Sunday, July 28, 2013

Someone once told me I would make a tender, beautiful mother one day. Just shouldn't tell them how I lived my life.
I cannot promise I wouldn't. Although maybe it is a good idea. What I go through or am going through are probably not exclusive in my life. I am sure I am not the first one and I am definitely sure I wouldn't be the last one.

I think there are two kinds of people in this world. One, that believes in stability and the other that believes in experiences. That said, I donot believe it is that black and white. There is one kind that mostly believes in stability and there is one kind which mostly believes in experiences. There's the other kind which is confused but we will not talk about confused people today. Because I assume we mostly know who we are and which of these we are after a point in life, for sure. We are not going to talk about pretending to be confused, either, today.

Long ago I had decided that one day I would pack my bags and go for a long, long journey, reading and writing poetry all my way, till the end. I was thirteen years old then. I guess everything built up on this decision. I did a bit of science and discovered it was nice. I told the world that's the only reason why I am leaving home. But of course I blatantly lied.

Today, I think I no longer need to tell myself that that was the only reason I left home. I couldn't have done science back home, no matter how much funding I received. I did not need money, and I still donot think that I am very keen on earning as much, as much as I want to live. I have been dissuaded from the Rai-way many times. From old-lovers and well wishers and best friends. Before long they gave up; some accepted me. Some left. But of course, I think, nothing, nobody, nowhere can take away from me, my passion for the road, my romance for finding poetry and writing poetry and my adrenaline for new, unforeseen experiences. As I have travelled, I have met many interesting people, I have touched many strange emotions, I have broken my heart many times, I have known what love is, and I have known what living is. I have gone with the flow and every time, I have known when to stop. Maybe I got lucky but I like to believe that one always knows. One always knows in the marrow of their bones what to do and how to recover from everything.

And since one always knows this, I strongly recommend to you, whoever you are and wherever you are and whatever you do, to let go and live a little bit. I strongly recommend to you that you live this life, albeit not on loan. Live it after you have earned it. Because if you have earned it yourself, without anybody's help, with only the power of your own dreams and passion, you will live it really and entirely, without guilt or sadness.
And then maybe you too will discover, like me, that there are a million shades of blue-grays in this world.



Friday, July 26, 2013

"I am very excited about you. You are so young and still have so many experiences to experience, so many books to read, so many people to meet, so many places to visit..."

My heart leapt for a moment. In the midst of all the mess that was.


Wednesday, July 24, 2013

What stays is fondness.

Even when relationships, passions, urges and intensities had died out. Then you know you had really loved.

Fondness is a strange wonderful feeling. It doesn't unsettle you, it doesn't torture you. It fills your heart with an overwhelming warmth and you find yourself smiling in remembrance of wonderful days spent.

Monday, July 15, 2013

The moonwalker paper of my senior got submitted in Science today. I am following it up for my PhD now.

I wish, I could publish too in Science. But it looks totally impossible. I get a feeling I will finish PhD without a paper.

"Well,  or maybe, one day, you will look back to this post and say miracles exist?"

But miracles donot exist. As, neither do pixie dust, love and all such lovely things dreams are made of.

"I say, what an utterly, utterly negative post at 1:30  in the morning".


P.S: 2017, Published a (first-author) paper in Current Biology - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982217301446?via%3Dihub
P.S.S: 2019, Just got a second first-author paper accepted in Current Biology

Wednesday, July 10, 2013


‘So are you looking for a question or an answer?’
‘Well, I am a PhD student!’
‘So, you are looking for a question, you mean? Did you find your question? It must be easy to look for a question. There are so many questions.’
‘Well if you are doing research in Humanities, probably it is just enough to look for any question. Our question needs to be significant enough’
‘Wo, wo! Whats it with you and Humanties?!’
‘Not much. I mean most Humanitites students? They do not really look for any question or well, answer. They just create this illusion that they are asking something extremely important and go get stoned, meanwhile’
‘So, what do you think about why we exist?’
‘See? Exactly.’

Tuesday, July 09, 2013

Osho

http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/2856822.Osho

Monday, July 08, 2013

Of Long Ago.



Hey,
Someday we will not wear shabby clothes. Someday we will have a washing machine to wash them. Someday we both will have money in our wallets and strengths in our hearts. That day could be a product of difficult lives; a product of sleepless nights and endless tussles.

That day, you may be married and I may be married.

