vibgyor is only seven colours…. and all the walls were painted. No matter how much I lime wash the walls now… on a bright sunny day pale shades of colour underneath are still visible. The children unborn, faceless but have names. Time is a tide. What a predicament. Swim with it and I know not where it will take me… swim against it and I would not know if I’ll reach. If I’m the bank… flush it will and then ebb. Flush with footsteps into my heart and ebb leaving foot prints on the soft fertile. Flush again might wash away the foot prints but I’ll never be the same again… never.

It is still bright and sunny outside. I wish the rain clouds would come so I could take a walk in the rain humming Muddy Water Blues…..

walking alone in the rain

water in my shoes

all I can feel is this pain in my heart and these muddy water blues

river weep for me

nothing left to loose

under the weeping willow tree with these muddy water blues

I Jai

16.06.2009.

I have never ever studied like this. And I bloody well hate it.

This will be an anguished post. Isn’t that apparent from the fact that I’m writing in first person? I, in all probability shall now rant… emm perhaps rave too and orate and spout and and …. and another and……

Since time immemorial education and I have always had fleeting moments. ‘He’ - my education is a male gender regardless of the fact that he always appeared in front of me in feminine forms ( Mom & Aunt )… okay so coming back to the point ‘He’ tried every form of subversion, coercion, intimidation, threat, duress and/or all other wiles (e.g. Gari/Ghora chora or alternatively Gari/Ghora chaapa pora) known to him to get me educated. I employed every known guerrilla tactic to evade, escape or elude education. The statistics of a long drawn insurgency show that the behemoth managed to force the partisan to acquiesce some ground. However the dissident maintained a sustained harassing fire throughout, which militarily speaking eventually led to a win/win situation.

The above paragraph is an index into my frustration.

I was fortunate enough to have been born with a mind that always managed to do enough revolutions per minute, a few days before exams or in some cases on the exam night to allow me to pass with a fair percentage of marks (read between 60% to 75%) i.e. apart from maths. Maths & I enjoyed a role playing fetish – Hide & Seek. Throughout the year I would play Mr. Hide & just before the final exams the roles would reverse when I played ‘Seek’ – a humble 40% only.

However all that is now a thing of the past. Somewhere along the line I had become complacent and that lead to not taking education seriously. This momentary lapse of reason allowed education to lead me right into the treacherous quicksands of ambition. Three seductively good reads have been laying eggs on my shelf for a fortnight. I no longer camouflage Ayn Rand novels in brown paper to pass of as text books. The mirror doesn’t reflect the face that had read through ‘And Quiet Flows the Don’ in one sitting….. and that was only one out of numerous such reads. I would even christen the latrine while glued to books.

…….. sigh ! Now I study. I aim for distinctions… worse still I get them too. My lecturers, Capt. Ire and even Capt. Mad Dog expect good grades from me. Where is the boy from the back bench who received no more than perfunctory glances from teachers (except English & History)... where is he? I’m not expressing a release of vanity. I’ve topped my class so far and it means nothing to me. It felt good, still does, but means nothing… and that any which way is a complicated feeling.

I shall now go and sleep. To hell with education.

12.06.2009.

Near….. but not together

Further still….. but not away….. memories stay

I Jai