The Last Cigarette

Who knows where I burn..

Who knows where I die..

Who knows what is my worth..

Who knows where I cry..

I am the last cigarette..

I know when I lie.

 It was raining hard, like never before. Adithya was done for the day. The usual work, the mundane life and the uninteresting people had provided him with enough reasons to burn his lungs away. He started taking small steps as soon as he was out in the rain. Don't you know the craze of rain here, especially when the whole world is burning in its own ego? He thought, why not a cigarette and some rain drops..sounded quite stimulating to his long deaf ears. He knew how to use his hearing aid. It was the only flexible thing in his life. He could take it out when he wanted to avoid people and be deaf among roaring, meaningless noise and he could as well put it on when he wanted to listen to his own cry or a rain drop!

Year 2003, Chennai. He was an enthusiastic electrical engineering graduate. In a petty win on a friendly bet, he had smoked his first cigarette. It took him a while to sink in his own glory and bask in his own achievement, not to mention in front of his so called girlfriend. It was hard not to show off when he was accompanied by few half cooked minds then, as he himself belonged to the same class, singing the same song and playing the same game. Also, a pretty female in life called for petty decisions and was considered substantial those days. Little did he know then that his first cigarette would be his song of life.

Year 2008, Zurich. Snowfall, bone chilling winter and smoke all around. A lavish job and even more lavish women. Computers, movies, trekking, biking, hiking, photography, sex, mushrooms etc etc. What else could a man ask for..I think he wanted to ask for a vision..which he had lost over five years in a foreign but friendly country. Adithya was one of the most sought after creams of the company. What he lacked was constant excitement towards his own life. He did everything, literally everything to forget who he was but he could only sit and contemplate about his self when he was with one thing..his own, very own cigarette. People made noises about his life, his morality, his intelligence, his flings, his food, his family..even his bowel movements but little was he bothered as he was indulged in his only love in life, his cigarette. It took away lot of things from his seemingly perfect life.  He still choose it over everything and everyone. Somewhere he knew that everything comes with an expiry date. He was too egoistic to admit that he was 'addicted' to this way of living. He was too foolish to burn his respiratory linings and too honest to realize that he would die soon. 

Today, he was back in his own country. In India. In a place where cigarettes were no longer a taboo but a mark of arrogant air. A place where smoking was considered a culture amongst many. Many who didn't know what culture meant. In this place, he left his luxury of Zurich, his luxury of being luxurious, his women who satisfied him but never loved him and he gave them the same-satisfaction but no love. He also left his dreams and ambitions.. as for once he realized that they were fake. They were in the process of making him 'another man in another world'-A make belief world, a foreign dreamer, a patriotic looser and a reluctant individual. Yes, he just possessed one thing, his cigarette. He was an inconspicuous technician in a giant cable company. He choose to be a shadow in his own country. More so because he was running from his own trails of foolishness and possessions. He was engulfed by profound silence, he loved it. He managed to speak less, work more and do the needful. Nothing more nothing less. Enough to make a living and enough to fetch a cigarette for his burning desire to burn even more. 

Soaked in the intoxicating smell of the earth, drenched in his own misery but still walking towards home, he recollected how his parents had died in a car accident by a ramming truck in Madras. The driver's recklessness costed him too much; loaded him with a sorrow beyond repair. His parents were the only assets..he felt, sadly after they left there bodies. People came and left. It was normal but hard for Adithya to gulp every time it happened. A Tiya, a Deepthi or a Seema left his life, for he was a lover of lovers. He never believed in one love. He loved the idea of love. He was in a phase of discovering his body and mind through these women then. He was adulterated with the thoughts of perfection and sea of desires. No fault, no ambition- just love. It was heavenly for him until he actually met someone unconventional. It happened in no time but at the right time. It gave him enough time to brood and enough to renounce. It gave him a purpose to light the next cigarette. She made him what he wanted to be. She whispered in his long ears the words he avoided since his childhood. She burnt him with her faith in him and he felt smaller like a burnt cigarette, for he knew he was not was he was told. He was not her man. He was low, he was addicted, he was uncontrolled and he was fake to top it all. He left her because somehow he genuflected in front of her honest love. He choose the idea 'love is not possessed'. Nothing is possessed. Things should serve the body, people should serve the minds. If it happens the other way round, life is a mess. He was in a mess until he met her and and he was crystal clear when he left her. He was not alone. He was full of purpose. Even burning his last cigarette seemed perfect in his sketchy life.

