Phantom of the OPARA: A true underdog story

The cultural and intellectual variation, which I’m quite sure is imaginarily so, is great between those from the Main Building and those from elsewhere in the college. Every time the editorial committees of magazines, newsletters, as well as the drama club, seminar forums, etcetera are formed: I being not a part of the finer grey matter, find that ‘they’ are the ones who walk the red carpet of Literature clutching elbows of great men and women, and I, like the rest of us non-carpet material, are left to scavenge like the desperate paparazzi…trying to cope with both disciplines, I mean the awe of ‘their’ and the load of our own.

It’s an “A-PARA” & “O-PARA” racism that prevails between the two, and mostly the great divide dwells in paper. We find ourselves in the “WHAT NOT TO BE” columns once in a while…not to mention the ‘butt’ of inter-academic jokes. And sometimes the seniors and professors act like KKK catalysts; we have ‘skinheads’ too: ‘they’ are the ones who never mingle outside their class or act out of their state, and smirk on our lesser mortals’ existence out of their extraordinary circle. And we are left to chew on our hats, shoes and cockneyed intellect.

For the greater part of my two and a half years of college life, I have envied their un-cut beards, un-bathed personas, disheveled hair, and those curiously old and patchy paperbacks, clutched tightly in their smelly (but greatly so) armpits, poking out just enough to make me nervous. Yet, I could neither consciously nor purposefully imitate their profound intellect. ‘They’ are the ones I will hate all my college life, and wish my jeans looked as bug-eaten, or my fatua looked as frayed, or I looked as impossibly aantellectual.

Why is it that people like me, who love to play with the simplicity of the language are always lambasted by the self-proclaimed pundits of English Language…while their ornamented presentations win prime pre-dominance…even if half the country cannot even make a sense out of that Swarovsky article? The Pradas and Guccis of this parallel universe are always the ones who edit and process all linguistic manifestations of the college…
…while I, the Phantom of the O-PARA, hover around hallucinating about my own.

‘They’ are the ones who end up behind desks at the offices of New York Post or London Times, while we are left here to pitch sales quotes for baby food that patronize ‘them’…

Address for grievance retrieval, due to the above post:
Presidency College, Kolkata
College Street

So, I'm finally back to my blog, and this time around I promise to do justice to the web space I'm using up for no great deal. I do, I do...

Delhi si Jahan

So now.... after months of cribbing... Delhi is finally a place, humans can also call home, otherwise i was putting up a 50001:1 chances that I'd settle on Neptune rather than Delhi. But its really better now, I've travelled through the city, walked its manicured roads, stopped at pedestrian traffic lights and crossed with others. I have seen what Jama Masjid looks like in the dark, and how very different it is with daylit domes protruding out of singularly noxious biriyani smokes. I have seen what C.P, as they call it, becomes when no one's looking. I have smelt the perfumed frufru and the pungent gentry, both falling over my shoulders with oblivious grace.

For a fact I know, Delhi never sleeps, even if the bars are shut by 11:30p.m , neither are the roads ever empty... the dogs, the prowlers, the poor, the homeless... and the young ventures to spunge out a little fun from right below the extrea conspicuous crime fighters. Still, there are less of them with a bulge above their belts, or a balding headset, someone told me, "...arre, thats because more of the wear pagris MAN!".... well, that could be true.

But for now, Delhi is another adventure for me... its one more city for me to go FIND OUT. Before the rapists, perverts, voyeurs, thieves, gundas, dakus, etc. and other petty criminals find me out. On that note.... MAN! I end.

O Father...can you hear them come?

O Father,
Here they come again.
They have killed your child,
And now they want you.
They have burnt your home,
And now they'll burn you.

O Father,
Here they come again.
They dine on your backyard,
And now they'll take it from you.
They've slept in your bed,
And that's where they'll gag you to.

O Father,
Here they come again.
In the darkness of the night,
And they say they fear none.
Can you here their guns?
If you cannot hide then run.

O Father,
Here they come again.
To promise you forsaken dreams,
Of wealth in your own hands.
But before, they must shoot you,
With guns of distant lands.

O Father,
Here they come again.
They've raped your daughter,
And buried your boy.
Now they'll build fences on our rotting flesh,
Here they come Father, Ahoy!

Measure of Myth

Too bad you weren't there to see...
They took me there, to that place again,
They hung me by my thoughts,
They stripped me of my voice,
And then let me be.

Too bad, it was morning that never came...
I waited for the sun to hit my eyes,
I waited for them to gather around my pyre,
I waited for you to save my soul's last sail,
I waited in vain, again, for my self to become.

Here I welcome you to the circle of apathy...
Engulfing your threats to sanity,
As you lose your proclaims of destructive vanity,
I say, sing another song my friend,
Too bad, you weren't there to see.

On the Wrong Side of the Locked Door

I wish it was dark.
Then I won’t be afraid of the thin
Bright line, speeding in
Through that little hole in the door.

I wish I was alone.
And all these people won’t crowd
Around me, crying aloud
Their voices streaming in, through that little hole in the door.

I wish I was dead.
Living nameless and faceless
Is not living enough, and I wish
I could disappear, through that little hole in the door.

I wish you were with me.
And I won’t be worrying about all the people
Or the light, happy with the little world outside
As I can see, through that little hole in the door.

I wish I was free.
So that I could run after the butterflies
That are blocking my hopes flowing in
Through that little hole in the door.

I wish I could sing.
And give voice to my thoughts
And give them little wings, to fly out
Through that little hole in the door.

I wish I had a key.
To unlock this giant door
And run away into emptiness,
That calls me, through that little hole in the door.

I wish I had you
Then I could hate that little hole in the door.
I wish I could be…
On the wrong side of the locked door.