Independence Day Sarcasm: Pleading forgiveness to Tagore

Where the mind is neglected and the head is immersed deep in the past
Where emotions are free to be inflamed by each and everything
Where the world is broken into convenient fractions by smooth selfish curtains
Where tomes are written without making any sense
Where tireless striving humans crawls to 50 rupees poverty line
Where the clear stream of sycophancy has lost its ability to laugh at sarcasm
Where the herd is led forward killing all possible questions
Into that heaven of inactive ecstasy, my adopted father and my disputed mother let me sleep

Wisdom of 26 Years

Its 26 years and we are not much surprised. 2-3 December 1984, poisonous gas entered the air of Bhopal, surrounded those who were sleeping, or preparing to sleep, killed, remained in the air, entered the water sources and importantly generated a law-suite which ran for marathon 26 years. Gas must have died in its intensity since accused have been given punishment of 2 years and fine of rupees one lakh. Are those who were guilty have really been punished? Is that funny thing called ‘Justice’ has been delivered? And have we learnt anything from that night, which killed many people instantly and polluted healthy life for years coming. Let’s go one by one.
Who was guilty? There is list of 9 officials of Union Carbide which were summoned and eventually punished. But they didn’t really own the company. The plant which operated at Bhopal had about 49% stakes from Indian. It is understood and fair from strict profit driven framework under which corporate operate, that Union Carbide denied many of the charges. Union Carbide has provided medical help after the incident, invested in the hospital which started functioning from 2001 and started few other initiatives. I am not advocating the company, but I do not want to be blind in putting all the blame on Union Carbide. It is failure of those who should have stood for the victims. They didn’t stand, but played safe and to the extent, didn’t allow the lesson to be taught. Who are they? List must start from Government of India, a usual culprit in many of the crimes against people who don’t really bring foreign investments or add considerable percentages to growth engine. But one must go deeper, who constitutes the state? Who allows the state to take actions? Who has power to show and revert defects of the states? I do not want to blame the state too, as I do not see it as some absolute entity operating on its own. I blame to our lost consciousness of justice, which is happily sleeping in our mind and does some impotent yawning when we read loud articles citing deaths, exploitation and corruption. We allowed it to sleep somewhere near 1947, and since then some pseudo system, which delivers justice is operating.
Am I sounding like a woman who few days back declared to be on that side and made some provocative statements to give a temporary boil to urban blood and generate some lukewarm discussion on democracy? May be. I want to sound like one mad youth who did something to ‘make the deaf here’. How can be ‘Freedom’ or ‘Justice’ are given to somebody? One is free or not free, but never a one is made free. And freedom is never a collective function. It is strictly individual. When we say a group of people is free, it means they can come together, are free to decide where they can curtail individual freedoms and accept something which if violated, can enforce punishment. Such simple concept becomes extremely difficult when group is not homogeneously formed from inside and that what case of India is. How freedom and Justice are linked? Who determines something is Just and something is not. It is collective decision of free minds, which keeping in mind spectrum of action an human being can take, determines widest range to operate individual freedoms and curtail which will harm group, even if benefit individual.
We all want to live as we want. Individually, the end one wants to pursue is of being free to do whatever one wants. Collectively, we all want to be in situation where we all are free to do what we want, without cutting others wish to be free. There is difference between these two ends. Some act can be termed as error when viewed from personal point of view, on collective front it becomes crime. Humanist cries for terrorists, maoists or police brutalities because they see terrorist as an individual who is walking erroneous path. A nationalist accepts these killings since he perceives these acts as threatening for collective existence and termed them crime. What one should be?
I do not know. But I know what to do if I get into such a dilemma. One must call for consciousness we all have for our own and for one whom we see as our fellow human being. I feel outraged at the verdict not because it is delivered in such liquidated manner after so many years, I feel outraged because knowing that this is the system, one never really try to deliver a timely blow to make it correct. A Law, a society or system which corrupts in its mechanism of self improvement, needs external aid or annihilation to appear in improved form. If we look at evolution of societies, we see that every time an act which was out of domain of acceptability happened to cure the disease. A mutiny, on success becomes a justified struggle.
Have we learnt lesson? Our blind belief about perfection of technology is yet dominant. Bhopal tragedy has not shaken, and now it is part of distant memory. We are allowing nuclear power plants, of scale which was not functioned before and can have most disastrous and silent damage. We are allowing them in fragile coastal area and near the sea. Companies which will run these plants have limited liabilities in any Bhopal Like tragedy. I see the need of power. To some extent, I agree that nuclear power will be current solution, but are we placing solution in manner which will cause least harm if anything goes wrong? And, if ‘the state’ is repeatedly failing to place it in right manner, why we are not delivering the timely blow, which may end up in some short scale violence, but can make amendments which will help. Even ‘the state’ in its actual operation, is run by a person. That person can err, but should learn eventually. If there is no learning, then that person must be punished, either by ballet or bullet. One must be conscious with bullet, but should not forget that it supports ballet.

