Spring

This season that's supposed to be spring,
how do I accept it's nearing end?
I've got gardens and kept them good,
How do I not have cracked pots to make amends?

Soon, I'll be thrown in the rains,
And green, then fall, then snow,
And be stranded alone on the very spot
As every season that comes will go

How is that that seasons of my favorite shows
Somehow manages to return well in time
And the chestnut tree I've grown to despise
Stays in storms way past its prime

When my time came for the dream world tour,
I never got past the boarding gate
But the swallows keep flying northwards
Keeping their golden Summer's date

Soon the Happy Prince will have lost his eyes,
And conversation vague like ancient men,
Gold will rustle under unaccustomed feet,
Will I be sulking for Autumn then?

The Returning Rains

Outside, it feels like rains.
The spring in the steps of upturned clods,
The rise of the forgotten 'mitti di khusboo'
And a sephia that sets in from a million years ago.
Inside, it feels like rains.

Little shoulders walk awestruck,
Curious of the fresh load,
Astonished by how it all still looks the same,
The first day of school arrives every year,
A new lesson with a similar name.

Outside, it feels like rains.
The kind that makes you forget the kind you awaited all year round,
A dampened sky that feels a little too familiar,
Moist oxygen that your lungs have taken in far too many times.
Inside, it feels like rains.

It's like year after year, this day brings me back to the same spot.
The same weird stiffness of the limbs,
The same chill in your thoughts,
The same fear in the half-stoned mind.
I'm going back. I'm going back.
Everything I ever do, adds up to this day,
I'm going back.
Inside, it feels like rains.

One More Special Than The Other

Last night, in a very cramp-seated Dinanath Mangeshkar Natyagriha, I watched the much acclaimed Don (2) Special. The play has been winning accolades across the many Award Functions that the Marathi industry generates. It is a matter of great pride for me how for years the vernacular news papers and TV channels have been giving theatre just as much importance as films. Because the 'Star' culture in Marathi is a bare minimum, these awards are also often much more credible than their counterparts on Hindi GECs. Which is why, I had a lot of expectations from 2 Special (a play my mother was watching for the second time and my mom's judgement of the arts is something I trust a lot). While most of the play did live up to expectations, a certain aspect left me massively confused and even worried.

The play opens in a very elaborate box set. A sound track featuring jingles from the late 80s tell us what year this is. A young fanboy (watch out for this boy!) waiting for News Editor Milind Bhagwat (Jeetendra Joshi) very tactfully tells us everything we need to know. So Bhagwat is an honest, hard-hitting, wordsmith journalist. Enters Meenu Jog (Girija Oak), his former lover and intern, and somebody who married well. Oh and yes, she's dumped him 10 years ago. If that isn't enough drama, she's also a PRO of the company against which Bhagwat is writing an article.

In this 10 years, Bhagwat has been fired, broke, gotten married, has a son and survived the accidental handicap of his son (all perfectly put in places to make us feel bad for him) and done everything except forgiven Jog. He tells her how she ruined everything for him and keeps hurling taunts at her but surprisingly is in no mood to listen to her side of the story.

She on the other hand maintains her dignity for most of the play and once when he's holding her by her shoulders sharply tells him how she left because this imposing that he does. I want to applaud. Here is a strong female character from 1989 refusing to be subjugated by anything. Here on however, the writer seems to have lost out of the courage he had handed to the woman. She proceeds to tell him how cruel fate played games, how she was molested, almost committed suicide, was married off out of pity (thus making her infinitely grateful of the man who 'accepted' her), has to support her marriage financially and is still getting sexually harassed at work. And she's pregnant.
Oddly enough, that works excellently in balancing out both sides. Sure the guy had to work at a beer bar, but the girl almost got raped so it's okay. All this is enough for the guy to reconsider printing the news that will cost her her job as a PRO.
Because she wasn't as evil as he thought all these years, situations forced her to do that. God forbid if she had left him because he suffocated her. That would be utterly shameful to the entire female race.

The dialogues are great, the characters are well shaped, the pace works. The problem lies in how easily we have accepted the fact that a woman must have a terrific explanation for the incorrect decisions she takes. Even better if she is strong enough to not offer them for very long, because she can't sound defensive. Here I must mention, that the story of how her sister forced her to go to Mumbai (where the ill-fated incident happened) has no other relevance to the play.

