THIS WAR

I read through the pages of a book at night and I can’t get through the night without putting this down on paper. Do we really find love in War?

Coelho in his latest book The Zahir, talks about people … humans going to war because the total power rush achieved by sacrificing themselves gives importance to their lives.
Love Actually the film begins with the message of love … ‘when the planes hit the twin towers the last messages were messages of love and not of hate’.
Coelho’s Esther says that when she - the journalist goes into a war zone she starts living life because any moment could be her last. She really lives, loving every minute, every second … there being no room for sadness, doubts, nothing … just a great love for life.

I don’t question one of the author’s words, as he wraps his words around me and I in a leap of faith enter the fantasy world … only this time this world is full of blood, massacre, gore, death … the black world of love and war….

With my minimalist experience of pain & grief … love & war … joy & sorrow… I don’t consider myself worthy of saying this but if not today when will I … never If I wait until tomorrow.

Does this really stand true … at this point both sides seem balanced … on one hand there are films like War Feels like War perhaps …
That make you sit up and take heed of the gloom that surrounds you while you spend your holiday nicely snuggled at home, biting into warm supper, watch the 9 o’ clock news …. Do your fair share of Tut – Tut and go off to bed ………… all this as opposed to the other side of the world where the sun is rising as you pull the blanket over you … where a white sheet is also being pulled over the dead decaying body of a 12 year old at the wrong time of the day ….. its no time to sleep little one … all she did was being born in the wrong place in the wrong times … other than that she had never laid a stone on a bird ….she had never tried to squeeze a mollusk out of its shell and she had never ever ever used one foul word for anyone …even the old guy who had molested her last week in the house next to hers … today while sleep takes over some of us ….this little girl is being photographed by the woman who is shedding tears over her body whilst taking the shots from the best angles ….where the light is perfect not too dark not too bleached ….the wounds show well … “oh what the heck… let me take whatever and however many I can… my editor is going to love it” ……….. On another side of this same world … just as you change your side on the bed while going into deep slumber … another woman reports live from the war zone to her channel’s television station in a fourth part of the world … she tells her cameraman to keep the flash on for another 40 seconds and get a couple more shots of the gunfire … but alas this cameraman goes and gets himself killed … he wasn’t fast enough … you need to be on a roll …

I can’t even remember what I began writing for …

THIS WAR

from the Kary Brag-show

THE NEO-GENTLEMAN - A low down on love today !!!


The neo-gentleman my friends is a beast. All the ladies in the club will agree with me I assume? By that I do not just mean ladies of the ‘women who hate men they love or vice versa’ club … but women in general.

I will not be audacious enough to comment upon the situation in other towns of other cities of other countries but our very own cosmopolitan capital here is what I am going to rant about. What’s the low down on love today? Is it what it used to be? Are relationships the same or have the demographics changed? Have the tables turned?

I think they have. From what I see around me the female isn’t the femme fatale anymore, she isn’t the victor … she is the victim … of a new race of what used to be earlier referred as gentlemen, a race that has mutated into what should be referred as ‘men fatale’. The Dudley Do-Rights are dead and no longer around. Ladies lose hope - hope of finding Do-Right again and while you are at it also lose any hope of deliverance from these neo - (killer) gentlemen. It is sad how the beautiful McCartney song has lost its meaning. ‘Hope of deliverance, Hope of deliverance from the darkness that surrounds us’. I am getting carried away.

So, these men fatale. How does one identify them? Well, they are surely dressed better than before but more than often its just a wolf in sheep’s skin. They are charmers but the charms are parvenu and one can tell that they are. The money is plentiful, yes sir but how far can money take one – certainly not beyond the banks of the Hades. And what about Love – they own it or rather they seem to have such authority over it that they feel free to abuse it. Heartbreakers are what they are!

This isn’t a smug ‘Someone Like You’ typo old cow new cow theory that I have formed. It might be smug but I do have proof. Though it would not be too wrong to say that the whole old cow new cow philosophy is in a way - true. All men are narcissistic and cannot stand being with one woman. They are always looking out for the better, the new and improved. Ashley Judd stops believing in it towards the end of the film but hey, she has Hugh Jackman to shut her up.

What about us? Who do we have? The regular Rahul or Amit or Sanjay? Our regular Joes are nowhere close to picturesque and to top it all now they are the men fatale. They come, they conquer and they leave as quick as a flash of lightening. And I am not exaggerating. Four cases known to just me in a single month and here I am box of cleanex in one hand, typing with the other. Oh! I am not using the cleanex, I’m offering it to girlfriends. “I cannot get over my ex-girlfriend!” … Bam!; “I don’t think I can find anyone better than you. You’re too good for me. So, I am leaving you.” …Bam! “I love you but I will marry the girl my parents have chosen for me” … Bam and “I had the time of my life with you, the three years we were together but I don’t think it will work out in the future” … Bam Bam! Clean bowled! You bet I can cite more examples but these are just the ones from the top of my head.

Is this an epidemic? Are we as a civilization manufacturing a generation of men who leave women they love? Or better yet, are we producing a whole new race of rap loving misogynistic, smack-my-bitch-up-typo brutes? My guess is we are. Well, then who is to blame and what is to be done about it?

I think the only solution is that men in India or rather specifically men in Delhi should either be sent for training to military school or to some remote part of Andaman and Nicobar islands where the men I hear are still gentlemen …

from the Kary Brag-show

you

a stationary body amidst the cacophony of a madding crowd ...
reaching out for the rainbow ...
leaps and dies.

a moving body amidst the obstinacy of solid ground ...
reaching out for the madding crowd ...
claims and finds.

i am the stationary body.

you are moving.

you

fall winter - the life of the gypsy's woman

part dead, part alive,
i've known in my heart for long,
there's something amiss.

for the way you look at me now,
strips me of all I have on,
and a part of me dies each time.

what are you doing?
where do you come from?
where do you go from here?
when do you stop moving around?

is this your way of wishing me away!
perhaps yes.

at long last,
i am tired of being a shadow,
its time I be my body now.

fall winter - the life of the gypsy's woman

Rulers of the world

Decadence of the supreme order,
Degenerate life,
Their plight,
They who’ve spent whole lifetimes,
Dreaming of the boundless dark skies.

One day I hope will be a new day,
When the world will wake,
Into tomorrow,
Not yesterday,
Pacifists will lead the world, For dictators too are bound to stray.

Rulers of the world