ECSTASY

late at night when you will think of me
I will be very far away,
far away from the farthest sight your eyes can see....
for I will not be able to touch you then
...as from all earthly bonds I will be free ..
as death would have taken me
holding my hand to become a shining star
leading me deep to the sky and far

I wont come back to you then no matter how much you cry
from here I will look at you ... watch your innocent moves
for I will not cry then neither will I smile.....
for I know neither will the sound of my smile nor the tears of my eyes will reach you
so will my all efforts be futile
but even after death you have not freed me from this bondage
and when my eyes cannot hold my tears any longer in its cage
it will fall unknowingly.........
but will you feel the star dust speck on your lips ?
and the sandy grain on your palm
is actually my tears that has travelled a million miles for a kiss
will you?
for my soul will not be free because I loved
and come to you once again
for as a child of yours I will be in your womb conceived
and the same blood will flow through my vein
when as a toddler I will hold your hand and crave for your love
you will feel that it is me ....
love me then with everything you have let me sleep then in your arms
for I am tired
having travelled through galaxy
to be with you in a life called fantasy
I will there with you once again you know
to live an another life of ecstasy .......





(NOTE: THIS IS NOT MY ORIGINAL CREATION ,THE IDEA IS INSPIRED FROM A POEM THAT APPEARED IN "THE ASIAN AGE" SOME EIGHT YEARS BACK WITH THE NAME "THE CHILD OF ECSTASY"..)

UNTITLED

PROLOGUE :


This is a story which does not have a starting nor does it have an ending....its a story of someone waiting to be heard of,the story to which I listened ,The story of the man in blue coat.........


The first thing that I can recall is when I was lying in the wet grass ,the drizzling rain had moisturised my face,my dark warm suit was no longer keeping me warm....I was shivering with my eyes closed. The alcohol had did its part , I wondered......my trance ridden mind was hallucinating....while I hesitatingly opened my eyes ....blurry half distinct images of something hit my retina..... the silhouette of a couple were present some distance apart talking to each other .......along with the unruly gust of wind that was blowing ...... I heard the couple were discussing about me. The lady said "see nowadays even in parks like this you can have a drunken fellow like him....look at his dress .....he seems to belong
from a good family.....and see now how disrespecting and ungraceful ,that he is is lying dead drunk here...some girl must have ditched him....poor fellow...."
well the lady was wrong no girl ditched me, only thing is that I had a party some hours back,and when the clock smiled at me showing 7 p.m I hurried out of the ballroom to reach home......one thing I did not realise, for the same fact for which I was lying in this park ....that sometimes big bellied fish like me can also puke.....I retrograded my path and took refuge there believing that sometimes after I will be in a position to reach home.

Passively listening to what the lady had said I closed my eyes feeling amused......and when the second time I opened my eye after a small interval of unconscious sleep, the couple was gone........Instead a man in his thirties wearing a blue raincoat with his head covered under the hood was sitting unexpectedly close to me,looking into my eyes .......and eating an apple....



CHAPTER ONE (THE MAN IN THE BLUE COAT) :


The man in the blue coat who was sitting very close to me had an apple in his hand which he was chomping thoughtfully I stared at him amazingly
the man broke the silence by asking "so...did someone ditch you and you got drunk..?.."
no I replied

" I don't belong to that fortunate lot, who have someone special in their life ".............. I murmured
" on the contrary you can also be unfortunate too,to have someone special in your life "..... said the man
" why is it so? " I asked

" it's my experience that tells me boy,not me.................I have seen life from the point of view of soldier who has seen a bloody battle....Sometimes Life and Love are not that rosy dream of which we think to be..... Its a harsh and cruel reality....." said the man

" hmmm......... " . I murmured
" so what is your experience..? why do you give me such pessimistic views regarding life...after all life is a beautiful opportunity for us to enjoy..... " I said.

" Is it so? "....the man chuckled
"then let me tell you why I am here......why I am sitting here under the open sky and getting drenched while my ' Toyota ' is still parked outside......."..he said while the Rolex in his right hand glittered under the moon shine.



