Lost dream

As I finally set adrift,
This dream,
Into the sea of the lost and forgotten,

I felt a sinking feeling inside of me,
And I thought
Is this really how it's meant to be?

This dream of mine was real.
With a real voice and a real soul,
It sang to me melodies from lives of old.

Now that I have sent it into the sea
I wish that I hadn't.
But it's too late to turn back now
I must fulfill​ my duties.

Some dreams are easily forgotten.
We always knew they were never meant to be.
But this impossible dream that keeps calling out to me
I will find once more,
For it will set me free.

To the artists

Here's to all the artists out there.
Doesn't matter if you are successful or not.
You persevered.
You braved the hardships.
Many will ask: what value does art really have?
Is it worth all the trouble?
Is it worth risking being out on the streets with nothing but yesterday's newspaper to keep you warm?
Is it worth it?
Is your art worth it?
Have you thought of an answer to this question?

To all the artists out there,
I urge you to:
Fight the real fight
Reach into our minds and break down our walls.
Walls of doubt
Walls of hate
Walls of fear.
The fate of our freedom lies in your hands;
The freedom:
To choose our religion
To choose our careers
To choose who we love
To choose where we go
To be who we want to be - whatever that might be.

You are the real heroes
Because you have the power:
to Change our minds and our hearts,
To inspire us.
You are the truly enlightened ones.
So fight the good fight,
Teach us to be better human beings.
Save the animals,
Save humanity,
Save this World.

The Colour of life

I know that there are many interesting things to do in this world;
thousands of places to see,
hundreds of people to meet,
to joke, laugh and drink with,
to love and to lose;
so many things to succeed at
and just as many to fail at.
But without you,
Without you, I can't seem to feel
 the joy of these experiences;
and even though to most others,
you are just black and white,
an empty wooden box
that just makes some noise;
to me,
you are,
the colour of life.

Rush's telepathic idiosyncratic sci-fi club

"What are we going to do tonight?" asked La as the green orb rhythmically oscillated in the

darkness.

"Be prepared for the journey of a lifetime " said a deep voice from the darkness.

"We are going to communicate with each other...." The green orb stopped and hung in

mid-air,the air around became still with anticipation, as the deep voice whispered 

"telepathically."

La gasped in the darkness.

"Do you really think we're ready for that? I mean, what if in our attempt to reach each other's

mind, we get lost?"

"But La, this is what we've been training for.... All the yoga and meditation. We will never

know if we are ready unless we try. I really believe we are ready. "

A thin strip of light at the end of the darkness became wider and wider. As the door swung

open, there was a short "CLICK!", and then there was light.

"It's dinner time!"

"Oh Ma! Why did you turn on the light? You interrupted our glow-ball game."

"Oh... sorry about that." she said with a bemused smile. "But you need to eat your dinner

before it gets too cold."  

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Rush balanced the glow ball on top of a ring and placed it in between La and herself. "Ok. Now

remember. Use the glow ball for concentration. Then close your eyes and empty your mind.

Make sure it's completely empty. Only then enter your mind. It's supposed to be infinite. Once

you've reached the stage where the mind has no limit, you should be able to reach other

minds. Try and find me after that.... and we'll see...." she said, her voice trembling with

excitement in the end.

La let out an anxious,hoarse whisper "OK. Let's do this!"

They looked at the glow ball. It was no longer just a glow ball now. It was a mysterious and

profound orb emanating a fluorescent green light. The green light seemed to expand and

contract rhythmically. The rhythm filled their minds. They closed their eyes and continued to

let the rhythm play on.

"No thoughts! " La thought to herself.

"No thoughts!" Rush thought to herself.

"oh no. No thoughts is a thought!" La and Rush realized.

"Okay breathe.......1.....2.....3.....4" they counted with the rhythm till they didn't have to

count anymore.

Their minds were empty. A state of ultimate peace had been reached.

Together, they entered their minds, opening all barriers that stood before them till they

reached infinity. They felt infinite. One with the whole universe. 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Rush?" La called out into the infinite. "Where are you?"

"La?" Rush called out into the same infinity. "Can you hear me? Respond if you can...."

Silence.

Rush moved forward going from one mind to the next. "Helloooo?" 

"Helloo!"

From the vicinity another voice spoke:"Is somebody there? Can anybody hear me?"

It sounded like a boy's voice. "Yes. I am telepathically communicating... Who is this?" asked

Rush, excited to hear another mind.

"Oh.... I'm Chuck.  And you are?"

"Rush... Well my actual name is Rashmi, but everyone calls me Rush. I'm looking for my friend

La. Have you heard her by any chance?"

