solitude

offshore diaries ----- "WOW"

2008-01-26T08:13:00.000-08:00

August 26, 2008

It has been a couple of months since I saw the real glow of the sun, something what people call ‘sunshine’ back in my country. But where the sun doesn’t shine, the sea rises and fall, reminding me of the fact that the force of sun is still having its effect on me. 20m of heave in the sea, 80 knots of wind and the rain almost falling up to the sky makes me feel so small, scary and nauseated. The small oil rig (commonly known as floater) somewhere in North Sea sways back and forth as the pendulum upside down, reaching almost the limits of its design. And all these events lead to just one word on the mouth of every working person on the rig -- “WOW”. I know you must be thinking what so amazing about being trapped in the middle of sea in such horribly bad weather. You are right, it’s not amazing. The truth is that ‘WOW’ is just an abbreviation for ‘Waiting On Weather’, quite ironic! I guess someone with a sarcastically great sense of humor must have invented it. But the whole situation also leads to some hilarious events, but only a person like me is worthy enough to even notice them. Let me illustrate with some examples. Like this old person in the galley (eating place) finished his food and gets up to put down the dirty plates near the washer and the trajectory of the path that he takes is almost what a snake would take or a drunken moron. Thanks to the sway of the rig back and forth. I mean leave the old man for god sake. Second event: Some people who are WOW, decide to pass their time by playing dart board. Here is the turn of the guy with big belly (and look what! He is wearing these slippery bathroom slippers). He takes the stance, ready to throw the dart to the board and by the look on the faces of his teammates; I bet they are counting on him. But the sea has its own thought about it. Here comes the great wave throwing the rig almost out of its place. Though the rig is good enough to hold itself but this guy with slippery slippers is not. He moves his arm to throw but at the same instant he is slipping backward as if the dart board is saying “Come on fat guy take a step back. You ain’t good enough to throw anything at me” And before anybody could do anything, his back leg hits the hand rail of the sofa and the inevitable fall happens. Laughter ensues. Third event: Bunch of guys are taking a coffee break. Everybody has its own cup of coffee on the table. But two of the guys are really spellbound by this news on the TV. Here comes the heave again, the guys cup moves to the other end of the table where I am sitting. His eyes still on the tv, and his hand trying to grab the cup. He tries twice J but no success, the cup has betrayed him and has walked to the other side. He is surprised and I am laughing with what just happened. He doesn’t understand and shakes his head and pours himself another cup of coffee. Fourth incident: This one involves me. I am watching this nice movie in my room. The TV in the room is mounted on the wall. There is a nice action scene going and the final battle is about to end and suddenly the TV sway, rotates on its pivot against my viewing angle. Don’t need to mention why this happened, but for a moment it seemed that the TV doesn’t want me to see the climax as if it is saying to me that he has seen enough of my stupid face. Later that evening I was laughing at the childishness of my mind but it was then that I realized that howsoever dull and lull the world of oil rig is, I have the capability to enjoy the tiniest hint of laughter that surrounds me. Evolution does exist!!

Coldplay

2007-04-07T11:04:00.000-07:00

i have got cold...

just another way of saying that i have become bold...

i am cold to myself, cold to others..

i dont give a damn to those f_ _ ckers...

but sadly even to the people i used to care...

with whom i used to share...

as if all the trust and feelings suddenly burnt up in flares..

using the heat and blood inside me....

leaving me cold in despair...

not even coldplay can fix me or repair :P

Frozen

2007-01-19T18:13:00.000-08:00

its a cold day....
seems like everything is frozen...
the ice try hard to become water....
trying to grasp all the warmth around...
but in vain....
water becomes frozen again...
all in pain...

i am cold too.......
although my eyes can tell you that better than the words...
tear try to come down sometimes...
but like the winter ice....
they keep getting frozen inside...
i can barely feel the tingling warmth they bring to my eyes...

just hope the cold never ends.....
the hate never ends....
the pain never ends....
for then the life would be so worth living :P

Conversation

2007-01-14T17:21:00.000-08:00

(a phone and a lonely man)

man say "why dont you ring?..."
phone says " coz there is nobody calling you.."
" i dont believe you"
" dont believe me...who cares"
" liar ...i know my friend must be missing me"
" oh ya....then y aint they calling"
" because you r not working "
" say whatever u wanna say...u know the truth"
" no i dont"
" u dont have friends......thats what i figured out in past months"
" i have tons of thems..."
" and i dont think if u have even one"

staring at phone ....the man turned back...
in a pulse of second....
his hand came down ...
picked up the phone....
stared at it with all the fury in his eyes....and the tears..
and threw it away on the floor...

bang

a sudden death
no ring no voice.....

and...no more calls :P

Falling star

2006-12-14T08:46:00.000-08:00

Lyin down on my bed...
looking toward the stars on the ceiling...
which have gone dimmer each day...
since they were sticked up there...
I was thinking about things,i dont want to think about...
another day gone, i am still alone...
where did i go wrong, i lost a friend...
its hard to apologize for things i have done...
like the stars above, i am stuck,
fading with each day gone by,
like a dead leaf, like a broken star,
soon i will fall on the floor,
and get trashed away into the bin...

