Entropy - A Book full of Pictures

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Greed's all gone now, there's no question
And I can see you push your hair behind your ears
Regain your balance
Doesn't matter where she is tonight
Or with whoever she spends her time
If these arms were meant to hold her
They were never meant to hold her so tight
For the love of that girl
Greed's all gone now, the panic subsides
When I could run, pulling arms to love her
Try to put myself on on the inside
For the love of that girl
Tears swell, you don't know why
For the love of that girl
They never fall, they can never run dry
For the love of that girl
Promise is never over, never questioned it needed reply
But she could breathe deep into my neck
Let me know I'm just on the outside
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I just took an evening stroll today in the university campus. U remember how in school we all used to enter new classes each year-- none knew each other -- and yet each knew each other too. By the very fact that we were classmates - that we studied in the same sections of our school classes.

So it felt in the evening as i strolled around. There was a difference though. I had nobody here to go back to after the walk, so i came back to my dept office and started writing you this email. I could have written something to my sister or to my maa, but at this moment i am ruthlessly alone, and am sure i rather not share what goes through my mind with anybody - except with you - perhaps because you know me and yet dont own me, i feel secure with u!
You will understand it. You would have loved to walk with me today evening. Be excited chirping around, give me the motherly touch i aspired for in the evening sunset.

Its beautiful here, the city or should i call it town - pittsburgh by american standards is located at the confluence of three rivers, and is surrounded by the hills. I am being told winter is always bitter, but who cares of winter if one is already in love, after having coped with a more bitter mind! :)

There are departmental halls here, called baker, porter, mine - hamburg, etc - all results of endowments of rich americans, huge buildings housing the latest of research. Each of them in their structure seem like buildings from the past, just like the dn road building. which has seen many bloodshed many tears and many faces over years, and stands tall despite all that time takes away from us. Did i almost see a mirror in those concrete tall structures - showing me my face!

At a section called the 'Cut' a huge field - lawn kind of a thing there were disparate scenes - people sitting on the park and working on a laptop - perhaps on the latest of nanotechnology, and a group of boys and girls playing football together. The departmental store within the university is called 'Entropy'. I have fallen in love with that name. How apt!

My flight was good. In material terms though. I felt helpless in front of maa who asked me like a child, 'tui ki kore okhane thakbi - how will u stay there' and burst into tears...and baba who took the trolley from my hand as if it was not me but he who was going for his doctorate and my courageous little - self professed practical sister who despite tears could not hide anything from my eyes of her moist vision. The door closed and i was off from dumdum airport. stopped at mumbai - at taoji's place for a couple of hours and then again travelled to end up in the air india flight early morning leaving mumbai.

I am used to flights but this one terrified me a little - international 747 boeings have a few cabins you might know -- with the 3-4-3 arrangement or the the 2-3-2 arrangement. in any case those cabins up in the air for all those hours, i was thinking just like as if this was auschtwitz -- me being deported to the concentration camps - albeit on air.

rest was uneventful. i mean there were stuff but i pretty much coped with them with nonchalance except my changing of my watch everytime we switched time zones. the next jolt of feeling came at jfk, as the wheels touched i wished i could burst out for being SOOOOO far away from home. the Hugeness overwhelmed and made me forget my tears though!!! that's how it always is - the mind coming in to take control of the heart -- why dont i cry out some time i wonder!!!

it all ended up in my roorkee mate here and my mashis coming to pick me at the airport - baaki it was mundane stuff. the routine this n that n trinkets one does with relatives n friends - and watching them in disbelief, later in acceptance, and finally in future perhaps shall be in conversion - picking up accents and behaving as if this was their country. Why do we need a country for ourselves!

so in the end that's the story. i am trying hard to get back to my inundated emotional self. ban nahin paa raha hain. ek degree of control aa gaya hain. after all the bleeding and crying lifes again on a concrete road -- freeway zooming....

can u gimme a good lil brush on my hair for a peaceful night's sleep..
`thequietchild.


A Book Full of Pictures
Father studied theology through the mail
And this was exam time.
Mother knitted. I sat quietly with a book
Full of pictures. Night fell.
My hands grew cold touching the faces
Of dead kings and queens.
There was a black raincoat
in the upstairs bedroom
Swaying from the ceiling,
But what was it doing there?
Mother's long needles made quick crosses.
They were black
Like the inside of my head just then.
The pages I turned sounded like wings.
"The soul is a bird," he once said.
In my book full of pictures
A battle raged: lances and swords
Made a kind of wintry forest
With my heart spiked and bleeding in its branches.