"No.... You're the first mind I've heard."

"Well, she's got to be around here somewhere. We entered our minds together..."

"Alright then, let's look for her. What is the object that you are concentrating on?"

"A flourescent green glowing ball..."

"wow! Most people use a candle or a torch, never ever a glow ball."

"What can I say, we are an idiosyncratic duo." said Rush proud and candidly.

"Ok. Well let's look for it. If you and La entered with the purpose of talking to each other, you'll

subconsciously look for a place common to both of you. That means the glow ball might be

around here somewhere. We need to look for it because that's where La will come."

"Great idea! Let's go then!"

-----------------------------------------------------

"Is that Saturn?!" asked Rush unable to believe her eyes.

"Looks like it, doesn't it ?"

"I've always wanted to see Saturn up close " said Rush looking at it with a happiness beyond

her dreams.

"Well, you're not really looking at the real Saturn, you know that right?" said Chuck trying to

break the bad news to her in a way that she doesn't think it's bad news.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, this is your mind. Not the universe. You only see whatever's already in your mind."

"You mean this Saturn here is my imagination?"

"Yes. That's exactly what it is. " said Chuck waiting for the same heart broken reaction that he

gave when he first found out that it was only his imagination.

"Well, I have amazing imagination then! Kudos for me!" said Rush who stopped all of a

sudden. She was looking at a green orb steadily emanating it's hypnotic energy.

"I think that's it. That's the glow ball!"

Chuck and Rush headed towards it. Rush was hoping that La would be there, and, there she

was. "Rush! I knew you'd come here. The Saturn! The Glow ball! This had to be the place!" said

La looking extremely glad to find Rush.

"I had help. Chuck here helped me. Chuck, La, La, Chuck. "

"Hello... "said Chuck.

"Say Chuck, how would you like to be a part of our club? It's the Telepathic and Idiosyncratic

club! We could use an experienced telepath like yourself. "

"Sure! I've been waiting to meet other telepaths for a while now. Count me in!" said Chuck

quite happily.

"Great! So this can be our rendezvous spot. We meet every week, same time as this. See you

next time! " said Rush as the three of them headed back to the real world.

The Nutty Dimension of Darkness

I haven't told you about the time that Slick and I got lost in "The Nutty Dimension of Darkness" or so we like to call it, have I?


So Slick and I were on our way to watch Ked Leppelin unplugged(I know, I know. How the hell can elemental quark music be acoustic? But they designed their own instruments out of some very special materials, that I don't know much about, especially for this purpose and Slick and I wouldn't miss this for the entire freakin' multiverse!) I told Slick to follow the route directions given in the invitation but Slick would have none of that. He was going to do things his way as usual. He went into a wormhole that came out very close to a black hole, so close that we got sucked into it and we all know what happens after that. For those who don't, you enter a different dimension, that's right this one was the nutty dimension of darkness. Why did we call it that you ask?


Well, the first major incident that happened was when we reached the Ked Leppelin concert. The lead singer, instead of dressed in his not-so-regular glittering outfit, was dressed in rags and he was drunk. his eyes were bloodshot and he was breaking bottles on stage, calling out angry words and then calling it music. That was not his style. And okay, I have to admit there was no concert going on, it was just him. We went upto him and asked him where the rest of his band was and he said "Oh, this is Mr. Droopy" he pointed to one of his bottles. We noticed he had painted droopy eyes on it. "This is Mr. Happy " he pointed to another bottle with a happy face and I am "Mr. Crappy" he said as he offered his hand in friendship. This is not good. We had never seen him this way.


We try to get back to our ship, But some guy tries to shoot us, we turned around and looked and it was Slick. Shooting Slick seemed to not care that he was face to face with other Slick. He said, "Hand over your weapons and diamonds." What? I couldn't believe it! He was a thief. Of all the horrible things I thought Slick could turn into, thief was not one of them. It was like this dimension was bringing out the worst in the people here. Things impossible for Ked Leppelin's lead singer and Slick to become in our dimensions. Good Slick hands over his diamonds and ray gun to Bad Slick and just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, Bad Slick's partner comes out of hiding to take the diamonds. It was me! I mean it wasn't me, it was a scary, demented looking me. I was in shock. Good Slick burst out laughing. "What's so funny?" asked Bad Slick. And Good Slick says "Ahahahaha..... scary Perfect looks hilarious!!!!"