The holy beer and a lonely bar

2006-10-22T09:17:00.000-07:00

(a bar table

two bar chairs

two small heinekens

and an empty glass)

he say "hey chief...one heineken please".

Bar man say "sure sir...would u also like some nachos with cheeze".

"no thanks...only beer".

"sir u want it now or should we wait for your peers".

"no one is coming chief, dont you know its the festive day of the year".

"ok sir, here u go".

"can u just play a song having a rythm bit slow".

"sir..dont u like this one, its the in thing".

"no ....i just hate this ding ding".

"how was ur day sir, u dont look so good?".

"aah it was ok...i am just not in the mood".

"i am sure u r missing home this day".

(pause)

a thought in his mind, a smirk on his face

but nothing more, he could say

(blank)

after a while, he says,"bill please?".

bar man says,"just a minute sir".

"can u make it quick?".

"sure sir, here it is".

he gives the bill

finishes the last sip

take a deep breathe

get up walk to the door

before he could go out, the bar man just yells " Sir !"

he thought may be he left something there

he looks back at the barmen

barman with a smile on his face says," happy diwali".

surprised, he could just reply "thanks chief",

and walks out, closing the door

with a smile on his face :).

2006-10-03T05:11:00.000-07:00

This is THE END , my only Friend THE END

The day starts with blue and misty sky.
I take the bus,
to the road , I always wanted to go by,
Reach the destination,
But seems like the real one has gone by,
Take slow steps to the office door,
Keep the pace slow and low,
Take my seat, open the laptop,
Just feeling my mind saying to me “please stop”,
Want to see my friends picture in the wallpaper,
But funny as it may sound, I haven’t got one to set,
I put my coverall and helmet on,
Along with the heavy steel shoes, as if I am from Alcatraz,
Work the whole day, like a humanoid,
Filling up the garbage, in the self made void,
Work ends; take the bus back to the base,
Get stuck in a jam, moving at a snail pace,
By the night fall when I reach my room,
The echoes say I am destined for doom,
Put on TV, to listen to some music,
But every song seems to say move it move it,
Open the fridge, get a beer,
Go out in the balcony; see the sky so clear,
Asking myself why I am like this, what is it that I fear?
After living a day full of lies,
Go to the bed and close my eyes,
Just with a hope of finding a true friend the next morning,
Who will call and wake me up and say,
“get up dude, It’s not Sunday morning”.

2006-08-06T22:15:00.000-07:00

Solitude (so tasty it hurts ...)

Today i just remembered a song i heard a long time back.... it has beautiful lyrics.. The truth is that for me the words that make a song are much more important than anything like music or who sung it. Lyrics of the song influence my thought a great deal. Whenever i start liking a song its only when i visualize the state of the author while he was writing the song. I think as if i was sitting beside him and he was totally unaware of the my presence. I was in his head when he was thinking about each word.....weird huh?..but i am like that :).....

The song is by Evanescence ..named Solitude...

How many times have you told me you love her
As many times as I wanted to tell you the truth
How long have I stood here beside you
I lived through you, you looked through me

Solitude
Still with me is only you
Solitude
I can't stay away from you

How many times have I done this to myself
How long will it take before I see
When will this hole in my heart be mended
Who now is left alone but me

Solitude
Forever me and forever you
Solitude
Only you, Only true
Everyone leaves me stranded
Forgotten, abandoned left behind
I can't stay here another night

Your secret admirer, who could it be

Can't you you see all along it was me
How can you be so blind as to see right through me

