Body - A Membrane

I often catch myself drifting in the train of thought. Only if I were to succumb to this overpowering current of the river of thoughts, I would find myself, every time, in an undiscovered territory of my mind which wants to show me a new perspective of reality.

These arbitrary glimpses of perspective make me wonder if the source, of such bespoke gifts, lies within my mind or in a preternatural realm if the likes of the latter exist.

I am gawking at the beautiful dark sky embellished with stars. I feel the therapeutic touch of the countryside air fill me. I am starting to acknowledge the darkness, rather a sense of reverence for darkness is being born.

As I close my eyes, I see darkness. It’s the absence of patterns that my brain had learned and labelled over the years to make sense of this world. The colours, it has assigned to various frequencies in the visual spectrum, has vanished. The illusionary 3-D world which only exists within my head is gone. The absence of distractions. All I can see is pure blissful nothingness. The truth from which everything originates. The cradle in which the universe rests and plays.

Could I say that I am witnessing the ubiquitous substance of creation? Isn’t darkness the true nature of the universe? I have the same darkness within me. It’s the same darkness that’s outside.

What’s between is this thin membrane of my body that stops me from assimilating into the whole, the source. The body has merely borrowed an ounce of this prevalent matter of life, this nothingness. It’s more like a contract that promises a regular exchange of this life-giving matter in form of breaths. 

Is body more than a bubble, one which encapsulates what we know as life?

What’s outside is what’s inside. My body is just a vessel waiting to meet the soil.

 

Ghostly Legends of Gurgoan - Part 1

Based on a predominant ghostly legend amongst call centres in Gurgoan.

As I write this I am sitting here in the back seat of the cab looking at the shady roads; slight eerie feeling of which is propped by the absence of street lights and dark silhouettes of trees that looks like straight out of a horror movie.

The name of the company that she worked for was Saffron. Her name is something I never remembered, or never tried remembering. That cursed name. 

An excellent performer, a beautiful girl, loved by everyone, within months her name shined on the charts of employee of the quarter.

[Photo Credit: Wikipedia]

She wasn't all about work. Many worked hard, after all who didn't want to earn well and get promoted, but she had an exotic charm and everyone liked her company.

Haters grew within the company for they were jealous of her performance. Although random calls were monitored in a passionate attempt to prove that she followed unethical sales technique, none could be found.

Cab was waiting at her pickup point. The cabs usually waited for 5 minutes, or more, depending on the rapport with the driver, but the driver could have waited another 5 minutes for her. It was already late. One of the staffs walked towards the door of her house on the first floor, happily waiting for his friend. An old lady opened the door with a phlegmatic demeanour. Apparently, she wasn't expecting any guests. His smile soon dissolved into the unnatural and unaccounted seriousness of the situation.

'Hello. My name is Saurabh. The cab has been waiting for over 15 minutes so just...' Before he could say anything further his mouth was sealed shut by the slow errie movements of this old lady in front of him. He couldn't maintain an eye contact with those deep gloomy eyes that had seen a lot which someone from our plain shouldn't have seen. She opened the door a bit more, pointed her finger at a picture on the wall with a garland of shrivelled sunflowers. 'It's been 4 years since she is dead. You're not the first one to show up on my door like this,' she said in a deep saddened voice, and slam shuts the door in apathy.

Saurabh froze and couldn't move, as if his feet were stuck to the ground, blood rushed into his brain sending down waves of chill down his spine. He ran swiftly down the staircase missing a couple of steps and slipping over few almost crashing into the walls, opens the cabs door and yells, "bhaiya gadi bhagao..." [translation: Bro let's go! Right now!]
All her photos, as the tale goes, disappeared from the team pictures, her call recordings erased itself, as if nothing of her ever existed - as if time had reversed itself.

On further investigation of the happening it was revealed that the girl was gang raped by some of the employees of the company some years ago, brutally murdered, and was buried in a nearby abandoned ground.

One random search on Google about the company would reveal that, Saffron, was built upon an old burial ground. The curse of the girl or the unhappy souls beneath, the company never flourished. The building still stands dark and desolated.
I did go to the main gate of this building once with one of my friends who shared a common interest in the paranormal, but gut feeling you could call it, I never stepped inside. And that was the last time...

No one seemed to have known anything about her, and seldom talked about her. She was forgotten with time...

Copyright (c) 2017 Shine Jayakumar

The New Year Resolution

Every year we promise ourselves to do something different, something almost impossible for our minds to imagine, and we try to push ourselves too hard just to give up.