I decided that was the perfect distraction. I slid down and kicked Bad Slick. Bad Slick fell to the ground. I grabbed his ray gun and pointed it at him to make scary me back off but scary me didn't care about Slick She tried to shoot anyway. That really pissed off Bad Slick, so he grabbed the gun from me and decided he had a different agenda. Vengeance against scary me. There seemed to be a duel that was about to happen between Bad Slick and Scary me. Good Slick and I ran as fast as we could to our spaceship.We headed back to the black hole that took us to this weird dimension and........... phew! we came back to our dimension.

The Sky Painter

"Hello!" I yelled into the darkness. That's what it was: darkness. Even if my pupils had expanded to the size of marbles, I would not have been able to see. There was absolutely no light.

"Lights!" someone yelled into the darkness and in a light-instant, the entire place was lit up.Magnificent! I was standing in the middle of an open mansion; one that opened out to the sea!

There were paintings everywhere. Some of the paintings seemed familiar. Beautiful colours swirled and faded behind new colours, the effect being almost hypnotic if you stared at it for too long. I knew my attempt to travel to a place outside the space-time continuum could not have been in vain. Thank god for this!

"Yep thank god indeed..." said an old man walking down the giant stairs on my right.

"So, you've finally discovered me." He said opening his hands outwards.

"Are you really who I think you are?" I asked looking at him in amazement.
"Are you God?"

He sighed and mumbled to himself, "I wish. What does it take to be famous?"
"No, I am not God" he said with a whole lot of disappointment.
"I happen to be" and this time he said with pride "the Sky Painter!"

"Huh?" I didn't quite get what he meant by "the sky painter."

"That's right! I paint skies." he said hoping for some sign of understanding.
I looked around at all the paintings and suddenly it occurred to me. The reason I found the paintings familiar was because I've seen them; up in the sky, every single day of my life.

"You paint the sky for everyday!"

"Not just Your sky.... I paint skies! There are many worlds, you know, and many more universes. I paint all the skies in all the worlds in all the universes."

I looked around a little more and asked him, "How come you don't paint anything else? Like a portrait of someone or anything else?"

"Aah! That, is because I'm not human like you, not mortal. I'm a soul.... I can't see, or imagine, or dream like you. I can only feel. I paint what I feel. Have you ever wondered when you look at the sky, why you feel like somebody outside understands you. A deep melancholy, happiness that doesn't need to be told to the rest of the world, pain, anger beyond your control.....only your soul can sing these. That is what the sky sings."

"Can I take one of your paintings back with me into the real world as a souvenir?" I asked hoping for a 'yes.'

He chuckled and said, "You can try, but I doubt you will be able to."

I tried lifting one of the paintings and found that my hands went right through it.

"Reality can be quite deceptive.You might be Real in your universe. But, here you're just a ghost, a figment of my imagination."

"I thought you couldn't imagine...!"

"I can't. But,YOU can" he said with a sly smile.

Suddenly the waves got rough. Water started entering the mansion.
"Time's up... for you I meant. It's time you got back to your universe."

And he started pushing me towards the door.
"What?!" I yelled. "But, I thought that time didn't exist here!" I said desperately trying to stay for a little longer.

"It doesn't here." He smiled
"It does in Your universe..." he said and shut the door before I had time to say, "but...."

Kid,Peter,Sheela,Mom and I

I came home from school and looked around for Kid."Kid?.........Kid..? Where are you?" I looked under the dining table, my bed, my grandmother's bed. My Grandmother's bed is made of boxes filled with antediluvian thinga-ma-jigs."Those boxes have my old saris,photographs,my drawings, your grandfather's clothes and books and everything else that make up your grandfather's life and mine." she said when I asked her what was there in the boxes. There were three rows of boxes with two boxes in each row.That's only six boxes that contain the whole life of two people.Between the first and second row of boxes is a gap which forms a cozy niche just large enough for a baby goat. Kid goes and hides there sometimes when he's scared, which is all the time. Kid is scared of loud trucks, buses,cars,bikes, cockroaches,lizards,rats,my grandmother's sneeze, when the anchor on the television yells,"Congratulations Mr. Warner! You have won a million dollars!" and vampires. There's probably more that he's afraid of. "One can never know everything about someone" is what my mom always used to say.She doesn't say much these days.

Kid was hiding in his niche again.He doesn't come out of there till you put a plate of warm and delicious bread in front of him He comes out slowly to the odour that seeps out from the warmth and hides in my lap first and then starts eating. I think he feels protected when he hides in my lap cause I'm bigger and older than him.Then, out of nowhere, Sheela came out and Kid went back to hide."They let you come out today....", I cried with joy. She said,"Sssh... I sneaked out from the window. Peter stole the key from the nurse when she was serving me breakfast." "But how did you know how to get here?" I asked in a whisper that came out rather hoarse as I tried to keep my voice down in all the excitement."You told me it was the house next to the rich man's library, remember? So, I asked around for the rich man's library and found it."