The raindrops were heavy on his thinning hairline now. They started to rhythm when they fell on his motionless face. He could count each drop and assess its effect. He had his ear machine on. He was aware what was happening around but he was only focused on the droplets and the ever burning cigarette. He said to himself, 'till the last burns.. I walk'. He was combating a worm in his head, big enough to make him blind, go gaga over his unreal life. He wanted to decide soon, either to kill the worm or kill the bearer. It must be a silent death he whispered-it must be a work of art. Suddenly he jerked. He was so absorbed in his own smoke, little did he realize that he almost ran into a mob. A bunch of activists from Southern Mumbai. Thats where he was living now, although he ignored any sort of geographical location being attached to his identity. For him, in the year 2018, it didn't matter where he was. It didn't matter who he was. It didn't matter how many did he burn...an 'n'th or an 'i'th. It just made him aware that he still had some organs intact in a brain dead body. 'These activists are all over', he thought. The noise made his head burst. He wanted to pull out his hearing aid, just then..yes exactly then he saw something beautiful. 

A woman he knew long ago. She was draped in a white saree with red border. It was red as blood and pale as his life. But the person gave the cloth a purpose, an energy he had not witnessed in years. She was speaking for her people, but she was not a part of the mob looked like. She was doing the same thing she did for him fifteen years ago. She was inculcating love in loveless souls. She was trying her best to bring them face to face with reality. She was protesting against domestic violence. She was speaking for her sisters. She was fed up of seeing men drinking, smoking, beating there wives, raping their daughters, killing babies, prostitutes who dreamt out of their world. She was for womanhood or manhood I dont know but I think Adithya understood. She was not on anyone's side. She was fighting her own case. She was trying to build a peaceful place in a filthy pond, but atleast she was trying.. he thought. She was a prostitute when he met her. He went beyond her body in his first account and rest is a puzzle. She managed to escape that world but still connected through her work. She looked mesmerizing in the saree, drenched in torrential rain of her emotions and spirit. He just wanted to hug her and pat her shoulders for living with a purpose- unlike him. He wasted his strong infrastructure and she was just building hers, in her middle age. He inherited his foundation, she achieved it. She fought for it and she was fighting now. 

Moments passed, hours passed and he wanted to pass the mob too. He was stuck to the ground realizing something was immovable. It was his vision, which captured her after long tormenting years. He choose not to let the hours pass but freeze them for eternity. He stood till he could, smoking, sucking, releasing. He saw events as flashes of light; her hands, her hair, her voice in his ears, her smile in a dark dingy room, her smell of honesty, her fearless welcome, her purpose of using her body, everything. She was no different now. She was powerful. It happened again. He saw what he was blinded to for 10 odd years. His cigarette had burnt enough to be only discarded. His empty pocket only rich with cigarette packets now seemed worthless. He moved effortlessly. He understood a basic thing in his life. 'It takes a moment to breathe again'..he smiled. He had to go home and wait for a new day to welcome him. He felt the urgency of a new beginning. A life without the 'last cigarette'. Fresh air, no smoke, no addiction. For the love of love, for the respect of her purpose, for the value running in his blood, for his dead parents, for his fleeting dreams, for the lost man found again- Adithya lived.

Half baked moment.

Symmetry, window panes, two doors and a cot.  A view opening up to a civilization ever growing..non-stop.
A pillow, a pillow over a pillow, a human, a human over a human, a blanket, a blanket over a blanket, two eyes, two eyes over two eyes, inside-out, outside-in, chill, sweat, questions, answers, silence, darkness, dreams and reality. Its all in here, its all in there. A room, a bulb, a filament, a fly, some air and lots of thoughts. Its crazy, its inhuman, its authentic, its fallacy, its fate or its misery. No, its just time and people or no people. No, its just mind and its tricks. Its hunger or satiety. Yes, its only hunger and no satiety.

Maya cooks in this room, she reads, she sings, she draws, she paints, she captures, she dresses, she undresses, she loves and she hates. She misses, she cares, she longs, she weeps, she sleeps, she dreams, she screams and she writes. 'Its all in here', she exclaims. She, after running from everything and everyone possible has found something to rejoice. A small corner in a big world. She always knew she is capable of doing justice to her tormented soul someday and that day is here. 