The other problem I have with the play, (though not as big as the first one) is the not-very-subtle names. His newspaper is called Hindustan Daily. Her company is called India Builders. His newspaper used to be an honest supplement but commercial companies like hers have brought that honesty down. This just feels like another addition to India Versus Hindustan cliché that seems to convey that manipulation, capitalization and dishonestly are all Western values corrupting the Indian ones. The play is set in the wake of Privatisation and Liberalization in the country, also an era that marks the changing face of journalism. Which is why every time Bhagwat starts his cry of helplessness it feels like a complain against the modern values, something that has somewhat become a very common theme in Marathi fiction.
Over the last two years some of the most popular shows on Zee Marathi have displayed themes like a woman managing to win the love of her bipolar, aggressive husband, a woman accepting the man she's been married off to, because her lover turned out to be a cheat and a woman managing to find perfect balance between her six mother-in-laws while also converting her evil step-mom.
'Don't Worry, Be Happy', a play I saw some two weeks apart from 2 Special is extremely modern, relevant and yet manages to end on the working woman returning to her household and husband, despite how visibly bad they are for each other. My mother returned home after watching the widely popular 'Selfie' and declared that she was super-confused about if the play actually advocated things like how a woman must stay with her family and maybe not have an abortion even if she's a working actress.

On the other hand, there's a play like Samudra, a story from the early 80s that talks about the wife's infidelity. The very mature and progressive play somehow manages to turn a blind eye to the fact that the husband violently attacks his wife who ends up making peace with him.

The problem is, that all of these plays are actually progressive. They have modern characters, ideals, conversations and scenarios. They hardly endorse traditional values that need to be let go. Marathi plays have always upheld strong female characters right from Tendulkar's Sakharam Binder and Elkunchwar's Party. But the worrisome part remains these unintended, perhaps subconscious potrayals of women who must either conform or have a reasonable explanation.
And sadly, that remains not a problem with just plays, but extends to most of our societies as well.

Fucker, yeah!

It's been a weird 24 hours.

A. How am I writing a Blog again?

It's because of a random girl who lives in Bangalore, who I am never going to meet in my life, have never spoken to, nothing. She reminded me how exciting it is to put stuff out there on the internet, not worrying about long it is, not wondering who will read it, except people you link it to. I don't link. I don't think people I link actually read. Except this one other girl who thought I was going to quiz her once she read the blog.

B. I actually sat by myself for a good 8 hours.

Okay, I slept through like three of them to be perfectly honest. But hey, I didn't flip. I didn't feel the 'incessant need' to be around somebody or message somebody just to strike a conversation. Instead I watched AIB's new show. Please, I like it.

C. I picked up a dead rat.

It was traumatic. As my broom touched its dead body and I felt its stiff body move towards the polythene bag, I whimpered out loud from behind the makeshift mask. Then the rat body wouldn't go inside the huge huge polythene and just sat there amidst the folds. My whimpering didn't stop as I pushed it with the broom, tied the bag shut, ran out of the house and until I met a kind cleaning lady who took over the bag from me.
I got called a BABY when I recounted this story, and then a friend beautifully put together 'picking up a dead rat' as a metaphor for growing up.

D. I said no to Smoking up.

Yep, around 23 hours and 23 minutes ago, I was at the Birthday Party of a guy who I have constantly been smoking up with for the last four months. Yet somehow smoking up didn't seem like something I should do at that point and hey, we know saying No to a rolled joint is as painfulas it is mannerless.

E. I feel good.

Not an everyday thing, is that now? Especially in Pune, who would've thought? I'm meeting people, I am feeling happy about meeting them, I am getting nice things said to me. Maybe I can get through this term. Maybe I will.

So my year generally lasts Thespo to Thespo, yeah? When I say 2014 was an amazing year, it started out with at Thespo 15, with the EQ happening and what not. When I say 2015 sucked, let's not talk about Falls 2-11.
But given how I feel at this point, all I can say is this. Bring It On, 2016.
I'll have good shit to show you by the end of this. Fucker yeah.