Remaining and other update

Most of them had left. they have asked me to keep few things of them. these things have filled my room and room looks different.
Some of our friends were ill. but now they are recovering.
I cleaned fan, tube light and my table yesterday. dust filled my hands and then I washed them. Wash basin is dirtier than it was when I started living in the room.
I am under the influence of 'Catcher in the rye....' this particular genre is called 'Stream of consciousness'. Like stream of water flowing through tab over your palms, then to wrists and then dropping into sink since it cannot go anti-gravity. Stream of breaths, stream of letters, stream of memories, stream of steam, stream of books and stream of streams...
i am feeling like throwing darts in the darkness. Soon some darts will chase me, like your words.
I am not drunk, but I am feeling elated.
Dart, Dark, Drunk....
I took few things from my friend's room. i heard voice in empty room and then neglected. I can't use those things. there are touches everywhere.
I forget everything sometimes and then remember with one tiny hit.
I am writing like some hostel student writing to his mom, which never really his mother.
I can't send letter to undefined address. It returns.
Else is fine. I am learning about fear, memories, future, others, regions, truth and so many other things.
Evening is little difficult. I cannot drink tea alone.
I write to somebody and at the end of writing I forget whom I am addressing. So I am writing here.

5. References of Ephemerence

Realization doesn't last long. One who gets one quits the whole game so quickly. There is no fun living once you know what worth it was. But he was alive, and he realized being alive is being in reference to something.
Reference of what? whose son or daughter or student or relative you are? Where do you have your home? What is your education? how much money do you get per month? What do you want to be in some absurd number of years down the line? What book do you read? What sort of clothes you wear? Who is your wife? What movie you watched recently? Contacts in phone book, people who will come to meet you if you are hospitalized, the college where you got your degree and what not... the list goes on until one goes off. Fuck! nothing absolute.... everything is damn relative... understood in reference to something else..
Even this sea has references of shores. He satirically smiled at his own addiction to analogies. Since long back he lived with reference to what he saw himself from some different place than he actually stood. And kept himself providing analogy of some or other story he provided to his life. One cannot lie, means should not, one should tell stories instead. What if one becomes a story, a mix of lie and imagination.
He walked back. Different sounds reached his ears. one of sea waves was loudest, then conversations of couples sitting near shore. He felt like a silent participant into so many dreams around him. He turned into one scantily lit lane and walked till he came before a restaurant. He couldn't enter. He was not somebody who carries thousand bucks and lots of cards and drives a car and has a perfect postured woman with him.
A car stopped near him, inches away. It was some latest model. It's rear shined in lights of restaurant. A handsome guy came out, and soon followed a girl. Her smooth legs went into borders of red dress above her knees. Near perfect buts mingled into flat roads of back. Her hair were meticulously made. In all darkness, her neck shone among black of her hairs. She locked her fingers into her man's. she leaned on him, giggled, her breast touching his body. He put his hand around her waist, and put his nose near to her. Her lips made an inviting movement for a while, for a second or none and her finger with colored sharp nail carved on his chest. His hands moved slowly on her back. They came closer till their lips touched, eyes half shut and hands pulling each other even more.
He walked away. The peace he had touched moments back was all shattered now. He just wanted to be that guy now. He wished to be touch on her lips. He wished to be a finger on her bare skin. He wished to be caress through her hairs. And knowing that he cannot be one hit him hard next moment. He lacked references for such.
