The Phoenix - I

The Phoenix – I
(Unfortunately a true incident)

1st Year Vacations…

I still surmise the day when I wrote my first poem. The only four lines of my very first limerick smelt rose and bled with the prickles in a nip. I laughed at myself and went to bed. I was oblivious that a poet was born in a boy who abhorred rewords and poems. A juvenile guy, who hardly knew about Keats and was once, caught unaware sleeping in the class when her very girl friend recited eternal lines of P.B. Shelly. The next day I made a verse out of almost everything I saw. I envisaged and conceptualized every thing around me in the form of poems. I had heard that empty mind was devil’s work shop, but this time it was exactly the opposite. My vacant mind was a poet’s work shop. A poet, who loved some one in some peal of time and was departed, detested detached and exposed to time. After being overjoyed, I was frightened with the changes coming in my perspective towards things. My brain became a churner, churning feelings finding characters and constantly matching rhymes of odes. A guy, who was ignorant of a place like Crossword, started killing whale of time there. The Dexter in me allowed doing so as it was the time when every one of my college mates was enjoying with their social cluster. And it was I who had traveled the endless journey of discovering me in an aboriginal sense.

3rd Semester…

The odd semester trashed in with some heart wrenching news floating around. We were all exposed to the semester scheme for the very first time in our lives. The quad lined verses now took the façade of a full fledge poem with a stroking in the end. I questioned myself about the central character of my poems and every time the answer came in a poetic way, hinting her presence around me. I still remember the day when I saw those brown eyes in my college. It was the day that marked the commencement of what we call reading vacation. The cupid struck me hard and the poet in me espoused the cupid. Technically speaking, reading vacation is an eon of 30 days, the only 30 days when technocrats open their books and pump their heads in. But it was opposite for me. Early in the morning, I used to sit with my textbook of electronics and even I didn’t recollect when I eschewed the book and opened a new file in MS Word, depicting a verse around her. Even I don’t know what happens to me when I sit before the computer screen with my fingers roving on the hieroglyphic keys, printing, weaving and rhyming a poem that was never heard, never thought of by me in my life time.

4th Semester…
I was jolted by the dates that calendar dated, it was the judgment day, and our grades came in. I felt like what a drongo felt while submitting the annual financial report. I swept the past list of toppers, but the only question that haunted me was the damn raison d'être machining this. A guy who divulged his reading hours in penning poems stood second in his own class comprising of geniuses. One may articulate that these grades of mine made me travel beyond the land of poems. But I still didn’t figure this alteration in myself. There were continents of stories beyond the barren waters of inky poems. I began penning short stories with me as the hero and she as the heroine. Finally, I paid the price of being an introvert lover. I discovered her throbs beating for some one else in her very brown eyes. My dreams were shattered to smithereens. This added more vim to my ditched pen and it penned scores of poems and stories. On the academic site things were getting worse and on the psychological site things were aiming new zeniths of agony. My pen echoed everything, even my heart…

Some one of my friends mocked at me and asked me to write a book if I had the real pain in my pen. I was fetish in my job from day one as an author. I selected 34 odd poems and 15 odd stories for my book, but every time I was provoked by the thought of dissatisfaction. And then my pen penned the story of my life, a saga portraying how I coveted to subsist this verve and I was subsisting? It was christened as ‘The Timed Love Series’ formulated in 10 parts, the only thing that gave my book a façade of a distinguished piece of art. The book was named after the core idea of my first story that was tipped by my pen in the early days of my secondary education. The book was christened as, ‘My Infatuation- Love Demystified’. Unlike others the book was in the form of an e-manuscript. Everything was written on the hard disks of my personal computer. The mad obsession of mine refrained me to take a back up of the electronic data garnered in that junk… I was unmindful of the thought that Bill Gates and Charles Babbage would together stab me in the back in a nip…!!!!!

The Phoenix

The Phoenix – II
(Unfortunately a true incident)

23 September, 2007
8:00 pm.
I still wobble when I think of this peal of time. It was the day that marked the instigation of our ‘mid term vacation’. I was labeled as Shayar in the college. I talked about my book openly in the campus; every one was taken aback by my new incarnation. My blogs proved my worth. Some of my friends mocked my ideas, while some proffered me luck. I got a eulogy as well as malice in the talks of my friends. I was giving final touches to my master piece. And the computer system crashed… What devil opted this out!! My computer dangled and showed some nasty operations. I had an inkling that this might be due to the e-files of my seminar. I was no maestro in computers, so I rebooted the computer, but it showed signs of vacated caches of memory. I was collapsed. 15 minutes. My senses were paralyzed. I hadn’t formulated any back up. The talks of my book rocked the campus. My sister called the computer engineer. I must say that he was a real drongo. He rubbed the memories of my hard disk with a pirated bootable disk of Microsoft XP. 39 minutes. My computer showed no signs of ‘My Infatuation- Love Demystified’. I lost my senses. I felt as I was stabbed by the three scimitar hands of time.