CHAPTER TWO (LIVING AN EXPERIENCE CALLED ' LIFE ' ) :



" 10 years back I had met a girl in my college.......I was finishing my education while she joined college.......we felt like we had a connection with each other and we fell in love .....and after 4 months of intense courtship , I realized that I have found my soul mate." said the man

" then Jenny disappeared without telling me anything ,one week no news of her what so ever ,then on the eighth day she came to meet me,tormented,......she told me that she needs money ,a large sum of money to give to her father........On that day jenny cried and I came to know jenny closer and closer of her cruel past, something which I never knew before....... " the man continued........
" On that day I realized that jenny didn't had a father,the half dog and half pig character to which jenny referred to as her father ,was actually a parasite who has been lavishing on the money which came from jenny's mother by performing the mankind's oldest forbidden trade----prostitution...... "

CHAPTER THREE (THE DARK STORY OF JENNY) :


" Jenny goes by the name of ' submissive lily ' , when I found her on the escort's list which gets updated every single minute on the Internet...It was five years back that she bowed herself to this profession................because of me,if on that very day I would have given her what she needed to fulfill her father's debt,then today Jenny would have been Jenny only......But how could I have had ? I was not a millionaire then, but a struggler wearing a torn pair of jeans,you never understand women they will always disclose their problem to the person whom they love.............even knowing that the person is incapable of helping her.......she always divulges to him.........and when you fail to help them as I did, they feel they are betrayed ............perhaps they are so graceful....that when you say ' cannot ' to them....they feel their Love's labour is lost..............
I feel guilty for her .I tried to shoot myself a couple of times but failed .......... I felt heavy by her burden.......I felt as I am choked to death........... I felt angry, very very angry thinking that hundreds of people must have touched her flesh.......... " said the man in the blue coat, while his bloodshot moist eyes looked ferocious..........
Then the day when I found her , I called her pretending myself to be a customer (because there was no other way to reach to her )......and she came......we looked at each other's eyes....... we both cuddled and cried but then she said " why am I here? " I told her I am here to take her... to be with me forever....but she denied..... she said there is no point in returning now everything is lost to her.........it is a life that she has accepted out of forceful compulsion ,she asked me why am I here?.... is it to ridicule to her situation or make her feel how low has she gone? .....but I realized that she was angry with me over the fact that she held me equally responsible for her situations............ then she went away.... and on that day I came to know of an another secret of Jenny
that she is into drugs now.......it's a part of a game plan of the prostitution racket to indulge these people into drugs so that they don't break away from the bond and be a faithful slave of their master forever.........perhaps this could have been an another reason why jenny never wanted to return....." said the man remorsefully
" on that day I tried twice to shoot myself in the head,but I failed......."
" then I thought of a way to ease my pain,a road to my salvation, a path to lighten my burden........" every day since then I come here with one of my employee specially hired for this purpose.... he would come and behave as a lonely customer who does not want any physical satisfaction but want someone to talk with and take her for the night, on my Sedan while I follow them in a taxi, he pays her double the money she charges (which I give him beforehand) and they sit and gossip on one of my posh bungalow down the lane.........." this saga has been happening everyday since then, while I watch her from the dark glasses of my bedroom........... craving for her love,knowing inevitably that she would never be mine again for the sins I have done towards her.......she came to me for help but I was incapable of helping her that is my sin...... " --------------said the man .........while the rain began to fall more intensely

The rain had began to fall more harshly while the man in the blue coat assisted me out of the garden and whispered something to my ear.....then quickly whistled and waved his hand to a taxi that was passing ............ I entered the cab and the man slammed the door hard,and then said " always remember what I told you............................ "







EPILOGUE:

The cab on which I was in,sizzled down the streets which resembled a smaller version of The Bois de Boulogne all of them standing there had something or the other to show me...while I was looking through their false smiling faces, deep into their eyes. I realized that behind this glamorous body and amorous smile there is a dark secret,a cruel past , a harsh story of truth and reality which everyone of them has to tell ,deep inside their eyes there lies an empty space which resembles the calm moment before a storm..... they need to be heard of, and someone had to listen to...if only you keep your eyes and ears open....

My trance ridden mind was slowly coming back to reality........the effect of alcohol was dying while the cool breeze carrying rain drops blew,
splashing my face with a thousand tears .......................
The radio channel in the taxi played the song "....na jaane koi,kaisi hai yeh zindagini...hamari adhuri kahani......." .while I laid back on the warm leather seat closing my eyes.......................and wondering what the man in the blue coat whispered to my ear..... he said..." when you eat a chicken burger always remember that the the chicken you are eating has been taken out of its flock, smoother ed with it's blood drained and skinned to the pink flesh......to convert it from a living organism to a piece of meat....cooked,garnished and served Only to satisfy your Taste buds......."