He kept walking till he reached railway station. Now his ears are full with crowd of voices. Yellings, calls, bye's and hi's, names, sledgings, breaths, sighs, whistles. Flock of smells captured him. A strong smell of human sweat, perfumes, urine, dog shits, eatables, smokes and faint smell of distant sea. He kept walking through pool of human bodies touching him, shaking him, pulling and pushing him, avoiding him and surrounding him to provide him one eternal reference of crowd. It is metaphysics in action, he noted and erased. Fuck to philosophy!!
He got the ticket and took the train. He stood catching breeze near the door. Coach was full not croweded. What day is today? He just didn't remember. Whatever it is. Why does it matter, he thought. He felt nice being away from scale of time for a while. Whenever he feels time, he feels it escaping from his grip, something always getting late, timing of everything is always lagging behind some moment few slots of times back. This is better, no time. Train stopped stations. he felt sleepy being inside large amount of exhaled carbon dioxide. Now all he saw are heads and all he felt is different clothes and underneath human flesh. He leaned on rod behind him, straightned himself to avoid touches and felt his breathing at his nostrils. Crowd was expanding itself at every station. He sort of started listing touches he feelingh and meanwhile concentrating on edges of his nostrils. First one loose elderly skin looking to be hold on by crowd, then a tight working man hand having metal wrist watch, then hairs of small boy suffocating among butts of crowd, then contracting touch of a girl and then one arrogant shoulder almost hitting him in his abs. Meanwhile he dozed off in his attempts of concentration. He thought of getting down at next station and having something. He was feeling hungry.
He got down at station and swam through crowd towards exit. He stopped for while to see where he was. He knew these roads, these garland sellers, these book vendors, these smells of coffees , scent of incense sticks in the temples, a warm murmur of friends having tea, fast walking priests and old, tired couples walking slowly from the roadside. He thought of one cheap place to eat.
He ordered a meal. H ordered few items more than his meal. He looked at people eating around him and found them looking at him. He just concentrated on his meal. He kept eating, few crumbs failed on his wrist, he made noise while sipping curry, he ate with much part of his fingers inside his mouth and he almost licked his dish. He felt like some animal who is grabing all pray it had hunted. He paid the bill and walked away on some street entering a gloomy looking next lane. It is like web of lanes and addresses are told with reference to lanes next and behind. So when you are searching somebody here, you are like trapped into old magic of lanes. but he was searching no one. He walked some distance and lit the cigarette.
He felt better when nicotine pushed his spirit a bit. He had few continuous long puffs. He had almost forgotten why he started all his roaming. He watched street though shores of smokes. He suddenly found himself being pulled away from everything else. He tried thinking about his friends, his mother,. He tried feeling a connection with somebody. He tried calling on number of a girl he had flirted with long ago. But somehow he let every impulse pass and emptied his mind with that particular thought. Names of some books flashed before his eyes, he tried sticking plots and dialogues of those books to moment he is right now, but that too disappeared. He threw away the but of cigarette. He was all sweating, his heart beats are quicker than normal. He felt like hiding behind some warm and friendly darkness. Silence is pleasant when it has certain termination. He wanted to speak now, but all his word found a counter word and annihilated. To each of his feeling, there came and struck an opposing feeling. Cloud of pains burst inside his head and yet he couldn't call anybody. He see people around him withering. A web of lanes turned into web of his own imaginations and choked him. He sobbed, muttered something with fast drying lips and lost the last thread of consciousness.

There won't be a cry
nor a tiny hint of interior
What will you hear is a call
my deeds will generate
loud enough to reach in any corner you choose to be....

4. Awakening

(first three parts are prologue, city: initial verses, dream skeletons)