We often end up blaming ourselves for not being competent enough, not being smart enough at times, being a jerk, being too kind and foolish to let someone else take over our wheel…

Let’s try something different this year. Every night before you go to bed write down one thing you did earlier that day that you were proud of. It may be something simple as helping someone cross the road, an instance where you stood up for yourself, something new you learned, or something you said that made someone smile.

At the end of the year, read through the pages, and I promise, you’ll be amazed at the incredible person you were which you’d probably never known before. At the end of the year, you’ll have a notepad full of things you can be proud of.

Bad stuff? No, you would have probably forgotten them, and even if you didn’t forget them, hey come on, you have another notepad full of fresh pages to start again, to set things right, another new year…

Wish you all a Happy New Year. 

Copyright (c) 2016 Shine Jayakumar

The Invisible

"Is invisibility, a hoax, or a scarcely known truth?" The insatiable mind skimmed through the forbidden grimoires in pursuit of the answer.

After few hours of research, e-books, and few cups of coffee, the question untwined, the answer revealed itself. Invisibility was achievable.

Although the rituals of magic, with its unconfirmed ramifications, could render a human invisible, I demanded a simpler and pragmatic solution. 

[Photo credit: Dogma et Rituel de la Haute Magie ]

Silent contemplation often unknots the serpentine codes of life. 

Life revealed another one of its secrets - being invisible was not difficult, rather unexpectedly unsophisticated.

I learned that invisibility was never a gift meant for the chosen one, rather bestowed upon the one who is not the chosen one. 

Pertaining to my observations and experiments on my social life, invisibility occurred to me as a collateral phenomenon. I discovered that the quickest and safest method to summon the deities to grant me the cloak of invisibility was to demand the truth. 

Truth - the sharp tip of the spear they fear. 

I noticed that I could walk past people without being seen. I could speak, without being heard. I could touch, but I could no more feel the moist warmth of my own breath. I was alive, but never being more dead. I was invisible.

I could sit and watch people pass by, like a child curiously watching the ants march pass by; while the ants paying no heed. Like watching the river flow; its water unperturbed by my touch. I could be there, and not be there. I could be the living present, and also be the long forgotten, ludicrous, dead past. I held the cloak with pride, and exclaimed in the silence of my heart, "I am invisible."

Demanding the truth, I understood, would only cast me into a pit of loneliness. 

Sometimes, we have to let the angst of our fair doubts, consume itself. It's what the world wants, and what the world has turned into. It likes to bask in the dirt of lies and choke itself with the filth of deceit. 

And so, I choose to be invisible, to them, to this world...

Copyright (c) 2016 Shine Jayakumar

The Lighthouse

As a child I always wondered how a lighthouse worked. To me, it was a giant man, the unswerving night guard, the host to the ghosts and goons, the unselfish tower of hope... the living yet inanimate pile of rock, it hums to the songs of joy of the fortunate sailors, and mourns with the sorrowful ode of the ocean.

[Photo Credit: hdwallpaperbackgrounds.net]

The quiescent mysterious monument, unequivocally, had some strange connection. As if it were to say something in its subtle hum, with its outreaching light that tears through the heart of darkness and reaches the undiscovered stretches of the unknown seas.

Perpetually watching the undulating sheets of the ocean, looking for the hopeless and weary, guiding them out of their lamentations, its purpose pushes it to live a thousand more years every time the callous sea storms command it to collapse to the earth; he is not impervious, he is not invincible, he is not perfect, but driven by the faith that he cannot fall. His foolishness invigorates him that he, simply, cannot fail. He cannot succumb to the weakening waves fervidly shaking his foundation; so madly me believes.

Has he not heard them swearing? Has he not bled enough to the sharp spears of derision and hatred, and that of jealously? Has he not felt disgusted in the piss of disdain pooled around his feet? And, has he not overlooked the multitudinous deceptions that were hosted under the shadows of his own oblivion? He has, yet he is unblemished and rooted. It stands unwavering in the midst of it all.

The lighthouse, with its loud existence but silent deeds, perseveres to be the imbecile it is destined to be. It can never expect a visitor's solicitude, for solicitude has long been ostracised and is incongruous for the present it rots in.

It can never fall, for the burden of its curse makes it unshakable, and the rhythm of the ocean waves let it sing...

In the darkness, past the midnight
Alone I stand, the fearless knight
Courage my spear, lantern of hope
Anchored my faith to a burning rope.

"Oh look, the purposeless pile of stones.
Worthless construction that stands alone."
"No wait... Ed, it's a piece of art."
Look beneath, there's a beating heart.

Dawn to dusk, till my chains rust
I ought to fight, till I turn to dust
Until the bricks betray and fall apart
Until my light's lost, the soul departs.