Today is the day she recalls 'important' for reasons. She hasn't forgotten them, for they were not mere events but made her what she is. This was the day, she knows for sure that made her dependent on art. She started fondling with colours and she became a slave to the empty canvas as she says. She met the man today long long ago. She never fails to look at the sharp contours of the colours connecting to her immediately, when she wakes up from a slumber, a happy one or a sad one or may be just a pretentious one. This day reminds her of the color red. She has a different meaning for 'Red' now which doesnot matter anymore. She is happy, not because she found her day, her colour or her man! She is happy because she has filled her walls with colors, transformed a small corner into a vivid world of craze and vulnerabilities. She is happy because she now understands the anxiety of a hollow human.

Maya and Shubham did brush pass each other many a times but not until one midnight, when they decided they wanted to be friends. Oh yeah, when they meant friends, they actually didn't mean it at all.  It was something different. Something parasitic looked like, later commensals and even later looked like absolute symbionts. They just had to admit it to themselves first and then to each other. It happened, like a sinusoidal wave, high, low, high , low and then I don't know what form it took-unexplainable and undefinable. Life as a form looked more like a book, emotions, drama, 'get-get no want', 'want-want no get' , bla bla. Maya started wirting things about her encounters, her new image in her old mirror, her new pen and old notebook, her new body and old clothes or sometimes new clothes and old body. She didnot know how the hell the world turned upside down in the presence of one man or absence of one man and many thoughts! 

Maya wanted to end her life, a strange feeling isn't it? I thought she was happy or may be her joy wanted to take her life or may be she was still lonely amidst so many appealing views and a mysterious man. Her mind started playing tricks. Shubham may be enjoyed it, may be wanted it or may be he didn't know what he was going through all this time. It wasn't new for him but it was unexpected and that's how he lived his life-unexpected.  Maya died the day he left her in search of answers to questions he created for himself. She died a silent death on the same cot, blanket on blanket, pillow on pillow, chills, sweat, anxiety, tears, darkness and smile. She was not made for 'a Shubham'!

Today I see her in a corner and I am glad that she lies there quietly. I know she is living for the sake of her premature death. She is living to question all her questions. She now knows that there is no 'Shubham' who is the 'only' purpose in her diary. She knows an inside-out has a different context too. She is lost in the symmetry, she tries to grab her cup of peace without any addiction. She always hated addiction. She iterates the words of hope in her heavy head. She is beyond shamelessness, lust or bondage. For her, its a death ceremony, its a thought far fetched, its a distant dream and a life in another world. She desires and she will...

Maya-then and now

Maya vanished into the deep blue agitating waves. She couldn't see the agony around. She could not breathe anymore, the filthy air..full of tears, death, pain, horror. She couldn't do anything but choose to be a part of 'nothingness' and call her brave or I don't know. May be a coward. She didn't care if she would be called names, if she would be remembered or forgotten like a rotten leaf. She just wanted to leave unnoticed. 

She was a peculiar girl. Someone who wanted to see things through her actual lenses, her eyes. But how could she do that when the whole world was busy in painting a dark, grim picture around her. She always had a thing for the unseen. She wanted to build her life around a spider, watch it create its web. Complicated. Although much better seeing a man dying of hunger, a child beaten to death, a woman stripped off her self esteem, a bird caged to death, a puppy crying to find its lost mother. A spider was better. Enthusiastic atleast, just building something. In the circle of life it just entangles itself, one goal as it works for-survival.

She lost the spider when her fellow neighbor wiped few last traces of the web, called it 'dirty'. But she thought 'he' was dirty, inhuman rather. Someone who could not appreciate life and its small healthy world. Though short, everyone has a right to live, love and work. She wanted to just leave the place. Maya loved journeys but she was conflicted too. She wanted to take care of her belongings, her bloodlines back at home. She couldn't do both. She choose to wander for a while. Find some meaning to better hers and others life. She believed in a higher power that could take take care of her loved ones, once she left them.

'Maya' as her name suggests was illusionary. That's what I loved about her. She was never predictable. She wanted to dive into the seas without knowing how to swim. She wanted to jump off a cliff without a support. She wanted to hold her breathe for long enough to turn blue. She wanted to lie on green grass under the blue sky for hours, stagnant. She wanted to capture every speck of nature in her lenses...through her eyes, fill her ever expanding heart with memories. Eat nothing, drink nothing but live with a hope to live. She desired too much but was also aware of her limitations. She wanted to break free.