I gazed at the clock hanging on the wall in front of me. I comforted myself, but in futile. I pondered that as it was mid term vacation, I would rewrite everything. The next day I switched on the computer with a plain mindset. I could not even pen nine lines of the set of 98 poems written by me. It was almost unworkable to live those feelings again It is impossible to evoke. But again the fighter in me never pronounced die. I roved the outskirts of the city for software that would get the formatted data back. My friends from I.T. and C.E. proudly pronounced their verdict in a negative tone. I again rocked the stores of various software shops. Everything was in futile. My family members expressed their grievances. They were happy deep in their hearts as I would not divert my reading hours penning my book. My friends demanded more blogs, but no body knew the ultimate source of the blogs was crashed out. My heart was in my mouth and the seas were in my eyes, making my petals wet and pinching it with the salts. I was powerless to extenuate the hour.

The confidence in me kissed its zenith in the descending direction. I thought I would not be able to pen anything again in this life time. I even thought that my book was the font of my success in the academic arena. A font, which could not be rewritten, could not be reworked again. I mislaid almost everything in life. Those seven days were the worst days of my life. I could not heal myself from the sores of time. The persona that I discovered in myself had strayed somewhere onto this gargantuan orb. I locked myself in the basement of my house for hours. My siblings were tensed. The only spunk in my life had been aired by the stormy winds of time. I zeroed that time was ominous for me, but then I evoked of an abstract of my book pronouncing hard work over time. Opprobrious thoughts were the crux of my cerebellum. Every elderly face from my cluster opined themselves over the issue, and I gave a deaf ear to all of them. One day, I was playing with my fountain pen and suddenly I penned that a thought. It said: Everything and anything done with an added emotion show cases your weakness towards the job. This thought again jolted my brains hard. I again began the unending expedition of getting my data recovered… The phoenix of a writer was in formation.

I sauntered to a shop behind the edifice of our college. I purchased some software to get the golden data back. But I didn’t count on the software as I had tried hell lot of software till date. I slipped the CD in my computer and began the process. To my surprise, I saw it recovering some of the files. I called my friend’s elder brother who was a Network Engineer. He helped me a lot in interpreting the software. 2 days… He shrieked his success and I thronged his house. Like a proud Hitler, he gave words to his triumph. I checked the files and hastily zeroed that the data was back… But, after killing 8 straight hours before the computer screen, I discovered that ‘The Timed Love Series’ and the short stories were corrupted by the data base. Moreover the articles on time, love and success were recovered in machine language i.e. 0 and 1. But this time I wasn’t feeling down, because I had evoked some of the rosy time of my life. The time of my life that was versified by me...

The mad notion of mine that connected my work with my feelings wiped out. I now set goals and get my works done. I have digested that emotion in execution of any work doesn’t fruit at all. And with this story I have again begun the eternal endless journey of mine, i.e. again rewriting my book and getting it launched by an established publishing house…Oh God! Don’t bestow barrels of fortune over me; rather shower some of the strengths over me so that I may recreate the magic again on the pages of dire love and inks of mammoth desires…!!!!

An accolade to the lost love.....

Choice Is Yours

Near or far
Wherever you are
I will stay there
In the corner of your heart
Smile or tear
Whatever be the expression
Fear no Fear
I will back every relation
Friendship or love
Be with me like a dove
Fly in the skies of my heart
And rest in the shadows of my art
Water or fire
Whatever be the desire
Hit the highest peak
Making feel everybody weak
Death or life
Petals or edges of knife
Whatever be the choice
Be with me like my vivid voice

Amit Purohit
(V I.C.)
The above is an epitome of my unpublished book ‘My Infatuation-Love Demystified’.

Missing School...

BACK TO SCHOOL


Gone are the days of
Stealing chalks from school
As we are on the edge
Of the gate of our college
Gone are the heroic days
That passed in the schools
Here are the egoist days
In the race of making fools
Gone are the days of chatting
And playing with the duster
Here are the days of chuckling
And polarizing our cluster
Gone are the days of school bags
And uniforms with glow tags
Here are the days of movies
And the nasty canteen coffees
Gone are the days of innocence
And the days of fancy dresses
Here are the days of remembrance
And the time full of repentance

Amit Purohit
(V I.C.)
The above is an epitome of my unpublished book ‘My Infatuation-Love Demystified’.

