Dark Paradise

It takes a while for me to hear the faint vocals of a female opera singer over the enchanting notes of the piano. The speedy French babble on the streets has now faded into mere white noise. It’s just me and the music floating out from the open window across the street. I've used all my voyeuristic faculties to try and spot the pianist before I realize that it’s probably just an old video. Perhaps an old lady is revisiting her past through a performance from back when she was young. The scooters buzzing past barely distract me as I continue to allow the gentle notes to encase me in a cocoon of serenity. I leave my earthly body, smoking at the open window, and rise above the rooftops of Rue des Boulangers, the softly tinkering piano as my only guide.

There’s another window open, two doors across, where I spot subtle movement. Maybe someone else is hearing the music too. Fading into the depths of the couch, glass of Sauvignon in hand, going over the events of the day. Perhaps they’re rising with me. Perhaps they’re looking at me. Perhaps I’ll be the subject of their journal. One that they’ll take back with them to a distant part of the world where nobody would know of even the possibility of my existence, but for the description in that journal. A frilly giggle draws me to the door of the very same building, from wherein the beguiling music swells, and I see a man kissing his girlfriend. It’s about eleven fifteen at night and back home it would still be frowned upon. India isn’t the kind of place where men and women can kiss under streetlights. Someone would stare, raise an eyebrow. Another would letch. An old aunty would make a disgruntled noise. Someone might shout something vulgar from the passing car. There’s no privacy back home. Every moment is lived under the watchful public eye. How can I breathe in that constant surveillance when I crave for these precious moments of privacy, tucked away in the little side streets? I imagine what would happen if somebody reprimanded him…

 “But it’s the music monsieur! I can’t help it!” he’d say. Shrugging in the way teenage boys do when they get caught.

Further down the street I spot the source of the conversation I had earlier drowned out. A man dressed in a suit is taking to his friend who seems ready to leave on his bicycle. The man in the suit doesn’t want him to leave by the looks of it. Maybe he’s lonely back home and wants company just for a while. Can they hear the music too? Perhaps it holds no value for them, this piece of music that has so efficiently disarmed me.

But even in this sublime moment, I feel lost. I can’t help but ask myself what this feeling is. What is missing inside that this music fills me with?

I sit by the window and light up another cigarette. The tip of my tongue kisses the filtered end as I think it over. And there’s the answer. It’s the moment itself, pure and perfect in its simplicity. The music makes me feel homesick to the point where I begin to cave into myself, no longer floating upon its wings. It makes me long for something that I’ve never had and never will have.

Summer 2012

So, just for the sake of having this one piece of my life stored away in the seemingly permanent platform that the internet has provided us with. Technology is just fucking amazing isn't it? When I landed in Paris it was perfect. And then they had trouble understanding my English. And then I didn't have euros to call home. And then my shuttle came to pick me up an hour and forty five minutes late. Hmm..

I spent the first week getting hopelessly lost in Paris (sometimes even with a map) and arrived late, sweaty and gasping for breath for every class.
And then, Paris started to grow on me. I opened myself up to it little by little. I introduced myself with a bit more confidence. I got out of my friggin' apartment, and followed Jann's instructions and Google maps' lofty directions to my first PROPER French meal.
The weeks passed and I made friends I never want to forget. The closest friend I made was this charming, foxy little thing, called Paris. I'm gonna post some of my personal essays and try to relive the whole 45 days through my blog. Future Rohan: you're not allowed to forget this summer.

As mortifyingly (it's not a real word) cheesy as it sounds, I discovered myself this summer. I grew up a little more (isn't there something about mature wine being better?), and for the first time in my life, I finally understood what it means to belong. It's like I've been chiseled and groomed for twenty years to come to Paris at the end and just figure it all out -for the moment at least.
On that note- Vive La France!

Why is there a nipple on my tomato?

Till death do us part... not something you hear in everyday conversation. Actually, not really the kind of words one hears at an Indian wedding either. Has the concept of a Shakespearean tragic romance completely died out in today’s world of metro rides, coffee dates and one night stands? With all our Apple gadgets and wireless accessories, and of course that damn thing called the internet –which is probably where you’re reading this right now –have we forgotten what it’s like too really connect with another human being?

I know that all this talk of love seems like the ultimate paradox coming from a guy like me, but standing in my kitchen, leaning over the sink to sneak in a midnight smoke, it’s hard not to think about what seems to be going wrong with our relationships. Are we more comfortable with clinking beer mugs and speed dialing fuck buddies, too *insert generic teenage angsty word* for a real relationship? And if so, like that blasted nipple on the bottom of a tomato, can we cut it off without thinking twice? When it comes to sex, and by sex I solely refer to a no-strings-attached affair, is expressing yourself unnecessary or just plain cheap? Has the human race progressed so far beyond that literary sense of romance that it’s too late to turn back now? Are we willing to, well actually, are we capable of staying with someone, as of this very minute, till death do us part? Or are we just too damn comfortable leaving that nipple on our tomato, hoping no one notices it on the salad plate…?