Next to my house is a medium-sized library owned by a wealthy man.My grandmother says he's not really rich.He only looks rich because he always dresses up in a clean, neatly pressed suit and a hat that matches his coat.But, I like Mr. Kohli.He has a very interesting collection of books which he lends to me for free. He also likes vampires which is good because I could take Sheela to the library along with Peter. Peter is a vampire. But, only Sheela can see him. Nobody else can. Sheela used to say that Peter is not one of those horrible and frightening vampires like in the hoary myths we read. He is a vampire of Indian origin who happens to like anthropomorphic beings. He tells the most fascinating and incredible stories. He says that some of his stories are true and from a very long time ago. Peter is much older than he looks because vampires don't age.One of his stories was about a witch Carolina who found the home of God. She and God had a bet that they would both fight each other and if the witch won, then she would win a chance to create three new beings on the Earth with God's creational powers.The witch out-smarted God in that battle by using a mirror against God's spell in the very last-minute. Peter said that what the witch did was very smart because everyone always uses a mirror to defeat a witch and hence, God did not expect the witch to use a mirror on him. Peter said that the witch created vampires, werewolves and fireflies in the world. Vampires and werewolves you don't meet very often, but fireflies are all around like a flotilla of moving stars between leaves, or hovering over rocks. Sometimes, they even come into the house through the window.When the power goes out, I like to lie down on my bed and watch those myriad neon lights flying in circles, higher and higher casting a hypnotic spell that mesmerises me into a dream far away.Reality becomes too distant to come back to and a kind of happiness surrounds me like a warm blanket in the coldness of the dark...

I took Sheela and Peter to the library and I must say that Mr.Kohli rather enjoyed their company.Peter told us all about the Valley of Light, a place at the end of the ocean where all light is created. It has blue elephants and pink monkeys and everybody can see vampires,werewolves and ghosts because of all the light.We wanted to see the Valley of Light,so we went to the cliffs in the evening and sat at the very edge of it so that we could see as far as our eyes could.The wind howled and roared about us and threatened to push us over the edge, but I enjoyed sitting at the edge even more because of that, almost hoping that the strong zephyrs would carry me away,over the frighteningly deep ocean, into the Valley of Light... I met Sheela on the first day I went to visit my mother in the hospital.It had been a month since I had seen my mother.The hospital did not let anybody visit her for a month because she was very sick. I remember how I found her sitting in a corner with her arms wrapped around her legs, hugging herself tightly, talking to someone I couldn't see, with bleeding hands and bruises all over her back. She didn't let anyone come near her except for Kid who sat on her lap and cried with her. My grandmother called the hospital and she's been there ever since. It's strange how Kid was not afraid of that person she was talking to on that day. Normally, he starts shivering when that man is around. But,that day he didn't... Everyday in the hospital I would sit with Sheela and Peter and listen to stories that Peter had to tell.I would bring her books from the library and she would read all of them and return them to me the next day.We spent one evening sticking glow stars that Mr.Kohli gave to me, all over the walls in her room. And at the end of the day, I went to my mother's room and told her everything Sheela,Peter and I did. She seemed to like listening to me, but she never said anything.

The sky roared with a stentorian voice that shook the inside of my heart that started to race as I came back from an intense period of wool-gathering to a terrifying storm."Oh no! We must go back home quickly! Come!" I told Sheela as she held my hand and said,"You go back home.I must go back also." "But, how will you go back in this rain?" I asked."Don't worry. I know my way and Peter is there with me." she said smiling back at me. I quickly nodded and started running back home.That was the last I ever saw of Sheela..

The next morning, I went to the hospital to meet her, and found an empty room.Only the glow of the stars remained.The nurse said that Sheela isn't here anymore. I wondered where she had gone to as my throat started to burn strongly and my head started to feel heavy as a brimful of thoughts started to settle in. I couldn't think and I started to walk quickly to my mother's room. Tears started to run down my cheeks and as I entered the room, I screamed"Sheela's gone! I don't know where she is... We were at the beach yesterday and...." ,I started to tell her everything as she sat and listened to me. I yelled,"What?Say something!" and I started to cry even more.I wanted her to say something, anything! I wanted my mother... She spoke softly,"She went to the Valley of Light.I forgot to tell you earlier." And I looked up at her and ran to her arms and held on to her as tightly as I could.There was silence in the room and I wanted to stay there forever in the silence within her arms.