STARRY NIGHTS

PROLOGUE:

Abhirup smiled when he saw the hundred and tenth towered building that lay overwhelming in front of him is near completion.The cigarette that was in between in his finger burned slowly spreading an aroma of tobacco around....the hung ed up head of abhirup was searching for something in the sky....while a cluster of stars in the sky shined.
something struck abhirup he wanted to know how does it feel like to look upon at the stars from a 110 storey ed building.He went inside the building complex , boarded the elevator,and pushed the switch "Top floor".

CHAPTER ONE :(A COLLECTION OF LOST MEMORIES)

The elevator slowly moved upwards while abhirup looked against the glass ceiling ,the stars that looked like a tiny bright spot started to glow more gradually as the shiny silver colour elevator shoot ed up against the gravity.Slowly the stars were glowing brighter than usual, the city that shimmered with the night lights was right underneath him ...at the horizon the red clouds mingled with the landscape....it was precisely at this point that a flash of memory flooded abhirup's conscious mind....

"........ a sound of chaos....people talking to each other ,kid playing around...with abhirup standing in the middle of the park.The summer of 1992 it was ,as he recollected all the events that happened on that day...the day in which he told something to someone after 7 years they met...

It was pallabi, abhirup's love who was sitting next to him and abhirup was looking forward of confessing his untold feeling towards her.The day he mustered all the courage of his heart...to tell her the thing ,which he has always wanted to tell ,but always restrained himself away from the fact that if something goes out of sync then their friendship will get distorted and this would mean no regular Monday meetings something of which abhirup got addicted to and hence abhirup never ever dared even to think of telling her.....
but that day was different,she was supposedly moving out with her family within a week...and hence abhirup's eternal slumber and tranquility got a sudden jerk, with no other choices left ,this is now which he considered to be his last chance of ever telling her....
'...................talking 3 hours at a stretch was nothing new for them when suddenly that precious question of love erupted... abhirup has long been lingering this conversation ever since ,but now he was in no mood to wait more." Something inevitable is about to happen..." he murmured to himself...

pallabi : abhirup ...who is that girl whom you love?you always shy away from this question whenever I ask you.... come on abhirup tell me her name?how does she look like?...I have been your true friend and I always told you about my boyfriends...now its your turn..

abhirup : well....there is a girl I love ....you know that....she is very special to me I love her very much... she as sweet as an angel who has fallen to earth and became a part of human race.....she is my love...

pallabi : so you never told me you had a girlfriend..!

abhirup : no...she is not my girlfriend....even she is not aware of the fact that I love her....it's only I who loves her ...

pallabi : then why not go and tell her ...tell me who is she ? I will help you in conveying her the message...

abhirup : no pallabi...there is no point in doing it....I know she is happy with her current relationship with someone... I have tasted the true essence of platonic love ...the path in which I have been walking has led me to a point where I can see a new meaning of love.....it has open ed a new dimension........its not my happiness which matters now....it's her happiness that counts.... if I tell her now ,then her tranquility and peace of mind will be disturbed ....because I know she is happy and committed... now then why tell her..?.....none the less all I wanted is, to see her happy......be it with me or with someone else.......

pallabi : (smiles) you talk like a philosopher now....one thing i have understood.......your love for her is very pure........now tell me her name....what's her name?

abhirup : yes....she is my inspiration........my inspiration for every work I do....but why do you want to know her name?....you always knew a rose with a different name will always smell the same .....(laughing)............. well if you really want to address her by some name call her mumtaz..."the best"....she is my inspiration .....perhaps someday alike shahjahan I will also build something for her.....so you must be thinking that why am i studying architecture.......(laughing).... yes someday, time will speak for itself and for my untold love that I have kept captive in my heart since ages....perhaps for time immemorial who ever will pass that monument will always remember my undying love towards my mumtaz.....

pallabi : (almost astonished)...come on abhirup tell me that lucky girl's name....I am feeling jealous towards her....(giggles)

abhirup : its you pallabi....you are my mumtaz ....you are my angel ...its you from whom I draw my inspiration...

CHAPTER TWO:(FOR MY "MUMTAZ")

The elevator now stopped at the 110 th floor,and abhirup's mind came from the past to his presence....the elevator gate slid open. Abhirup walked out of the elevator and headed towards the lobby.Newspapers, local dailies ,magazines were all spread on the table thay was laid in the centre of the lobby,and it flashed the same news on their headline "indian architect builds the tallest building in the country.."
abhirup took one of it in his hand and started reading...
" Indian architect builds the tallest building in country.......37 years old abhirup banerjee have done it again by designing the tallest building in Singapore...abhirup when asked about the inspiration behind such a marvellous creation ...tells only one name .." for my mumtaz.."................
abhirup smiled faintly and thought about the last time when he met his "mumtaz".....she came the day after abhirup confessed his love towards her, she carried a letter which she gave it to him and went away,only to return to his dream every night ever since then.