But I will remember you that day, as someone who had also fought. Remember me, too, that day.


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Pony,
You remind me of pink ponies on rosy days trotting on red roads. You make me wanna 
follow you down lush green meadows, run after you with the wind against my face.
It's summer and you already remind me of clouds, winds and rain. And I will miss your smell when you are away.And you will be away in 7 days; and you'll be away for two months.

Pony, I will miss our coffee and sugarcane juice and I will miss our red bicycle.


-Love and sadness,
The Little One

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I miss the gap between your fingers.


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I remember feeling warm in your jacket. I remember bleary eyed trysts and black-and-white evenings and sleepless nights and walks, tears, giggles and silence.

And the food tasting like home when you were along.

Days, you must know, I will never forget.


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What is it that pulls me to you like the river to the moon? But I don't wish to come to you like a lover comes to a lover. I want to be five when you are twenty two. I wish to be cuddled, to snuggle tenderly against the warmth of your body.
You hold me like glass. And just when I'm like gasoline catching fire, you tenderly pour water; aren't you bovine?

I don't understand  my feelings for you. It is so poorly out of rhyme, so absurd, so fuzzy, so beautiful.


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Hey I miss that famous smile and the famous dimple on your left cheek. Your laughter 
creates ripples on my heart.

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My day seems incomplete without writing here. It is a strange place, this. It makes me not feel at home, but at a strange place; away but comfortable, warm, contained and cozy.
I don't write here to attract your stupid attention by the way, I write here more for myself than for you.

I miss you. A week back I spent 30 precious seconds of my life smelling my dad's towel because it smelt of you. And today I smiled randomly like a jackass on the streets of Calcutta remembering old days.They seem so old, so faraway, almost from a previous life.

I miss you. I miss you like a friend misses a best friend. Or a sibling misses a sibling. Or a very old woman misses a very old man. It is strange and bizzare. It is weirder to me than it is to you.

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I patted imaginary powder over his forehead and cheeks. 
He spoke softly; his words fell silently like little droplets of rain on morning grass. 

He said, his bare arms across my bare shoulders, his hand around my bare waist: 
'You will make a nice, tender mother someday... Just do not tell them how you lived your life...'. 



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'That's stupid of you to ask for and it's stupid of me to do it still but anyways our life is such a stupid mess that it doesn't matter'

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Well,

Here we have a new year. I donot know what will follow this year, what future has in store for you and me.

But I wish to talk to you at least for one day, all night till the break of dawn, on that elevated platform near Department of English, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad.


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'Are you going to take care of me if and when I get pregnant?'

'If you get pregnant by me, then yes. But  kindly don't expect that if it is any Tom, Dick or Ha-'

'Say, if I don't know who the father is...'

- 'Then there either will be a murder, or a suicide.'



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I broke away and left you in the middle of Gops. Just got carried away. I forgot you. And when I remembered you an hour and a half later, I got so perturbed and I could not fathom why I do what I do.

Why do I do what I do? It is evening and the air still smells of metal. I was trying to sleep but as I laid on the floor, face up, I was distracted by the fan spinning on the ceiling.
There is a fan that spins like a retarded crazy kid on the ceiling of a house that reeks of Old Monk Rum all the time in my mind. I had spent a single night with you there and my memories have already jaded. But the fan is as green in my mind as it could be. I remember I couldn't read the name of the company, for my vision was blurred and my senses were numbing. 
There was nothing warm about that house; it flashes in my mind and disappears. When it comes to me, it comes to me with the suffocation of smoke and heat and the pungence of sweat and liquor. And then it clings on to my mind like a parasite with its dirty mattresses, dusty bookshelves, messy rooms, windowless kitchen, and tiny basin plus the razor and the Pepsodent.I donot know how many times I had melted on your body, the memory gets me feverish.In our campus, the season has changed and the leaves are changing colours, if you have noticed. The tree near the reading room is in full bloom and in the evening, the fallen yellow flowers glisten like golden beads of grapes in the setting sun.It looks so beautiful and sad that it breaks my heart.I want to leave this place. One day at sunset. I will leave for Meghalaya where I can live with clouds. For at heart, I am only a cloud, wafting from one piece of sky to another; waiting for my silver lining. There on way, I want to sit at the edge of a mountain road, run in the rain, lie down on grass, face up, count stars.If you know, when I write these, my eyes get misty. I am a cloud and will always be.



There is just too much pathos in my life.


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