This one is from my heart

A DEAR FRIEND OF MINE


Friend was she of mine
For me she was at cloud nine...
Merry mornings at nine
We used to meet at the dine...
Naughty noons and sorrow sunset
We departed to meet again...
Her smile and the attitude so set
For me it was every second a gain...
Sunny Sundays passed at the beach
Writing her name on the sand...
Thoughts of her dipped in sea to reach
But could not find the watery land...
Again I went at the dine
She came with an old friend of mine...
For her he was at cloud nine
She was the love, he was the lover...
Again I became the loser
She remained just a lovely 'friend' of mine...

Amit Purohit
(V I.C.)
The above is an epitome of my unpublished book ‘My Infatuation-Love Demystified’.

Life-A Closer Look

LIFE-A CLOSER LOOK
(Based on true incidences of life…)

"Today is your lucky day. Your imagination is at its best. Your initiatives will be appreciated. Even the things abhorred by you will generate interest. Your love life will take a positive turn tonight."
The above lines were written on the ‘AstroSpeak’ dashboard of famous English newspaper-counted upon by the Gujarati medium mongers. I think you guessed it right. I was overjoyed after reading all that astrological stuff. The other crux of the printed papyrus was about the rains forecasted by the weather dept. in the late hours of the twilight. I mocked over that news and overlooked my mother’s proposal of carrying a skimpy raincoat. Nobody knows what lies in store for us, but everybody wants to be the storekeeper. And I was no different persona. I was getting ready for my college. My college-LDCE was about 17 kilometers away from my dwellings. I had to amend the bus from Subhash Bridge terminals. I began my cruise at 9:15 am. At the backdrop of my cerebellum was evening MBA coaching classes and the ‘positive turn in my love life.’

I had to saunter for 0.4 kilometers to reach the bus stand. I promenaded half the way and suddenly… I heard a car horn. I looked back and smirked. My spirits were as high as the ball that was hit for a six by Dhoni. The old ailing Mathematics professor signaled me to get in his car. He used to confront our college gates once in three months. I reckoned that today was my lucky day. Faster than the tsunami, I slipped in. But I was oblivious of the fact that he was a twerp. One can say a practical twerp. Moreover the old odd ‘Eastman Color’ era songs at high volume in the car made the site worse. He was partially deaf and treated me as the same. I got a headache. When I looked at my colleagues at the bus stand, I managed to reckon the fact that today is my lucky day. The language used by the professor was out of this world. I nodded at his every comment on politics and sports. He baffled me with his babble talk and snail driving. At last, we reached the college and I was freed from that nasty cab. I felt like what Gandhi felt on 15th of August…
I entered the college gate and gave a bird’s view to our ‘gorgeous’ girls’ parking. I saw my dream girl inflowing the college with his classmate and that too in romantic poses. My love life took a turn where it was a dead end. I brooded over the superficial knowledge of the astrologer. I in flew the college with a tooth breaking smile. I gazed at the sky like a tail ender batsman who missed his first may be his only century. I went straight away to the lunatic lecture room. To my astonishment, I discovered the lecture room vacated with only one bench-the first bench. Unluckily, I managed a seat that confronted the professor’s desk. I was caught thrice unaware and was put in juxtaposition every time. She questioned me, some core things about the topic. I guessed. But I was failed by her hand written papyrus perspective. I was coveted to litter that trash newspaper.
After attending the tenacious lecture, I marched towards the canteen with my only friend in my college. The cluster from my class rushed in. They demanded a treat for my new Multimedia phone. I found it as a junk at that time. I frittered 60 bucks over them. While doing this, I felt what Ashoka felt while confronting the Kalinga’s army. At the end of my show, I went with my friend to the mind boggling hive in Ahmedabad. It was the MBA classes’ edifice. I faced the building like the ‘The Adams Palace’ with the Adams’ family residing in. We entered the building and underwent 90 minutes of tenancy. I felt every time the tutor made us feel that our knowledge is as shallow as the Sabarmati in summers. At the backdrop of our minds were the fears of our grades and the world’s view towards us after our divulged grades appeared in...

The fear of our grades was evaporated as we stepped out of the haunted aisles of the building. It was raining heavily. The sky looked like a worn out tube light without starter. The other 30 minutes were filled with terror. Every one began to apply their premature managerial mind in taking decision regarding their escape from the institute. 30 minutes. At last we fled from the empowering edifice. It took 20 odd minutes to reach his (my friend’s) home. I sipped a hot coffee there and then his father offered me to drop me at the bus stand. I nodded. We headed towards the bus stand. We saw dozens of citizens standing and waiting there for the bus. His father offered me to drop me at Subhash bridge terminals. I was also offered to spend a night at his abode. But I selected the first option. I was plunged at Subhash Bridge by his father. I waved my friend with a feeling of gratitude in my eyes. Suddenly…

