El Faro's Story

She stands there, Tall and unloving,
I see her from my window every morning,
The sun rising over her tall crown forming a halo..

A specter of times old past,
Her walls caked brown with blood and rust,
Her lantern a window to her empty soul..

They called her the devils daughter reborn,
Many nights has she led ravaged sailors onto jagged rocks,
Only to their death as the terrible waves sprayed at her feet..

Her beacon, like a siren draws them near,
Her one glowering yellow eye lighting their fearful hearts,
Land, they think, and thank the gods of the sea and storm..

They don't know it was him who brought them there, broke them,
Up her spiral iron steps he goes, every single stormy night,
Lights her up with a wick, lights up her spirit, her soul..

He was the only one who came looking for her in the calm,
In the wake of the destruction at her feet, he cleaned up, took away the  wreckage, the soul-less corpses..

Him with his golden eyes and brown mouth,
He was the only one who wanted her, needed her..
Her keeper, her savior, her lover..

Five years he served her as did she,
His coffers filled with rubies and gold,
Spoils of a wreck they created, spoils of their love..

Until one day they came, guns and cannons hidden in plain sight..
They would not leave unless their infamous love was torn apart,
bleed he did, and with every last of his breath she turned into stone..

20 years hence, in the dark sea mist, her light still shines through,
At rests of 10 seconds it seeps through my room,
As I lay awake and stare at my roof..

Her light a thousand stars through my tattered drapes,
Wondering did she ever wonder as i do?
That He is the reason for her stone cold heart?

Her light answers with the untold story,
beckon it does not sailors anymore..
Forever searching for that familiar touch, that familiar light..

And Even now, all she wished upon was him.

One journey, So many faces

Travel is such an equaliser, especially in India. A long distance train journey for example.. for that short time your compartment becomes your home.. your personal space.. you make garbage bags and hang up water bottles, you hoard the one plug point to charge the phone. (There's no fucking plug point in the non AC compartment, wtf, we need to buy power banks with tickets?)

Have you ever traveled along with a long distance train, on the same tracks? (regular for any person who travels in Mumbai locals) Each window in the train shows a different life, different faces, different stories.. one window has a group of college students ragging each other... one window 2 Islamic guys saying their evening prayers.. one with a family trying to feed their kid the last of their packed theplas, before throwing the aluminum wrapper out of the window.. kinda like peering into homes of each one of them..

Travel is great, especially when its in in one of the most diverse and populous of all countries. Train travel and kids bawling their lungs out, random uncles who think you are making too much noise late in the night (Well, up yours), waking up in the middle of the night to people talking shit in their sleep, forgetting where you are and hitting your head on the top of the train all go hand in hand. 

Travel makes life fun, you never know whats around the corner, will you be in time for that awesome sunset? Will you be in time for your flight to the next destination? Will you be stuck in traffic outside the airport?  Will your train journey be interrupted with bullet shots on your window? Not joking, a friend did experience this.. You never know whether the 200 year old monument you just saw will be there till you get back home. Travel for the rush, you won't get any more high on life.

Travel, because life is not meant to be lived in one place. Travel, because it helps you clear your head. Travel, because you will meet new people, know that different circles exist, and that all circles are somehow interconnected, meet creeps, make memories, forget creeps and also forget memories that have been haunting you. Maybe not completely but  it does help to take your mind off the last guy who was sweet to you and you felt like there was something good going to happen to you. Yeah not something great for a person who is obsessive and doesn't forget a word, but there is some respite. You wont think of how his hands are now touching someone else. You wont wonder whether you should break their hands or your own. At least for that moment when you stare across the distance.

Travel because it doesn't lie to you. You see hope in those gigantic carved rocks that aren't yet destroyed by time. You see peace in those ugly hearts and names etched into those same gigantic carved stones. Cuz that's the whole truth. Man is much crueler than time. Whatever fate and time has decided for you will happen eventually, it's mans behavior that you can't predict.

Travel because you only know so much about a place as the insta you follow. Whether the filter they applied did more justice to the picture will be your view. Travel because there are so many places and so little time. Not to mention money. You aren't ever gonna save anyway. So if your gonna spend, spend on this.

Dont travel for the sake of being a DSLR idiot. You are gonna miss the whole point of it. Travel because you are just a tiny almost non existent speck in the vastness that is the universe. Travel because you need to be reminded of that. Dont make your problems your whole world,  the world is so much larger than that.

Even a regular mundane local train enriches you. The first class ladies compartment for example. people staring into their phones, people staring into the phones of the person sitting next to them, standing next to them, or even worse, breathing down their neck. And no, not definitely in a sexy way. And again no, I'm not a saint either. There's no other way to breathe if someones neck is in your nose. But anywho. You learn so much about how India has grown. from a hindi not so much of a cuss word but maybe a 5th grade level (kids aren't like they were before ,i know ) it moves to a direct and poor translation of it just in a few compartments. Not judging,  but maybe if they travelled to some unknown place with their perfectly translated English, there would be some space between my nose and their neck. But that aside you overhear so much, about bad bosses, about how much work they have pending, and how bad their work pressure is.