CHAPTER THREE :(THE LETTER)

The letter:

Forgive me abhirup for I cannot love you....as I am in love with someone else.....I am also not worthy for your love .........for I am no longer your's now...I don't want you to accept me for all the wrongs and vices that I have in me....you are a good .you deserve good and that is surely not me.

EPILOGUE:

Two days hence pallabi moved out of the city.The following year abhirup moved to mumbai and completed his masters in architecture. Abhirup always attends unknown number in his mobile phone owing to the fact that 5 years back unexpectedly abhirup received a phone call from pallabi.They talk ed for about an hour. Abhirup never called her back.Two months after the incident abhirup moved to singapore.

The stars now shined liked jewels studded deep into the sky. The dark lobby which was void of any electric lights shimmered when the faint light of the moon fell upon the marble flooring.Through the transparent glass wall that lay on the four sides of the room ,abhirup looked outside.There was silence,the city looked like a "carpet of light" laid on the beautiful landscape....the lights coming from the hustle and bustle of the city life, did not carry any sounds along with it...it was a comfortable silence ..a feeling of being grown above the worldly affairs ..a feeling that there is nothing to loose .....a feeling that he has conquered something ...a feeling that he has conquered himself ......
and now Long in front of his eyes on the silhouette of the table abhirup saw his mobile phone glowing magnificently like an angel which seemed like as it has fallen into the earth from heaven abode .
Abhirup picked up the phone it displayed " calling.... name unknown..."

written in solitude(the realization)

It was an eerie feeling... walking in the middle of the crowd but yet he felt so lonely.............an inexplicable feeling.sizzling lights were all around him decorating the streets ,a baul song coming out of the speaker along with the bustling noises of the crowd that followed, while he passed in between them,he recalled the moment when he was sitting in the park exactly one hour back.











He was there sitting on the grasses along with thousand others who joined in to sit under the moon enjoying the cool breeze of the open stadia.He was smoking his sixth cigarette in a row wondering about his lungs.Seven of his Friends were with him who talked among each other while he looked into their faces."its a habit of being alone in a crowd I have inherited from the past ........ I don't blame me for that anymore"-he realized.With nothing to do he gazed at his watch, which was a given to him as a present from someone special.......it was three am in the morning.He took a glimpse of the people around him ..."not many" -he said to himself,but when he was about to withdraw his rolling eyes from the crowd , his eyes caught a known face... a face he knew since a long time,there she was smiling at him......... he stood up and went towards her







she was a friend and his partner for a long time in his college days. Someday during the summers of the last year she realized they could not make it through.She went for a break up and went for an another guy whom she considered more worthy than him in every aspect.He never blamed her for this after all he knew he was a vagabond and sometimes blunt and not caring...







But there she standing in front of him.... he went towards her .....hugged her for one last time... smiled to his new found partner and before his moist eyes could fail holding his tears any longer,he waved her good bye..



He is a good man he realized "perhaps more better than me. I considered him to be my competitor for all these days but on that very moment I felt like a father who had given away his beloved to some one other."he whispered to himself.

he moved out of the place and started walking......taking the wrong roads and wrong turns .today he didn't wanted to return home....he wanted to walk ....... in quest of solace.....

The morning sun was about to rise ,all the sky has turned red while he walked lost in the middle of the road ,he has been a traveller all his life time,he knew all this life that there is nothing called a destination, all roads in this world links to another,so there is no point in relaxing in the middle of the path and call it home ,but at this very point he wanted to settle his tired body,he took refuge in the local roadside tea stall .........."why is the sky crying like me??"he wondered.

and there was no answer he could find.....

sometimes after... the morning sun rose clearing the red sky ......

he looked up towards the road that looked long ..... disappearing into the thin fog ,leading to somewhere he doesn't even know........he saw no end to it .....

He went up and started walking on the path ........not knowing where will it lead to, but he was not afraid ,neither was he alone any longer.........

He has found the answer what he was searching for.... he smiled to himself and took his stride .....while his eyes remained moist...