I will be the uncomplaining shelter till storms pass by
Shake off the dust and leave without, a goodbye...


Alone in the darkness, it stands firm - The Lighthouse... because sometimes it takes a lifeless to teach the living to how to live. Sometimes, a cold unemotional rock is also an epitome of perseverance.

Copyright (c) 2016 Shine Jayakumar

Kintsukuroi - Beautifully Broken

Kintsukuroi - a Japanese word that I stumbled upon a while ago. A victim to my heedless assumption that the word lacked purpose. It was never the words, solely, that inspired me, but the unspoken inspiration that the word shrouded. And so, the word lay dormant in the tranquil cavern of my heart for a long time. Until now, when it finally revealed its inspiring purpose.

[Photo Credit: expatsincebirth,com]

If ever, the amorphous soul of a man were to be delineated as a tactile cup, it would never be an unblemished embodiment of perfection. It is, however, a broken cup that we all choose to bury deep. The fine crevices in it that fissures our soul; ones which disheartens us. The interstices that let the dark amalgam of depression seep in. The broken cup, our soul, an evident emblem of the pitiful past.

I always assumed that the cracks in the soul were everlasting; irremovable stains that inclement circumstances engraves on us. I was right; yet all this time, I buttressed a wrong perception. There always existed another façade to the truth itself. A facet which unveiled itself like the 'silver lining' we all search for in the midst of tribulations. A facet which startled me with the truth that I was wrong about imperfections in its entirety.

The facet's epiphenomenal revelation - I met a soul who had beautified herself. The one who had learned to fill the crevices with beautiful molten gold, embracing every scar as a decoration, and wearing every gash as an embellishment. One who had learned to be beautiful while being imperfect. A pragmatic exemplar of Kintsukuroi - being beautifully broken.

And so I realized, the imperfections are the ones which make us beautiful. The scars of cruel time that blesses us with empty spaces, just so we could cleave the broken pieces of our brittle soul with invigorating gleam of hope.

The dear imperfections which ceaselessly remind us, "we all are broken, yet beautiful."

Copyright (c) 2016 Shine Jayakumar

The Last Touch - Shawn writes to Tennie

"Here, I've got something for you." I pulled out a folded paper from my jeans pocket.

"What is it?" 

"Um, well it's my grocery list."

"Um-hmm. Really?" She raised her eyebrows suggesting mild sarcasm.


"Kidding. A poem I wrote..."

Shawn from 'Never a goodbye' writes a poem for Tennie before he leaves with her memories in his heart.

And he writes:

I was amidst faux masks of expressions

Overpowering suffocation of an unknown crowd

I witnessed a glimpse of a shimmering brilliance

A mystical presence that began to astound

Flowing hair with subtle streaks of silver

Your little eyes that pierce through my soul

Those balanced lips holding a natural pout

Your golden face embellished with mole

Those swift sharp feet seems always in a rush

But quicker is your tongue that flows like a creek

Powerful persona that amazes the world

Yet a kind Tibetan heart which is utterly meek

Time has it written, it never heard you lie

And so is time so darling to you

Never known to let slip a second in vain

A rare admirable quality only seen in few

Something strange there is in you

Something beautiful that I can't explain

I may be fantasizing, day-dreaming, hallucinating?

Though, am I the one to blame?

Thoughts of you don't trouble me at all

And seldom you visit my dreams

Only because you keep me awake at nights

You're the priceless bright of my night that gleams

You could tell a tale with silent words

Feel, but you'll never express

Your heart that sings a subdued ode

A one that never blatantly frets

Never a detail can slip past your watch

Admirable is the way you observe

I wonder where your humour is forged

Your mind a thoughtful reserve

The way you suppress a smile

And the way you silently say “I care”

The way you catch me red handed

When I stupidly stare

The way you stand up for right

And yet appear harmless as dove

The eyes of compassion and solicitude

A heart filled with love

And...

Sometimes I wonder if you're an angel

fallen from heaven and hurt your butt

For they look so rounded and attractive

as if big lovely pumpkin given a perfect cut

As you smile while reading that line

I so wish to capture it while I can

Imagine what they call us if we're together

Probably, Miss. BenTen and Mr. Tan

I love the way you call me names

Love the way you pull my chains

The way you just burst out in laughter

When I “figuratively” eat your brain

I must say I am utterly lucky

that you and I met this way

and if you could grin and bear a little darkness

Forever I would love to stay

This poem had never seen light before, until now; upon special request. Thank you all for taking time to read my posts. 

Copyright (c) 2016 Shine Jayakumar