Maya couldn't find a place of her dream. Every piece of land was occupied by crafty men. The water in the ocean seemed polluted. She could not sustain her urge to dream. She could not be a spectator to floating bodies in water. She was choked to be a part of burnt grass under a dark sky. She wanted to be hopeful. She succumbed to her own insecurities about nature. She was foolish. Maya was foolish. She still wanted to find that spider, engrossed in its own web. May be she wanted to be a part of a better web, a tangled life in a crafty web was not for her. She choose otherwise. She choose to be a part of her own memories. She choose to be a shadow. May be Maya found more in her shadows that in flesh and blood. May be she was happy. May be.

Painting a dream or Not

Its been a nice day so far. Lovely weather, beautiful music and encouraging problems to work with. It was even better yesterday. Hot chocolate, excellent weather and no problems to work with for at least half a day. But does my life succumb to such days, the intricacies of the events, the thoughts behind them or the people in picture? 
I don't know. What I do know is, I love to paint my dream. A dream with colors or in  monochrome, a dream with passion or silence-may be a dream of another dream. If I look back, I see myself as someone who loved discipline, had a peculiar way of surviving things-loved being monotonous. Here I see myself today and I am astonished..how did I survive this way for so long. Being vaguely outrageous but mostly a humdrum existence!
It occurs to me that the scenario will gulp me in future too and I will have no reason to escape. How I fear it all of a sudden. My survival strategy is..just paint. I paint my dreams, in thoughts, on paper, on walls, on cupboards, anywhere...everywhere. Its for me, only for me and for no one. Painting a dream has been horrifying. Imagine something in the middle of the night, unable to sleep-do what? Take a brush and start. Its an experience unexplainable. Its comforting amidst vague thoughts, it gives an unusual strength to live another day-to see how the colors look the next day. Do they exhibit familiar feelings or are they instantly dead the moment you sleep and gain existence the next moment you dream?
It hurts to dream that way, messing my fingers up with colors having no meaning at some point in time. It challenges my belief, my integrity, my strength and also my tomorrow or a tomorrow which is never mine!
I think I am done with such failing or falling moments- painting doors or feeling elated. I need to take charge of my own reality, dream is always a part of it though. I may not paint it, may not even think about it and I know it may just remain a goal far fetched. Still, I would try to cage myself for the sake of clarity. May be someday soon I shall visualize the road, the trees or the sky like I did as a child. I once again shall dance in the rain, care whether or not my feet gets dirty or I fall terribly sick. The sparkling drops touching my eyes and cheeks would reveal all the answers to my naive queries or not so naive uncertainties. I would crave to paint then too, but I wont. Or may be I shall just paint-but without a 'dream'.

Numb Tree

A tree couldn't speak, it was not meant to but to see and be there. A firm and grounded one waiting for passers by. People would always admire the tree for its beautiful branches, the relief during summers, the warmth during winters and protection from the stormy and windy nights. There came men and women, animals, birds, serpents, couples,  loners, pessimists, optimists, indifferent as someone or no one. 

This tree enjoyed varied seasons, strange moods of people and chaos in itself. It shed leaves, it grew greener, sometimes older, sometimes newer-new branches sky high, new leaves sinking under gravity; a fine one it was. The only concern-it could not speak. There was a sense of joy in watching the immediate surrounding being healthy and bubbling with zeal, sometimes with uncontrollable passion. It made the tree alive even though it was grounded...it could still fly high, seek pleasure in being a mere spectator. 

There came a season of bliss. A tree changing its colors was unique-different branches, different shades. All catering to different needs or may be there was no worry of need. The tree never slept, it waited for people to rest under it. It wanted to care for them day and night. It was actually restless. But can a tree afford to experience it? It was grounded. It couldn't run behind its onlookers or admirers. Could it weep if people tried to pluck its leaves or cut its beautiful branches...no..it had to be numb. It had to derive things from the ground, from the sky..to sustain-stand tall whatever may happen. The bliss was an unstable one, but stability for a tree was a dream. It had faced extreme fluctuations in the wind, the wrath of furious sun and how could it blame fellows for being unstable! ..it had to help them. It was there to care, for shelter. It felt the numbness building up, filling its trunk with fear-its integrity was challenged.

To this day, the tree exists with its eyes wide open and numb branches. Sometimes figures arrive, rest and go. It waits for another bliss. But may be this time there is some expectation. Something from itself, not from the beings. It knows that it is equally alive as others. It just has to suck it in, from the roots-breath fresh air. It may not fear being on the edge and watching its roots loosing grip. The soil is loosing its hold..rain, storm and all of them conspire. But the tree has time to contemplate. May be today it can't chase or choose who may come and rest. May be tomorrow it might die and re-grow into a beautiful bird, free..for itself and meet similar beings who care to fly independent...may be its a wish.