What??

Change is inevitable. Nothing remains.
I do not blame you. I blame everybody. I blame this damned cycle called life. The innate curiousity of man. This sick habit of trying new things out. Of the old dying a silent death. Do not know whether to love or hate it.

You do not understand. Why should you? Even I don't. This coating of projected image defeats the real me. This plastic smile in posy photos, this bull shitting on social websites. Why see beyond this? You don't see beyond this. And when this projected image will meet my real self, it will have naught to say. Except to shed poor black tears at fake life's false misery. Of letting things happen. Of letting things happen the way they happened.

What remains is false pride. Meaningless principles which mean nothing to anyone.

So?
What to do?
Sub merge sensibility and practiality with philosophy. Force them and beat them into emotions. Do I do something stiff and rational? Or pull my hair to bits crying over dead emotions. Or like a block of ice let the emotions pass by. Or look at the philosophy behind all this. Look at life.

What do I do with life?

Void

I knew this would happen. I was scared of this strange feeling.
Of waking up one morning, of beating sleepless dawns and knowing this feeling of having lost everything. Of being very alone.
Of nothing to give, nothing to take. What world is it? Nothing to look forward to. This ocean which doesn't engulf you, nor does it pass by silently.

Life which smiles at you from the shore, comes forward to meet you and rushes far away from you.

Which continues to tease you as if you are a baby who is being tempted with a rattle.

Ah! But life is such a personal thing.
Yet so common.
I was scared to find myself on the other side of one such morning. But sadly its time, and I have waken up.
I set out to spend a day close to nature. It turned out to be something else.
A day of gross sights…?

Began at Chirag Delhi red light. I am sitting in an auto, just before the flyover. And I am staring absentmindedly. I see a puny little rat come out of nowhere and start crossing the road at breakneck speed, as if his tail was on fire. It was actually a ‘kid rat’ for the lack of a better word. As it reached across the road in great speed it suddenly stopped. I was wondering why it was lying quiet, and low just like me a crow too had noticed it. The crow comes pouncing on it, picks it and is gone. Grossest of sights I have seen in recent times.

In the cab again, we have this discussion about pets. Proma starts by telling how a cat had scratched her mom last night and how when her mom screamed the cat got so scared that it decided to use the bed as a loo. Disgusted, we whole heartedly condemn the situation. I especially go out to say that even cats need to be tied up just like dogs. Even better if they are put in cages like birds and hung up in the air. When another animal loving colleague heatedly disagrees I go on to declare:

“I hate pets. Animals are animals, Period! I do not believe in the idea of liberating them by keeping them as pets at home.”

That’s just how the day began…there is more to come. After office I and my colleagues head towards Nizammuddin, a highly Moslem dominated area. And are greeted by all kinds of culture shocks…skull caps everywhere and smell of the unnamable something. Wasn’t quite prepared for it. Like a crude joke there is slaughtered beef mocking and staring at us from open stalls. Two minutes of hell included kids pulling us about here and there, to come and eat at their restaurant.

I finally breathe a sigh of relief at Humayun’s Tomb. But there too this strange dog, more like a huge wolf had to very irritatingly come and sneeze right behind me. Not even once but a couple of times. And then we enter this relic of Sher Shah Suri. Real relic, I must tell you. Inside the mausoleum, there was a dark, steep and narrow stairway. In the excitement, without thinking twice I dash towards it followed by Proma only to realize the horrible stink that was with us for quiet sometime now was bat shit. Like a B-grade horror movie a bat flies by just millimeters above our heads. Once outside in the balcony it was much better. But climbing down turned out to be even worse than climbing up. A really unnerving and maddening affair. While the staircase was quiet dark from below, in the dying sunlight of the balcony we could see innumerable bats hanging from the roof. To add to the eeriness Proma took full five minutes to take one step down and I had to wait till she took the next step. Completely psyched out I wanted to jump right away to the last step.

It was really enough of animals for one day. But everything was not so bad. Like it is very difficult to say what it felt like watching the ever busy squirrels or even the beautiful exotic bird with a crown on its head. Or the proud and royal peacock that went strutting right past us. And there were the lucky birds and the parrots too. Words can’t describe how it felt to sit alone on the stairs facing the birds, the squirrels and listening to nothing but the twitters and flutters.

Though there was a beehive in the distant and maybe bees also, there must be honey too. In all, it did turn out to be quite an exciting day, one amongst the birds and beasts of nature. It felt as if all of them together coming one after the other were trying to tell me something. What?? I can’t say.