god.. i am not sober. you know that i try my best to keep sane. keep me in workin condition plz.

Stupid prose

For how long will this flawed shell bear my soul?
There is little left functioning in the remnants –
What’s left has a hard constitution.
Always trying to keep breathing till the last.
To live and survive, even though steeped in misery,
Why?

The beard of bad luck

A long time ago, when I was recovering from an illness, I decided that I should change my looks. My friends in Bombay hadn’t seen me for around three months then. And on one fine day, I show up at the apartment and elicited some strange responses thanks to the new look. At the office, my manager didn’t recognize me. Once he found out, he wrinkled his nose and said – problem kya hai yaar?

In a matter of hours, I get the transfer orders to relocate back to Madras for another assignment there. In less than a day’s time, I am in Madras, reunited with old faces. Faces from college days, and some drunken parties. A couple of days went by, and things were far from rosy, on all fronts. Then I happened to meet this friend of mine who happened to be my new neighbor. She said that everyone gets sick in Chennai..So beware! Oh really? I haven’t been sick of food in years. I don’t think that Chennai can do me any harm. Ha!

Hardly had I said these words, when I started feeling a bit light-headed. While I was darting away to my new dwelling place, I had the puke of a lifetime. Shit. Ruined the front gate of a beautiful villa with blood red watermelon puke. Somehow kept on riding the bike, reached home and crashed. I could remember her asking me to get rid of the goat-like goatee beard I had cultivated on my chin. Something on the lines that my luck will be rotten till I shaved it off. Respecting the signs that nature had given me, I shaved off the damn thing that very night.

Unbelievably fortunes changed, for the better. Fast forward to the future. Things have not been exactly rosy. But things are within control, although out of control at times. I decide to take a chance and grow a beard again. A day’s growth, and already things are getting fucked up. People from the residents’ association back home, apparently went to my mother’s place and threatened her saying that they will knock down the compound walls. I just don’t get it. How the hell can bad luck spread across thousands of kilometers. And yeah, I have been making a lot of people’s lives living hell for quite some time.

History repeats itself they say. March has always been a month of acute people problems for me, historically. An year ago, at this point of time, I remember being propped up on a lousy hospital bed, with wires running out of my hands, hardly able to move around on my own, without blacking out. Those days, I used to wonder about death, and how long had I left to breathe. Hell, I am still breathing. Wondering whether to keep taunting fate with my rebel beard, or to pay obeisance to it and shave it off. I better.

Survive

The primary instinct of man is survival. The other instinct that I have is to make life bearable till it inevitably ends. These two have been in conflict lately. The second instinct has emerged as the winner most of the times. And every time that happens, the survival instinct causes dark cirrhotic thoughts to whirl like prophetic dervishes inside my haemorrhaging(symbolic, so far) head. Alas, I never learn from experience. The point being that there is no point in gaining experience.

Can you tell me who´ll still care

I listened to this song some ten years back on a dirty cream-colored Fairmate stereo cassette player which had a raspy undertone to its output. All I knew was that the band's name was Hanson, and the tune settled down somewhere in the dusty nooks of my memories. Sad memories. It has been almost four years since the person who owned the player and I have talked to each other.


Very recently I happened to come across the song again, and of course, it triggered the awakening of a lot of allied memories. The lyrics now appeal to me asking for an answer to a fundamental question which we all face. And I had thought that this was just a hum-by song.

You have so many relationships in this life,
But only one or two will last.
You go through all the pain and strife,
Then you turn your back and they're gone so fast.

Oh yeah. And They're gone so fast. yeah

Oh, so hold on to the ones who really care,
In the end they'll be the only ones there.
When you get old and start losing your hair,
Can you tell me who will still care?