Let's go rape someone, it's all cool here...

Girls in Gurgaon should not step out onto the mean streets after eight o clock. Yes, of course THAT is the perfect solution to the ever increasing rapes in the city. Of course, we should tell the women to stay locked inside because whoever heard of a girl/woman being raped in her own house right? By a family member/known person that too! INSANE! Oh and of course we should blame the decently dressed office-going women for being more outgoing and hence (Oh-so-obviously) publicly promiscuous, and conveniently overlook our own sisters, daughters, friends roaming around markets, malls, etc. dressed in shorts shorter than my damn boxers. Let the young generation of girls, who have permission to fly down to Goa, Bombay and whatnot, roam free in their bikini tops and tiny dresses, who’s going to rape them? Let them walk down the street with a bunch of guy friends, who’re oh-so-lethal with their Beiber cuts and pocketful of daddy’s money, because it’s so darn safe for them! No one rapes a kid!!!!! (let’s ignore the fact that by the age of fifteen they’ve all had sex these days… so they’re probably wondering how different can it really be? Or whether it even makes a damn difference. I’m cooler than the rest of my school right?) No way… and have you seen the amount of check-posts! If they didn’t catch someone earlier they’re bound to catch one now! Okay so maybe on one off night EIGHT of these check-posts failed to take note of a woman being raped inside a moving car, but that’s like so one month ago. Our youngsters wanna go out and get drunk, look (and then live up to the image) like they should be working street corners instead of the party circuit, so Let Them! Because honestly,

Something Like That Can NEVER Happen To My Daughter/Sister/Friend!

Stay Positive, Gurgaon (and Delhi).

Stay Excellent.

The Shameful Ways of the World

The first time you experience shame, it’s an all-consuming fire. The cold sweat beads on the nape of your neck, the sickly warmth flows through your forehead and the heaving breaths squeeze through a hollow chest. No I’m not describing a panic attack or fever, but the after effects of doing committing an unimaginably abject crime. Not it doesn’t need to be something terrible, per say, it’s just the unfathomability of having done something even remotely like that. You feel the ringing in your ears. The deed is done…     you can’t go back now. You can’t even walk without letting your head hang. You can’t face the world. You can’t.

So you go back home and you resort to some fastidious little job or immerse yourself in an almost perfunctory job. You crave normalcy. You crave an escape from the sardonic voices in your head.

And then, bit by bit, day by day, the feeling of shame lessens, however painfully. With this decreasing shame comes a sense of acceptance. Yes, I picked up that piece of jewelry without paying for it. So I just slept with that guy who’s my boyfriend’s friend. Big deal. Yeah, I took a little cash from my friend’s wallet. Screw it, you say, it’s all okay. I’ve done it once so what’s the harm in doing it again. I never got caught.

And then you wake up one day having no clue about how you ended up that way. And you look back and see a different life. If the old you met the new you, recognizing yourself would be an impossibility. Your life lies in shambles as you look around you and fail to realize how things spiraled this out of control. And then shame returns, for one final visit.

Love is a losing game.

Love. A four lettered single syllable word with enough power to bring down empires. Once a burning desire kept to a simmering flame, love was an emotion much controlled and manipulated, especially in the presence of another, or in a crowd. With changing times came developments in the intensity of human relationships and love finally found free expression and acceptance in public. But somewhere down the line, love has become something lesser, something much darker than what it was supposed to be. Advertised as a deep, moving emotion, love barely holds a place in people’s lives anymore.

At present there are people who would more readily enter into a one-night-only show rather than sign up for the entire production. From Hollywood movies, one can easily figure out the reason behind this trend, after all who doesn’t want to be more like the Americans right? Of course, where love is degraded to a base, carnal sensation, it is also elevated to an almost poetic rendition of the most beautiful feeling on this earth and there seems to be a ray of light for everyone because, well, even Rihanna found love in a hopeless place or something like that, didn’t she?

Love means different things to different people, but all that really matters is that you have someone who wishes to be with you, for better or for worse. That is all anyone wants at the end of the day isn't it… to feel like they belong, like there is someone out there who cares, cares enough to fight wars, to wait for years on end, to give up on the world’s riches. That’s what anyone has ever read about and heard of. No one wants to talk about the one that got away, the one that got left behind. I’d once read somewhere that when people hear good music, it makes them homesick for something they never had, and never will have. That’s what love is about. That’s all there is to it. We imagine this concept of True Love and just white knuckle onto it because when the morning comes and when the dream is dispelled, all we can do is start another day looking for somebody to love.

Maybe there is no love left in the world. It’s all just a gimmick by the media, the malls. Love is a brand name and the fools it’s ambassadors. Maybe it’s all supposed to be a part of life, something we’re never really aware of but always consumed in. Maybe it’s just another of god’s practical jokes on humans. Who the hell knows…