Solitude
Still with me is only you
Solitude
I can't stay away from you

Solitude
Forever me and forever you
Solitude
Only you, only true

2006-08-05T05:51:00.000-07:00

kabhi ek roz..
zindagi ke ek mod par tanhayi ka aalam hai
shaam ke aasmaan se baat karta hua ek bavra mann hai
aur baarish ki tez hawaon ne bhi
zindagi ke kuch purane paanon ko palat diya hai
par ek anjani si aarzo ki dastak se
dil-o-dimaag mein jang ka alam hai...
koi is ankahe sach ko jhutlata ..
to doosra sach ke naye raaste dikhata ..
na jang thamti dikhti thi
na mere askhon ki jhadhi
shayad zindagi mein jo socha tha woh galat tha
aur jo kuch paaya tha woh kho diya tha
yeh meri kismat kaho ya meri galtiyon ki sazza
talash thi ek jawab ki
jang rokne ke liye ek nayi shuruwat ki
lekin jis mod par aaj khada hoon
aage andhera gehra hai
peeche nakam hazraton ka janaza hai
nayi subah ki aarzoo mein neend ki talash hai
jabki yeh mujhe bhi khabar hai
ki ek lambi raat ki abhi to shuruwat hai...

2006-07-25T07:35:00.000-07:00

Not so close....
before reading this beware of the fact that it can harmful to your health:)

What will you do if you realize one day that the persons with whom you wanted to be close to more than anything else, have just wandered away from your life as if a big bang happened and everything which was slow close to you just flew into the black space. And the more you want to get closer, everything just seems to going away from you at an ever increasing pace. Soon they will be out of sight , and you will be hanging in this hollow black space alone. A solitude forever......

look at picture what does it say to you

The story goes on like this...a guy so close to a girl...yet not so close...the girl is also close but her eyes seem to be glued somwhere else towards a brighter space. The next moment when the boy realizes that a thin mirror seperates them, he tries everything to break that last barrier between them, but he doesnt know that its unbreakable. Seeing the boy trying to break something which she cant see, she gets afraid, and take a step back, then another step back, then another. The boys still trying gives up. On his knees, tears falling down his eyes as he sees the girl moving away. He wants to say something but she has gone too far to hear it.... the boy walks away but just keeping a little close hoping that she would return one day....just one word of advice to him, next time dont try to break the mirror because it can only be melt.

2006-07-24T06:14:00.000-07:00

Two of a kind

Today sitting in the balcony of 9th floor apartment, i had a thought about two very ironic situations of solitude. The following statement summarizes my thought

you are alone but not lonely
or
you are lonely but not alone !

The thought of such situations puzzles me, might have happened with me a lot of time but never thought about it. A thought about a Thought is what this blog is.

Let me tell u a story about two entirely different people, one is a seven year old kid and the other a 19 year old good lookin girl. It was nearly 5 in the evening and time for working to go back home. The story starts with me boarding a bus. Actually i have been commuting a lot lately and the only thing i notice while travelling is lot of faces, lonely faces. Its was the first stop of the bus and most of the seats were empty. i entered the bus and sat down two rows from the back with a kid sitting next to me. He was just a kid and i was surprised to see such a small kid travelling alone in a bus as if his mom dad have abandoned him, whatever the reason of his travel i was sure of one thing it was damn important. His eyes said a lot. The kid had dirt all over him and he wore a torn trouser. he had a sack with him, not sure what was inside. His innocent yet confident and dirty face said to me, "i am a child labourer and i dont have a choice but to be one". At the young age of 7 8, i could call him a self made man who didnt get to live his childhood. As if in the body of child, due to the circumstances, his soul just skipped one phase of human life.

A sudden crispy voice of conductor, "toote nahin hain 6 rupay, baad mein le lena" just stopped me from whatever i was doing. The conductor was saying this to 3 females in there early 20's. One of the female caught my attention. She was dressed finely with all those jhumkas's , silver lining jute chappals, silver belt and a folded torn levis jeans. The word torn can be really confusing sometimes. A torn trouser and torn levis jeans can be the icon symbols of our country rich and poor divide. She was holding a book and a register and ofcourse a sleek moto in her hands. Fortunately, all three of us, me , boy and that girl all were going to disembark at the same stop. The girls were fighting about something, although i dont overhear others conversations but this time i couldnt resist. They had shreaky voices and there conversation sounded like cat fight. I guess they were talking about some lame issue that happened over at some stupid coaching centre. They were having a mid life crisis. Then suddenly the conversation stopped. No girl was looking at the other. And the girl who earlier caught my attention was staring with an emptiness in her eyes through the bus window at the dusky sun. At the present moment, all three of us were silent, even the eyes werent saying anything. We all desperately wanted to reach our destination, which was sadly not an hour but endlessly far away.

I guess the boy was alone but not lonely. He was alone in this whole world but that didnt made him weak, sad or empty. He had a hope and a vision. The girl on the other with all her friends seemed to be the case of lonely but not alone. She seemed utterly confused, stuck in the middle of transition of a life from teenage to adulthood. She was lost in translation. And then the third kind :), which i have not yet introduced, is me, who actually is able to see and think about both the cases. Who can actually think about such small,stupid yet important things in life.