Glass

So you know how for everyone we know there's a glass in our head?
It's a popculture theory, one from 'How I Met Your Mother' in that one particular episode where everytime somebody realizes something new (and sucky) about someone around them they hear a glass crash which basically means it's something they can never unsee.
I assume for most people this glass is a bottle of rum. For me it's a huge pane (and pain). Here's why:

I am a major asshole. When the glass crashes (I swear, I hear it happen), it leaves me very awkward and uncomfortable. Also even though saying it makes me hollower, it leaves me detached.  Now given that I generally fall head over heels in love with the new bonds I make and go through a routine of mild depression when I have to part, this is either really OOC or amazingly bipolar of me. I don't mean to do it, but let's face it I'm extremely blunt and truthful in life. If I like you, I'll go out of my way to let you know- shamelessly and even  creepily as a dear friend once told me. But if I dislike you and am forced to hang around you still, there is no way you're not getting a whiff of my displeasure of your company. It's not something I'm very proud of when it hurts people but I often give myself the right to decide who had it coming.

One of the major reasons of the glasscrash is when the person in front of me turns out or starts acting lame. That's ironic considering I'm so lame myself (especially when I'm high) but the absolute lack of a person to have a decent conversation is what breaks the deal with these people. Just bad jokes is fine, I appreciate them. People who laugh at their own jokes when nobody else does is a big no-no. There's a friend I had for about two-three years until I realized how lame he acts in a crowd and CRASH. I've tried my best to mend it but it's never been the same since. There's also people I've completely distanced myself from post the glass crash and left them wondering what went wrong. Like my first girlfriend.
(Again, this is not something I'm proud of. I suck and I accept that and I know I shouldn't be doing this to people.)

Some people do manage to survive the glass crash though and I can proudly say that two of my closest friends today are someone who's glasscrash I looked past. My glasses are fragile things, extra-fragile in fact because it doesn't take much for them to collapse.

It's not like the glass can't be rebuilt. I had a friend who would hurl at the glass like she was in a bowling alley and everytime I would gather the pieces and create a marred but still complete version of the glass. It doesn't exactly work. In the end I had to run a bulldozer over it.

There's been times I have had the chance to be gifted a whole new glass a few months post the breaking. These are people I have gone on the really like, hate and then love. In times like these then, I'm really grateful of my shortcomings because they give rise to something much beautiful. This friend I heard something really annoying and stupid about yesterday is one such person. But I heard that thing, it was like two tiny people who walked into my mind at the same time, lifted the glass pane and just gave me 'Please, we're taking this away' look before walking out.

This other friend I recently made had to leave for another city in two weeks and the good part was, that he left before the glass crashed. It kind of puts a good tag on me missing the guy because it takes away the opportunity of being an ass from me.

Now here's the friend I really want to talk about. She and I have been friends for three years. She and I fight about once a year customarily. She is the most significant thing in my life, much over my own mother and the girl I love. She is all the right things to me.
If she has a glass I've never seen it. It's probably completely transparent AND permeable. As well as bullet proof. It's a glass I wish I could have for everyone. And yet I know, what I have with her, I can't have with anyone in the world.
After two months of barely seeing her at all, I saw her for two whole days from day before. Laughed until my stomach hurt, cried, got high, met a random friend and laughed with him, went to Prithvi, had too many cigarettes, laughed some more - you know the drill. I had been super-extra-low for the last four to five days. Like a lot. Maybe it's the year end, maybe it's the end of too many good things, maybe it's the realization of the too many good things I had and continue to have.
And yet there I was, sitting in a rickshaw, the cold cold wind on my face, on the western express highway, right after I had dropped her home. There I was, breathing free, no knot in my stomach, no incessant need to look at my phone, just smiling like an idiot.
All thanks to the bullet-proof, permeable glass.

The Truth of Poems at Dawnbreak

Early mornings, a poem comes to me
Stripped of all poetic pretences
Brutally honest words stringed together
In strictly tautological sentences

Truths I had hidden from my own self
Opinions not bundled in lies
Selfish mistakes and naked egos
Owning up to broken ties

This poem looks at me with me
With a certain sympathy in her eyes
She knows I'm not strong enough to write,
Retreats; leaving me with comforting lies

The Lost God

I had a God
Now I have empty conversations
He's still there
Under piles of reluctance and unfortunate accusations

I'd share dreams
And ideas and germs that could turn into might
I'd block expectations
And yet there was a belief; that he could only do right

A pack of cards on thin ice
I'm treading lightly, God probably thinks all's okay
At the tip of the iceberg sure,
But right below, faith has started on it's own decay

God still wants to be there
It's my love, my religion that's fraud
For I thought stones were humans
And humans, deities. I thought I had a God.