I saw those sparkling feminine eyes at the corner of the bus stand. Communication network jammed and conveyance options were paralyzed. She was shivering in a feminize manner. 15 minutes later. I offered her my Denim jacket. Her touch was warm and divine. Two hours passes like a passé as I listened to the track list of my Multimedia phone. All of a sudden she started crying. I was startled. It was 11 in the clock with the red eyed clouds in the sky pouring waters in full swing. I asked the reason behind her snuffles. She told that she wished to see her ailing sibling in the city hospital, but she now refrained to go there as it was almost midnight with rains in the sky and insecurity on the roads. I wore my Denim jacket and remembered what Bill Gates said at one of his press conferences. He said that life is not fair to you, be used to the fact. I pondered on the idea to sleep in the premises of the church at the back drop of the bus stand. But I was desisted by the spooky ghost stories that I heard when I was 10. I slept on the bus stand.

TWO HOURS LATER…

I was startled again. I saw the same scintillating eyes. It was 1 in the morning. She offered me tea and a sandwich to eat. I was real hungry but how come she reckoned the fact? I ate all of them in a minute. She offered me to nap in her house which was at the backdrop of the bus stand. I was taken aback. I thought how could a girl offer this to a stranger? I thought I was dreaming. I looked back. There was a residential flat. Where was the church? I was frightened. She held my hand. I felt like I was hypnotized by those gleaming eyes. I went to her house with my watch showing me two o’clock in the morning. We chatted for half an hour and then I went to sleep. I woke at 6 a.m. I took out a thousand rupee note and kept it on the center table. It was for his ailing brother. I reached the bus stand. I found a biker there. He asked me some address. It was the house next to mine. I accompanied him. When I sat on the bike I saw the church again, exactly where the residential building stood.

I zeroed the fact that I had been dreaming all the way. I was dropped by the biker at my house. Coincidentally, his eyes matched her eyes too. Finally, I reached home. While waving bye to the biker, I noticed something around my neck. It was a gold chain with a gold cross at the centre. I was taken aback. Later in the day, I found the thousand rupee note in my wallet. I checked my bag in the evening. I found the Bible. I unlocked the gold chain and locked it around my Sai’s neck. My mobile gave me a nasty shiver. I picked it up and heard a digit 540. It was my grand total out of 750. I was a seven pointer now…………………………

My Grades...

THE RESULT
(Based on true incidences of life…)

Success isn’t sexy. It is not a fantasy. Rather it is a tempting process that makes you work like an ass for day and night to get your dazzling dream come factual. When our grades appeared in, my classmates asked me about my secret sauce to success. If I knew it I would be the university ranker. Still I managed to say that if you possess a true heart and a noble helping hand, you won’t fail any day. My feat was no larger than life. I mock some of the guys around us who go on bluffing that they are the best. I have pity on those guys. When I wake up in the morning, I slowly hiss to myself that ‘there is no one better than you out there. Those who drink never taste. So go grab the world. Be a guided missile to your target and blast every thing around’. I just want to share a heart rendering incident with my readers. Here it goes…

I was with my old school group. We were two boys and two girls comprising the ‘Fantastic Four’. I christened this to our cluster as it suited the guys and gals involved in. We were at the Subhash bridge terminals, Amul Parlor. Every one of them unanimously said ‘Party!’ I ordered two extra large pizzas without knowing their consent. They grumbled and said that they had their lunch an hour ago. The pizzas pinched my pocket hard. I wished I could do some damage to Italy from where this crap came. The pizzas appeared within 15 minutes. They were buffered with 9 pieces out of twelve. One of my friends was going to throw them in the dust bin. I snatched it from him and stepped out of the parlor. Every one was bewildered. I gave away the left pieces to the street children. They were three. Everyone was selling something or the other. Some one was selling rakhis; the other one was offering tri colors. There was a smile on their faces that made me felt how turbulent my feat was! Our group stepped out. We commenced towards the bus stop. Seeing this every college gofer at the bus stand began to buy some sort of things from them. They bought those pirated novels and tricolors in a bulk. We were seeing the sight.

30 MINUTES LATER…

All of the three street vendors came to us. There was a sense of gratitude in their eyes. They gave each of us a tricolor. One of them said,’’Shukr guzari’’. I hastily zeroed the fact that he was a Kashmiri Muslim. The other said,"Dhanyabaad’’. My Bengali friend shrieked,’’ He is a Bengali.’’ The third one said,’’Nannii’’. It was out of our world of languages. Later it came to my wits that the lexis was Malayalam. We found there children from three different directions of our country and we all met in the fourth direction i.e. the west (Gujarat). We all steeped in the bus with a tricolor in our hands and a simulating sense of patriotism in our hearts. In the bus, we pledged that every one of us would do something for our mother land…