What is dead may never die!

"Living things avoid decay into disorder and equilibrium": Erwin Schrödinger

It is difficult to deal with death, especially when it is someone one knows well and is a big part of one's life. It is just one of those inevitable truths in life that seem to shock us despite how conspicuous things may be.

I have a difficult time dealing with death. I feel nothing about it. I don't feel good, I don't feel bad, I just feel an empty void.

I lost a friend when I was in 12th grade. He had been close but had drifted apart over the years. I still met him on a weekly basis. We had spent quite a lot of time together. I had known him for at least 9 years then. My friend had lived away from his family and his family had always made sure he was never spoilt, so that he may study hard and make something of himself, ah the irony! He died when he was undergoing a cosmetic surgery because of an overdose of anaesthesia. It was a depressing sight, his parents and all his relatives gathered around his corpse and beat their hearts out crying. His father stood outside his house, talking to people as they came in "I came here to surprise him with a bike and he gave us all a surprise!" he said as he wept uncontrollably.

I couldn't shed a tear. I know of strangers who could have.      

Journey into Smokelessness

The most overused cliche about quitting is the Mark Twain quote, "Giving up smoking is the easiest thing in the world, I know because I've done it a thousand times" It is overused though, because of a reason, it resounds with anyone who's ever tried to quit a few times.

As I begin again, I feel that familiar discomfort which makes me feel nostalgic of the last few times I tried. What has helped though is that the monsoons are beginning to set in. The monsoons bring the air pollution down (quite literally) and water Delhi's trees with acid rain. Tragic as that may sound, it does provide my lungs with what is remotely reminiscent of mountain air.

My ideas seem detached and distant floating in a endless sea of obscure musings, as I struggle to bring words together to form a thought. Construction workers persistently hammering away, chipping of parts of the building I'm in, form my soothing soundscape. I find myself fantasizing about a nice big drag of that deliciously disgusting sweet poison, only to be slapped my own mind.

There is some joy to be had in this struggle too. Stepping back and looking at oneself fight with an invisible enemy. An enemy that's a product of an unchecked habit.  

Numb

A relentless excruciation
under engulfing anesthesia,
a dead laconic lethargy,
making the chaos mundane,

a slippery raddled slide,
onto snapping teeth of steel,
felt betrayed by agony,
ecstatic at the thought of pain,

life is a box of chocolates, she said,
each is better than the next,
with a dwindling hope we did move,
into intimidating uncharted seas

The Present

I see myself as a man of faith, an image of my own past. I have had a few moments in which I might have wanted to turn back time, but then does not everyone ? The world is a culmination of its yesterdays.

Elixir

An elixir can distort your perception, help you discover an unknown world, its like being on vacation, where the problems of the real world seem immaterial. It is nice to be on vacation as long as one remembers that they live in the "real" world

Futility ?

I set out to find a theory for everything,

A ray of light at the end of a dark alley,

the reason for love, life and laughter,

the eternal truth and its righteous path,

and when I found the truth untold,

oblivious to the seeker and the soothsayer too,

I found a nay I could not parlay,

unlike as outlined in a million fables,

I understood that I knew nothing,

and felt enlightened at that thought,

for some think we`re but prisoners here,

for some, we`re life in a hand-full of sand,

for to feel one`s hair stand out behind the neck,

at the sound of a solo on a Spanish guitar,

or the tingle at the edge of a the tongue,

over a mouth-full of melting pie,

or the flutter in one`s heart,

on a walk beside a gushing ocean,

against a million sparkled sky,

and finding that one`s not alone,

or the despair, pain, and agony,

and teardrops on the countenance of wailing kins,

the sinking heart for letting a loved one go,

and become specks of sand again,

I run sand through my hands,

and see our existence slipping by,

I find solace in blood, sweat and tears,

and life in a million eyes

Something Stupid !

"I love you", the most stupendous human invention since the tie, yes we all love getting choked . These three words when put together can destroy your life as you know it. It can complicate things beyond repair. It can turn a satisfying romp into an excruciating futile dwindling talk into the search for a theory of everything, maybe it was love that made Hawking write that book.
Ah, sweet love, the mother of agony, pain and blind belief. Love was made up by playwrights and screenplay writers to earn their daily bread much the same way religious bodies invented god (go on condemn me I am an atheist, actually agnostic, which is a euphemism for being an atheist). It it as ubiquitous as rain in the monsoons and equally reliable too.
This might come as a shock to most of us but there are quite a few people out there, who regurgitate everything the world throws at them each morning. Such a person is oblivious to the existence of grays, somehow everything seems black or white. Such people end up living their mediocre lives in mediocre houses and give birth to mediocre children and entertain their mediocre friends every Sunday with mediocre finger food. And they believe, in love, god and the promise of heaven, for to think otherwise is blasphemy, a taboo, in other words for them to think, is doing the unthinkable.
Why? Why dematerialize your most basic instinct to be something more meaningful, why should everything have an attached meaning, and even if it did, why let someone else choose your ideals for you? Why should the choice already be made?