The Darkest Rhyme

"I have outlasted all desire, My dreams and I have grown apart; My grief alone is left entire, The gleamings of an empty heart. The storms of ruthless dispensation Have struck my flowery garland numb, I live in lonely desolation And wonder when my end will come." (Alexander Puskhin) Dear Reader, A strange reminiscence of my generation is of a blissful time when the world is lost in solace of sleep and yawns of nature. And then there comes a rude intrusion of reality. There are some people troubled by clutches of destiny, miserable minds filled with all kinds of pessimistic thoughts, an urge to change the fate wholesale yet fully realising the weakness of one's own. Standing before the mirror at some where near 2 am, when the lashes beneath the eyes turn darker than the night outside and once upon charming eyes turn misty, bloodshot and wet. Half awake but completely sane. When the veins forcefully pump blood yet the mind pretends to be unaware of it and I life...

(Part -1/2) Robert less known for twice dropping from college (dropped from Dartmouth after two months citing that "I wasn't suited for that place" and then dropping from Harvard to support his family and children. He explained his decision of dropping from Harvard by saying "They could not make a student of me here, but they gave their best") and modestly known for being the first poet to read at a presidential inauguration (He was invited by President John.F.Keneddy in his 1961 inauguration where after facing difficulty in reciting 'Dedication', he recited "The gift outright". And most famously renowned as a poet (Britannica writes about frost :- "American poet who was much admired for his depictions of the rural life of New England, his command of American colloquial speech, and his realistic verse portraying ordinary people in everyday situations.) Louis Untermeyer best describes Frost's work as "Poetry that sings ...

"Tragedy, he percieved, belonged to the ancient time, to a time when theres was still privacy, love, and friendship, and when the members of a family stood by one another without needing to know the reason. His mother's memory tore at his heart because she had died loving him, when he was too young and selfish to love her in return, and because somehow, he did not know how, she had sacrificed herself to a conception of loyalty that was private and unalterable.  Such things, he saw, could not happen today. Today there were fear, hatred and pain, but no dignity of emotion, no deep or complex sorrows." When I read these lines, I was dumbstruck. Last few weeks were tough for me as I am sure have been for everyone else too. I was going through a writer's block, infact there was a moment I was toying with the idea that either I have gone braindead or turned sick at heart, the only reasons, when a person cannot express himself to others. But going through these l...

Perhaps Murakami needs no introduction but still if I write his introduction I it will go as - The writer who knew the nerves of a whole generation and it's successors while the probability of his words giving goosebumps certainly increases with every repeated reading of his lines.  One of such heart wrenching and desperate confusion of emotions of its protagonist Toru is basis for Murakami book "Norwegian Wood". Norwegian Wood as said in words of Murakami translator Jay Rubin "Haruki Murakami was shocked and depressed to find his normal six-figure readership exploding into the millions when he published Norwegian Wood in 1987".  The story plot consists of a love story between Naoko and Kizuki , later Naoko and Toru are in love while again Toru and Midori are in love. What happenes in between can't be told to prevent spoilers. The novel is told from the perceptive of 37 year old Tobu who revisits his life when he was in college days and remembers...

"I have scarcely left you when you go in me, crystalline, or trembling, or uneasy, wounded by me or overwhelmed with love, as he when your eyes close upon the gift of life that without cease I give you. My love, we have found each other thirsty and we have drunk up all the water and the blood, we found each other hungry and we bit each other as fire bites, leaving wounds in us. But wait for me, keep for me your sweetness. I will give you too a rose." How do you remember your lost love and lover? Do you cry or do you write? Or perhaps you mock them or do you abuse them or unless you are a bit manipulative you remember them by twisting the story telling their lies and your truths while eliminating your faults. What do you do to remember them or to soothe your wretched heart?  Neruda as I call him or Pablo Neruda as the literature knows him or to quote what Poetry Foundation introduction about Neruda says :- (Pablo Neruda is one of the most influential and widely rea...

Vikram Seth CBE, FRSL is an Indian Novelist and Poet and winner of Sahitya Akademy award among many other honours. Vikram Seth All who you sleep tonight Penguin India Time and again, I have been tempted to dismiss love as a fraud played by our senses, where what we are induced to think radically differs from the reality outside our head and at more crass moments I have gone extreme enough to bracket love as gentle madness, who's complete rage isn't unleased till the moment of separation approaches. The phenomenon of love has always bewildered me, fascinated me, and to be honest scared me as well, the abject devotion it pulls from one while never mandating that it be reciprocated as well, the way it justifies pain and anguish as it's byproducts, the way it allows for beautiful lies to lull you into an eternal dimension of false truth, to draw pleasure for some time and then damned to struggle forever alone. But never has someone managed to capture that indifferen...

"Dear Bosie, After long and fruitless waiting I have determined to write to you myself, as much for your sake as for mine, as I would not like to think that I had passed through two long years of imprisonment without ever having received a single line from you, or any news or message even, except such as gave me pain." These heart wrenching lines were written by none other than the lunatic lover of Bosie, Oscar Wilde. These lines were just the starting lines of what in generations to come is termed as the saddest breakup letter and heralded as the literal crying of a broken man.  A man who was imprisoned for being homosexual in a society which was homophobic and a man who was cheated by his lover and lover's family for the simple act of loving with fullest capacity. In today's time, loving in fullest capacity is termed as a stupid, but I assume Oscar wilde while loving Bosie might have been inspired by the immemorial lines of John Keats who sa...

So, here it begins.  My fascination for finding destination in a maze named life has finally led me to a dead end. Perhaps, I was more excited and happy and consumed in running towards a illusory destination rather than knowing that its an insignificant untrue shadow of it's true self, a mirage. Every destination is, a mirage, once you reach near it, once you achieve it, once you embrace it, you could see it. The ultimate tragedy of mine was, while building a perfect story making sure there remains no flaws, somehow I lost the entire narrative. I tended to over amplify and merge pains of past into paranoia of present, in the echo chamber of my mind, in my melancholic reflections while the truth is that I among many was another hapless victim of circumstances, hormones & my own expectations. I may or may not be a believer, but I too would like to begin this journey with a prayer. Not that I do not believe in self sufficiency of Human will but sometimes what pushes us through the...

हमारा उद्देश्य - गणेश शंकर विद्यार्थी  पत्रकार के रूप में अपने कर्तव्य के बारे में लिखते है : "हम अपने देश और समाज की सेवा के पवित्र काम का भार अपने ऊपर लेते हैं. हम अपने भाइयों और बहनों को उनके कर्तव्य और अधिकार समझाने का यथाशक्ति प्रयत्न करेंगे. राजा और प्रजा में, एक जाति और दूसरी जाति में, एक संस्था और दूसरी संस्था में बैर और विरोध, अशांति और असंतोष न होने देना हम अपना परम कर्तव्य समझेंगे." उन्हे अपना प्रेरणा स्रोत मानकर हम अपने कार्य के प्रति अपने समर्पण की कोशिश करेंगे तथा इस ब्लॉग के माध्यम से अपने समय के इतिहास को चित्रित करते हुए अपने वक्त के सवाल उठाएंगे। 'When facts change I change my mind", हम इसी आधार पर अपना कार्य करेंगे और एक सार्थक बहस का विकल्प बनने के प्रयत्न करेंगे। Our Objective - Since the day civilisation began, People knew there lies a subtle distinction between living & surviving. Life bereft of Hope & Love is mere banal survival. The entire aim of this Blog is to espouse that very love of life through Literature, culture, fine arts whi...