No Man's Land

These walls are still tainted red. 

An eye for an eye has made them red. 

And then I see your eyes! 

Immersed in the blue of this sky. 

They whisper about the fence. 

The fence that lies there partitioning a nation.  

The breeze runs through it, doesn’t it? 

So don’t I see light? As shadows of midnight creep in? 

I am afraid! 

My dark, lonely room hangs on that barbed wire. 

Memories crowd my dreams as I wander into the orphaned land. 

My heart kneels to Time.

Dew-drops. Time stops. 

And I walk the path I see in your eyes. 

All alone. 

Through the fence. 

Through the dense darkness of human misdeeds. 

Into that nameless space blindly lit by your light. 

Into that desolate no man’s land.

Go tell them. 

That the new map they made now rests among torn dreams and nostalgia. 

The poems rot. 

And the songs are wasted.

Time blurs everything. 

Do I even remember you anymore? 

I hang on this barbed wire. 

And wonder if Death feels like this no man’s land. 

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* This poem is a figurative translation of the lyrics of a very popular rock song in Bengali. No copyright infringement intended.

Tiny poem

Your love killed me
My hatred did not allow me to die.....

Dreams

You look at your watch. You know it’s time. Time to start walking. Down a hallway. You see a door in front. You want to open it. You know there are many doors in this hallway. Each of them separating you from a world of its own. A world different from its previous one. A world with a newer set of rules. You are here to walk. Just. The doors come to you one by one when the time is right.

You walk towards the first door. You unlatch it.

Dream 1:              2014. Early in the morning, you are getting ready for your office. The morning paper is all messed up lying on the table. Your coffee cup is almost empty. The TV is playing some cartoon in loud volume as your kid is getting ready for school. It’s another day. A nice day. What do you do next? … You have your breakfast. Say bye to your kid. Leave your apartment, get into your car and lock the door. And drive. To your office. Because that’s what you do. Almost everyday. You work. That’s your profession. And that’s how you live your life.

You keep walking. And face the next door. You pause for some time. You breathe in. There is a sense of relief in what you have just seen. And you think which world will you be visiting next and what more or new can it offer! You unlock the second journey.

Dream 2:              3014. It’s a sci-fi world you are living in. Humanity has celebrated its biggest triumph 200 years back. Humans were able to create food directly from sunlight mimicking the process of photosynthesis. 3 people had won a nobel prize and many were saying that this was the greatest discovery ever made in the history of mankind. The discovery has been recently commercialized into a product that common man will be able to buy in the market in another 10 years! A device which is going to make food for you if you keep it under the sun. That simple! You do not need to 'pay' anymore for what you eat!

This is a phase of transition humanity is going through now. Two major changes are slowly creeping into human life for the first time. The definitions of ‘Profession’ and ‘Money’ are changing; you realize, that hundred years later, the future generation may not even know that people on earth once used to ‘work’ to ‘earn a living’! You are perplexed. Because you thought life was all about surviving day-to-day problems and then suddenly, one day, some problems just vanished from your list! But you do not know whether to celebrate or to become hostile. Because you know something new is coming your way and you may not be ready for it. People around you have already started talking about joining a job just to kill time. And some are piling up money fantasizing what all they can do with it, now that they need not spend money over food!

You do not familiarize yourself with this world. You have never seen it, never thought about it. However, now in the hallway, it does appear to you as something which is real. So, what do you do next? ... How do you want to spend your time in this world? Doing what? Why? … You keep thinking. And you walk along. You find the third door.

Dream 3:              4014. The world is run with robots that are always at your service. Your wish is their command. The present generation of humans does not use the concept of 'money' anymore. When they read about it in history books they find it quite difficult to understand. Give and take continues in the society as it always has. However, the exchange happens, now, not between two humans - as no person has anything that another cannot have - but between the humans and the Reserve! The term 'Wealth' is slowly vanishing from the human dictionary!

Though all of it sounds crazy, you actually do understand how this system works. You have seen it before. In a huge library that almost houses every book on the planet. Anyone can have any book they want. Anytime. Just as there can be many copies of a book, similarly, in the present world, there are innumerable numbers of resources in the Reserve. And the resources are unlimited. So now you do not need to 'pay' for anything!

You sense how different this world is! Meanings of words like 'Value' is on the verge of getting permanently changed. And you just cannot get 'Popular' as you are no different than others! Communication between fellow human beings has decreased to a minimum and people are saying, that in years to come, the word 'Society' might also see a refinement in its meaning. Many, in fact, look at the current world as the last and defining step of Human Evolution.

And this is also to tell you that humans are not confined to earth anymore. They are colonizing in outer space. As you have fantasized during watching Star Wars, on TV, thousands of years back! 

So, now comes the question. The question which becomes more and more relevant to you and more and more difficult for you to answer as you keep walking down this mysterious hallway. “What do you do next? How do you decide to spend your time in such a world?”