Bus kept traveling smoothly and he slept for a while as if he is living kind of swift and smooth life he always looked for. life with constancy of motion, life without doubts of if and should, just a life. but it was just for a while. soon dreams came back, resembling the memories he had, like old skeletons in brand new clothes.
'But why you did that?' somebody was asking.
the voice was hurt, pains filled in it beyond any estimation of depth. he tried answering with sort of poetic reality he has assumed for himself and that voice. In poems, reader resides in words unwritten and one's ownership over that unexpressed content and twin relationship with expressed poem make one reader, a true reader. But poet often forgets that such a reader is assumption to express poem, not hard reality on which poem can grow. he too has forgotten. he changed his poems and so reality which kept shaping his poems.
He lured words to fit in the stage he had set for them and to lure them he camouflaged. now he has forgotten his original color or colorlessness.
'Enough of this webs of yours. you cannot balance emotions on threads of your momentary colors.'
That voice was sharp, wounded and stroked him like a whip.
He started fumbling. He tried erecting some temporary clouds of words to cover the unbearable light which was penetrating him.
'you got to answer questions'. voice said, as if it was of stranger.
he knew this point, he had escaped it before.
he uttered 'I answer but my answers are not what you expect or will fit in image you have about my answers.'
voice laughed, a sarcastic laugh. 'you cannot fool me. Answer!'
'I am not fooling. Nobody accepts something as answer until it fits into our image of that answer. We seek answers because there is space in us which needs something. There is space inside us because whatever person, event we enter inside us cannot fit the experience of that person or event. Experiences are bigger than our encounters with them.'
He expected voice to turn sympathetic, showing some congratulating softness. A strange silence followed, silence which has germs of self destruction, silence which deepens chaotic interpretations, silence which let words form shape which is farthest away from their birthplace.
'Is this your answer? Answers are in plain facts which cannot be excavated further. answer me who am I for you? Answer me who are those for you? answer me. '
'You? Those? and how can I tell it in facts. I know no facts except few like my name. And they too are very shallow'.
'You are weaving one illusion again, but not this time.'
'But I do not have defined me and any of my references.'
'But references are what we have about anybody else. We comprehend by references, not by what it is actually'.
'But that actual exists. Reference is one limited dimension of our perception of that real. Real is incomprehensible.'
'So what do you mean? You are multi-dimensional, much more than what your references can tell about you. Aren't you lying? Fooling yourself?'
Voice didn't say last lines, but it was there unsaid, but almost felt.
He kept looking towards fingers of his feet, aimlessly scratching digs, his body was trembling inside, he felt like jumping from a very very tall cliff or crying, tears rolled to his eyes. he controlled them and kept watching fingers of his feet.
'So be with your incomprehension.' Voice marked these words without saying and faded.
Even with disappearance of that voice he was not at peace. Loss of pain is a loss only. Having nothing is not exactly happy.
He woke up. He was alone in the bus. He felt sea-breeze and salty smell of air. He was soaked with sweat. Few drops were lingering on his eyebrows. They were about to fall and light, entering though their dense media was splitting in droplets of brightness and illuminated his eyes. He removed those drops, dried his forehead and got down from the bus.
Sea was in front of him. He knew this places, lot many poems this sea has in it and he has taken few of them. All those poems then formed a collective appearance, took some name and co-ordinates along space-time and dragged his life till here. He looked at sea, he looked at shores which are too distant to be perceived clearly, he looked at sky, where light was making incomplete attempt to define age old darkness. He felt all moments he lived or thought of living collapsing into the one where he was now. He felt every corner was getting folded into the place beneath his feet. It is just now and here and I.

I know this is only way to release the uneasy sorrow I am carrying with me. I am not used to keep something locked for so much time, except my attempt to identify you with name. It is weird silence, it is silence after long awaited death of bed-ridden person who is better if dies. But even such desired worst result when actually happens shocks in most extraordinary manner. This is numbness of such shock that my words are just lingering around.
I look back to all distance we walked. There are places that any relation can reach. But what make sense of loss severely painful are some spots where we talked, a child in me to a ever present child to you. I was like boy who has just done something wrong in his home and has run away to his dearest friend, to tell her whatever he did without missing any detail and then be free with burden of guilt. Do you remember these spots my friend? You are, I know, because forgetting is habit for those who need to produce constant lies. I am just seeing all these spots, bright in calm, soothing light of their own and making your silence bearable by travel through them.
I never found a child in me so easily conversable. And I realize everybody has such child in them and this child keeps them weird enough so that they remain identifiable in pools of regularity. Child is fearless, to touch something and then on keeping it or leaving. The way I see you loosing yourself in simple acts, trivial for somebody like me burdened with me false sense of theories about world, I wondered whether I have such doors in my self to converse with my innocent self. Now, with your departure, a boy is wondering through all these doors, searching all places where he used to find his friend waiting for him and going lost, as there is no sign of anybody ever present. There can’t be even a cry, because sense of absence has struck him like a hammer, a quick load of immense pains turning him unconscious to any reality around him and he is just watching a newly found world with dry and empty eyes.
It is growing up. When one grows one comes to know that we have limited ability to assimilate people we like to be in us. We cannot assimilate them in all the forms they have. We have to choose. We have to choose whether we take them with us or we carry weightless but heavy memories. I hate such choice dear, and I hate is forced on me by time. I feel toyed, made useless to convey anything to anybody and not able to remain child. I am making escape by saying time did it? Such illusive masks are wore by grown ups, of ambiguous questions, of inconclusive philosophies. Innocence goes without any mask, and that is why it is stern enough not to look back on decisions once taken.
Will you read this? Let time have this answer. But I know what you will say after reading this, “ grown ups are like that..”.