Life is a pretty long journey anyway. why do you want it to be stagnant? Make your life your adventure. Cuz when you are dead no ones gonna remember you for the view they saw from the train passing by on the next track. Hell no one even saw you when they were ragging their friends or saying their prayers. But they may remember you as your co passenger who shared their thepla. Or the kids who made too much noise.

Travel, because running away is not an option. And Travel, just because.

Be more like the man you were made to be

It’s been some time since I’ve written... and Yes, I’ve been in a sappy mood... Things don’t change just because it’s been a long time... and Nostalgia is a bitch making things seem better than they ever are... and I’m back to my pathetic self who craves things I don’t need to waste any more of my time on…

Anyway here goes... What makes a person in your life indispensable? Isn’t it amazing how you can go from want to hate in so little time? And for a person like me who doesn’t exactly ever hate people, u must have done something really wrong to send me over to that dark side... These are the type of people u wish u hadn’t met, the type without whom Ur life would have probably been better off.

Old people who are so full of blessings... Anyone you meet with grey hair... whether they are your own grandparents or any random person u meet on your travels. I clearly remember an old rickshaw wala once, who wanted to know where I was going... when he came to know it’s a 2 hour road journey he was full of pity and blessing saying “Allah be with you”.. It struck me.. How is it that you can wish for good things for someone you have met for hardly a minute? (Yeah I know, it was more of pity for the fact that I need to travel for work). That got me thinking about thoughts about strangers... and thoughts about non – strangers...

What makes you think things for others? Good thoughts, Bad thoughts, Murderous thoughts? When someone doesn’t open their mouth and doesn’t do things that annoy you, they can live on in your thoughts, and not be dead in those myriad ways you want them to... Whereas if its someone who you want to hear words from and they keep quiet, god bless their souls, cuz they have been murdered in your head a thousand different ways…

What makes one love something? Want more of it? What makes a person go from nothing in your life to everything? Some cases you can say it is because the other person cares.. When someone cares so much for you that you start growing fond of them in return, until they stop, and you are left longing their presence… But then again what about inanimate things.. Like my love for Tea? Why do I love you Tea? Why do I crave for you so much every day? Why do I feel like its magic when that perfect blend of milk water, at the right temperature in good quality china (actually even the chai wala chai shots are super awesome) touch my lips?

But then again it’s always the things you love that betray you… Every single time…. Like the one bad burn I got a few years ago… 5 days of bed rest because the most favorite thing in the world decided fall all over my legs at boiling hot temperature before it could settle in my perfect tea mug.. But do I learn from my mistakes? No, I still loved you, Tea, with the same devotion and same admiration.. Until last month when you decided to betray me again.. by falling all over me, that too when I was getting late to go to office… and needless to say that I spent the rest of the day with a splitting headache, trying to get over the fact that the one true love of my life doesn’t want me anymore (To a person who loves the morning tea routine as much as I do, the spilling of half cup of tea and breaking of your favorite tea mug is ultimate betrayal, if not ominous)

Well if an inanimate thing like Tea can betray you, how can u expect people not to? Living things, with brains that work overtime and thoughts that seldom are straight… Someone is always going to get hurt… Betrayal isn’t just when you sleep with someone else… It’s not even about trust and breaking it… I don’t know what it’s about because I’m too angry to put it into words... But yes, its words and knowledge that finally lead you to snap… Making promises of never leaving and leaving a person who has problems with handling with loss? That I think is worse than sleeping with someone else… Trying to put on a face to others that nothing happened, giving flimsy reasons to others saying nothing short of its all in her head? That’s the worst kind of betrayal ever… And do I ever learn? No… But then being betrayed on is just bad luck...

On the bad luck tangent? The time I reach the station every morning is the time fishermen from god knows where decide to enter the city, carrying baskets atop their heads, with tiny fish tails peeking out (A whole fricking hoard of people you have to avoid dashing into.. not an easy thing to do when you are always late) Its luck that the rickshaw u take every morning was not previously used by one of them (and you don’t feel like you are a stinking fish for the 1^st part of the day)... Its luck that you don’t dash into one of them when you are rushing to office... And it’s definitely luck that keeps u from getting fishy water/ (even maybe a tiny fish) splat on your head when a crow tries to steal from the open basket on top of one of the fisherman’s head... And yes, this has happened like twice in front of my eyes, those lucky bastards! (The crows, I mean)

Its luck that keeps you from people, Its luck that brings people close, Its luck that you get blessed by random people you meet, whether it’s because you are helping them or not.. Its luck that you survive the day without getting hit by a train/ vehicle/a fisherman/ a fish. And I am really glad I can count my blessings.. Although I don’t know whether the fact that they can be counted on 10 fingers is a good thing or not..

And this one too I end on a Mumford and Sons Note, (I LOVE them)

Love, It will not betray you, Dismay or Enslave you, It will set you free…

Be more like the man you were made to be