You find a fourth door in the hallway and someone whispers to you that it might be the last one in your journey.

Dream 4:              6014. Human beings have the greatest gift of all now, which make all their earlier discoveries and achievements look tiny. Through the progress of Science, Technology and Medicine humans have achieved immortality. There will be no more deaths now as the secret of rejuvenating the human body has been unlocked. Population has went up so much that humans have started spreading all across the universe!

 But that is not your concern. Your concern is to answer that one question that has been bothering you since you started opening new doors in this hallway. Now you know you had been missing something all along; right from when you had started the journey in 2014! So, what really do you want to do with all the time you have? What do you want to do, now that you are immortal? … It becomes even more difficult to answer and the issue of not being able to answer becomes even more significant. You see what lies ahead of you in the hallway. A mirror. Only. You look at yourself. You look hard. Who are you? 

Dream 5:              You see a different world in the mirror. Where you do not need to get up in the morning and go to work. Where there is nothing that others have and you cannot have. Where you know you are not going to just die someday. Space and Time is for you to take over. But, for the time being, you are just looking at yourself! Because you do not know what to do next. You still have not been able to figure out an answer to that question! You do not know how to spend your time!

 In fact, the Designer of the Dreams has decided to add more spice to your life with a last moment twist in the plot. This new world you are seeing now in the mirror has one difference with respect to the previous one! It’s only you who is living there. There is no one else. You are alone.

For the sake of logic, let's say that something had happened, long time back, and that had made you the sole survivor on a certain human colony – a planet, which is not earth. You have no communication with humans on other planets! Neither do you know or have the technology that can fly you out from there! Now, as you see yourself in the mirror, the mirror asks you the same question. “What do you want to do next? How do you plan to spend your time?"

The hallway has ended. With that question. You look at your watch. You know it’s time. 

An encounter with Maya

Today I met her.

She was sitting in a corner of the library, pouring over her open Macbook with several books strewn all around.

I took my seat opposite to her with my usual bunch of books and could not resist noticing the name of a bright green book that was lying around on the table: "Dreams". I was almost sure that it must be the famous book by Freud. I struck up a conversation.

"Maya, what are you reading? Freud? May I take a look into this book  if you dont mind?"
It took me almost 20 minutes to compose & speak the above words. She replied with a gentle & sweet smile.

"No. I'm trying to learn Spanish. This is just a book written in Spanish."
"Maya, why are you always so difficult to predict?"
"Maybe because you think that you can predict everything. There must be somebody to challenge you, right? Dont you like to be challenged? I'm sure that you do."

She knows me very well. I think she knows everything about me. I mean, if you're complete strangers, there is still a non-zero probability that you'll see each other sometime somewhere. But only if somebody knows your every movement, your every pulse & impulse, only then she would be able to elude you. For so long.

I asked again, "The warning alarm of the library has gone off. May I buy you a drink, if you dont mind?"
Again she maintains, "Unfortunately not."

"Maya, why do you think we never meet? Is it that I'm too unacceptable?"
"I dont think so. Maybe because I'm too close to you to see. You see me  in every couple holding hands & sharing a smile. In every random cute girl who passes by. In every careless whisper that catches your ear. In every gentle touch. In every tinkling laughter. You cannot see me everywhere and then again want to find me in a single person. Make up your mind first!"
"Why? What is the problem in that?"
"Problem? Your entire perception makes you blind. Blind with expectations. Blind with desire. Blind with pointless agony. If you see me everywhere, then even if I come to you as a person, you'll reject me."
"That is completely not true. Every time in my life, whenever I found even a fragment of you in any single person, I loved you wholeheartedly."
"Yeah. And there lies the problem. You just love the fragment. Not the entirety. You analyse. You criticise. You tear apart all the goodness & badness and try to deconstruct & reconstruct it in your own way. You are always driven by your mind. Do you even have a heart? I have profound doubt regarding that!"

My lips trembled. Do I have a heart? I would like to say that heart is all that I have, everything else is wrapped by it. But I could not say it. She speaks so confidently that it confuses me every time.

She goes on, "Every single time you find the fragment, you think that you can do better. You're never happy with what you've got. You need it all, all at once, in a single piece. But life is a maze. I always come in fragments. If I came in a single piece, we would be instantly annihilated. Some might say in explosion of energy, positive energy if you like to say. But I say, annihilation is always destruction, deconstruction, irreversible. Either you get lost in your mind or in your heart."

She is right, I think. If she would come  to me I would forget everything, all fear, all other connections, all earthly cares. She would be my Lolita. Mine, and only mine. And finally, this will destroy me. Perhaps she eludes me only to save me from annihilation.