2006-07-22T21:19:00.000-07:00

Mann...
Has it ever happened to you that a song lyrics perfectly identified the hidden conversation of ur solitude. It has happened to me a few days back. The way this song sums up what questions i have been asking myself, i guess no other song does.Have already listened to this song almost a million times, lyrics are just amazing. I guess the writer has written the lyrics straight from the heart. He and his heart speaking to each other and together they came up with this song. I think most of u also must have listened to this song, but listen to it again and think what does your heart say??.
enjoy the lyrics :)

MERE MAANYE BATA DE TU
KIS UUR CHALA HAI TU
KYA PAYA NAHI TU NE
KYA DHUND RAHA HAI TU
JO HAI AANKAHI JO HAI AANSUNI
WOH BAAT KYA HAI BATA ..MItWA
KAHE DHADKANE TUJHSE KYA ...MITWA
YEH KHUD SE THO NA TU CHUPA

JEEVAN DHAGAR MEIN PREM NAGAR MEIN
AAYA NAZAR MEIN JAB SE KOI HAI
TU SOCH THA HAI TU POOCH TA HAI
JISKI KAAMI THI KYA YEH WOHI HAI
HAAN YEH WOHI HAI HAAN YEH WOHI HAIIIII
TU AIK PYAASA AUR YEH NAADI HAI
KAHEY NAHI ISKO THO KHUL KE BATAYE

TERI NIGAHEIN PA GAYEE RAHEIN
PAR TU YEH SOCHEY JAON NA JAON
YEH ZINDAGI JO HAI NACHTI THO
KYUN BERIYOUN MEIN HAI TERE PAAON
PREET KI DHUN PAR NACH LE PAGAL
UUR THA aGHAR HAI UUR NE DE AANCHAL
KAHEY KOI APNE KO AISE TARSAYE

btw that's me in the pics, solitude in the heart of ganga. Dont know what my heart is saying :) still........post ur comments if u have a song that captures for solitude

2006-07-19T09:53:00.001-07:00

Solitude........the state of being alone
My belief says solitude is the only practical state of being in this modern world. Each person for himself. Yet after all these year, reading other friends blog i have an urge to write my own. My blog is aimed at talking about people, lonely people. it can be about me also:). Just thinking about endless stories written on their faces. Faces say a lot more than words. My friends have often found me standing alone in the balcony of my old, infact very old, hall in IIT, thinking about something. Nobody have a slightest idea about what i think and what's inside me. I guess even i dont know. Sounds funny but people are like that. Dont know what they want, but still thinking about it all the time trying to find there own self. Let me start with a story of a boy who for atleast one moment knew exactly what he wanted.
The Kite
Today, on my way to home in an autorick, my mind was just wandering around seeing the cars honking and overtaking, until i saw a child in an open sapce behind the fence near the footpath. The weather was nice today, in a sense that it was a bit cloudy, breezy, and lots of people like that child had an opportunity to fly their kite. Fortunately, my auto had to stop just nearby, where i had to wait for a bus. The bus was nowhere to be seen for a few minutes and this gave me some time to observe that child. He was dressed shabbily, and most probably was from a nearby slum. He had muddy hair, and pale face. Must be in his teens, most probably 12 or something. He was holding a kite, bright red in colour with a yellow circle in the middle. This kite meant a lot to that kid. The concentration and eagerness on his face while he was tying a knot in the kite would have even put Leonardo to lower level while he himself was painting the MonaLisa. Their was nothing in his mind at that moment apart from that kite. Just the thought about this made me feel a bit jealous of him. Such moments are few in life of people who get sofisticated by pursuing higher studies especially engineering. Such people can never figure out their purpose in life. Get entangled in the web of this materialistic world so much, that they can never come out of it even when they see their purpose with naked eyes. Getting back to the kite, the child was already finished with knot and was ready to fly his kite into the endless blue sky. But sadly, the story was coming to an end each moment as my bus was approaching the bus stop. The bus was crowded, with all those sad, frustrated and perspiring faces who still havent found their kite which could colour up their gloomy black sky with though small but bright vibrant coloured patch. Even i looked like one of them. But standing in the bus, peeping through the bus window, seeing that smile on the child face who's kite by now was already soaring in the sky, i guess i found my solace. The bus was speeding away and so was the vision of the boy in my eyes.
I guess after coming home, just wanted to hear one song,
"Dil Dhoodhta hai phir wohi fursat ke raat din"