It was Sunday and as usual the morning alarm rang .But he was already awake from midnight .All the night it had been raining very hard and through the window in the dark of the night he could hear the raging wind and see the silhouette of the trees bending and submitting themselves to the unruly wind .The daybreak was late than usual with wet leaves scattered all over the balcony. It was seven in the morning when the alarum broke his passive disturbance
She was his friend ,even something more than that she was his love to whom he was never able to confess.It had been years since then, and no contact with her what so ever but still her dreams are as fresh as the morning dew without which he never had a night. All this night he had been thinking of her-when he met for the first time eight years back............an unforgetable saga of memories followed after.His half sleepy eyes were wide open while a tired mind reconciled the events.

It was yesterday when he met again. She was engaged and waiting to be married soon .He talked and refreshed some nostalgic moments that they shared together.She left with a promise to call him sometime.At 8:00 in the evening a known noise disturbed his day dreaming.He grasped his breath and attended the call.She wanted to meet him for the one last time before she leaves the town,he agreed.
It was nine in the morning in the local cafe a big clock hung in front of him constantly reminded him of that. "She will come come in a few minutes.." he said to myself,"I know her well its been her habit since college days ,she is never on time and I always used to wait for her, be it in front of college or any place else."...he thought
The clock reminded him again that its been an hour since then and the cup of coffee he was sitting with had turned cold.Time passed slowly, when he realized that it is already noon.His phone rang soon afterward he attended the call .It was her voice,she could not make it to the cafe as she was busy, she said.She was leaving for her home on today evening and two months hence she will be married and leaving the country.No hopes for returning to this town for the next seven years. Asked him to attend the marriage.The invitation card will be send by post she said.

Written in solitude (the open window)

The rain had drenched the city streets,could see that from the window.Could not see any soul on the streets except a few walking hurriedly down the lane with their hands deep dug into their pockets.The cafe by the road side is still open,but without any customer in it.Under the dark clumsy cloud the destitute is still begging for alms while hurried pedestrians pass by.


The untamed wind splashes drops of water onto my face,the cup of coffee in my hand by now has already started tasting salty.The book on quantum mechanics that lay on my left side is almost wet.I was reading the book half an hour ago until a sudden gust of wind blew within my hair and did its part.........Heisenberg's uncertainty principle written on page 27 is seen as a trace from the page which lay open in front of me,it read" h is uncertainty principle".On my right lay an empty cigarette packet,and on far left a shelf ,with an empty beer bottle in it.I don't know why I have kept this bottle ,is it here to commemorate my past? did I knew about my present on the day when I kept this bottle? that on some lonely day the bottle will remind me that today I am living in my past with no present and an uncertain future..........





Some yards from here is an eight storey ed mansion which has lately became my companion during these solitary days.A series of open window lies in front of me,through which I can see the interior.On one I see a newly wed wife serving her husband a hot cup of drink as her husband had just returned home.The husband accepts this with a warm smile .On another I see a middle age couple quarrelling for some reason while their toddler kid cries sitting in between them.on the next window I see an elderly couple watching television together when a sudden disturbance brought their disposition.On the next moment I see the elderly woman talking and smiling over the telephone while her husband looks on her face eagerly to catch hold the phone.
In front of me is an open window which was shut for the last six months since the day i started looking into other people's life through their windows. "I don't know for what reason the window is open today......." I thought to myself ................through the window I see a modest but a well knit room, a garlanded picture of some one, bottles of medicine and some cheap plastic toys.A beautiful woman enters the room with a man and locks the door from inside .Her attire contradicted the status which I perceived beforehand on seeing the modest decor of the room.she looked both gorgeous and divine.


The man hands over a bundle of currency to this women and they both smiled at each others faces.The lights were turned off and for the next twenty minutes there was complete darkness inside the room .The lights were on again , I saw both of them leaving.Hours after an another man arrives and the same old thing followed,but this time it was nearly half an hour before I saw the face of bulb again.The man leaves slamming the door hard.The woman sat on the bed idle,without any movement.An unexpected thunder bolt rips the sky apart but was not able to make this stone carved woman move.Minutes later she stood up from bed, went near the garlanded picture and wept.She wipes off her tear goes to the other room and unlocks the door, a sweet little kid comes out of the room and embraces the woman, she takes him in her arms and brings him near the window.For a while she wents out of my vision and returns shortly with a bottle of medicine which she tenderly puts into the toddler's mouth.....................................

By now it is raining hard and all windows closed except one- of mine.