"Maya, do you think this will go on like this forever?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, that will I keep chasing your shadow like this for all my days & never find you?"
"Yes. If you keep chasing my shadow I shall float away forever. But if you ever dare to look me face to face, eye to eye, confront me... then maybe your luck would change. But would you? I think you're too much in love with the faceless, nameless, non-existing shadow. It will be hard for you to move into the sun from it and face the heat. Are you ready?"

I kept silence. What could I say? I gathered composure and muttered for one last time:
"Shall we meet again?"
"Like this, I hope not."
"But what if I never meet you under the sun? Promise me then at least you'll not take away the shadow from me."
"The sun always goes down.", she said with a smile.

And she walked away into the darkness of the night.

Maaya, me and the Open Fields

This post is a sequel to Maaya, me and this Warped Space-Time which was originally written way back in 2007!

And then, suddenly, in the middle of my journey we met again. I met Maaya. It has been seven years! It took me seven years to realize that I was actually searching for her again. Seven years to realize that she has been with me all this while and that I have always failed to accept that fact. 

“You still carry that note?” she asked me.

“I do”, I said. The note actually underwent so much wear and tear that I never knew when exactly it had penetrated my head and had found a place to live inside. 

“You look calmer now. Lot more peaceful”, she smiled, “So are you at peace with yourself? Could you interpret that word?”

We were walking down a street. It was spring time and the trees had started growing new leaves. The road has been tanned by the night, only now starting to have slight shades of orange. Six o clock in the morning, the sunlight was in the process of gradually tilting from horizontal to oblique. I could see no one walking down that path. Except us. 

“I couldn’t create love, Maaya!” I said, “I tried but I couldn’t”. 

“Love was never for you to create!” she said, “I am surprised that you even tried!”

“I never wanted to try it”, I said, “But letting go was never easy.”

“You wanted it and didn’t want it at the same time!” she turned her head and looked at me, “What you wanted didn’t exist!”

“I wanted it my way”, I said.

“You know that’s selfish”, she said. “And like all other selfish ambitions it only stays as a mirage, burning in your heart, that you keep chasing all your life”.

“I agree. I don’t want it anymore”, I said.

Her hand was sensing mine all this time. Now her fingers slipped into the gaps of my fingers. A soft feeling, the feeling of being one, slowly started to seep in.

“And what changed in these seven years?” she asked. 

“I knew why I wanted it”, I said. 

She was silent.

“We all require an identity, Maaya”, I said, “A personal identity. How we see ourselves. If we will stay happy for the rest of our lives being who we are today.”

 “So are you at peace with yourself?” she asked me. 

I didn’t speak.

“Are you happy?” she asked after a pause.

“Yes”, I said.

“How can you be happy if you are not in love?” she said.

I stopped walking and so did she. “I think I am in love, Maaya” I said. 

We looked at each other. I saw a twinkle in her eye. She pressed my hand. And smiled. “I know”, she said, “I could sense”.

“But I am not in love with another person!” I said. “This has been such a disturbing thought that I have always struggled to come to terms with it.” My voice shook a bit, perhaps from the immense courage I needed to muster to confess the feeling.

“Look!” Maaya pointed towards the orange of the sky which was now slowly fading into the blue. I saw a group of birds, streamlined into a pattern, flying towards the sun. “They are migrating”, Maaya said, “Aren’t they beautiful?”   

The day broke after sometime. The sun made everything around it warmer. We came across some open fields. I saw a small hillock at a distance. It was green everywhere. We sat down on the grass which was soft as velvet. My hands felt dew. 

Maaya was wearing a frock today. It was white with some petal-designs on it. “You look beautiful!” I said.

“How do you know you are in love?” she looked at me. 

“I can’t stay away from it”, I said. “No matter what I do I always find myself going back to it. Whenever I wish, wherever I wish. Love is all about how much time you are spending together, isn’t it?”

“Maybe you are addicted!” she said.

“Maybe I am”, I said, “But isn’t it all about addiction then?” 

“Yes”, she said, turning her eyes away from me, “Life is too short for frivolity!”

The dew on the grass had started evaporating. I could hear birds chirp now. There was this moistened air of the morning surrounding us. 

“I love solving puzzles, Maaya!” I said. “Puzzles on how things work. Science, they call it. And that’s what I do now for a living.”

She smiled. Just. “I never asked you to create love!” she said, “You have already created for yourself whatever I wished you would create. You see that hillock”, she pointed towards the distant green, “You may just find your violet rose there if you go now!” She laughed. 

“Shall I get it then?” I said.

“Do what you want to do!” she said with a smirk, looking slightly miffed, and those were her last words before she disappeared again, “One day you will realize the things that you don’t do are the things that you have actually never wanted to.”

Writer's Note - You may want to Google the term "Love Addiction" after reading this. Thanks. :-)

Striper Chic Dress– Women Dresses

Striper Chic Dress– Women Dresses (clipped to polyvore.com)