a dream and a stranger in the night

Another day, goes away, as i do what i do best.

Visited Times Square on Saturday, the vision, the dreams of the "almost young" 9-9-99, the day of the pledge, many years later, distant from the dream, yet at the place that i dreamt of. Movies, serials, and imaginations - all helped.

I enjoyed each moment of my first journey to the blessed land of maddening lights, people, colors, everything sinful and wrong with the capitalist world.

each color, each billboard, brandishing something that i did not need, or never thought i will need, creates a magical aura of bliss, of a heaven that will never shut down - unless someone pulls a plug or switches off a inconsequential switch.

clicked some pictures - one of a stranger - i did not see her face nor do i know her. Just stole a moment, when she looked away, probably waiting, probably not, looking away towards a huge world, blurred by lights, glowing in reds, and blues and many colors.

Always do feel a pang of guilt at clicking strangers without asking them, but then the moment that your mind creates for you is lost - the very fact of asking destroys purpose, destroys the moment.

I am sorry stranger - but had to click.

Original Wish (Sin)

As i woke up today, i would not have imagined how it would end, such a simple thing to say till you actually went through one - or many, and just when you thought it would just end as you thought you would - surprise -
"Careful what you wish for you just might get it. "

Is it too much of a dream to dream, is it too much to wish for and actually get it?

Then there are consequences of what you wish - because when you wish you just do it without sparing a thought that when one thing changes the rest does not remain the same. Something else needs to change to facilitate the change that you wished for. And you dont know this other change or do not have control over it. you just think you control your original wish.

I wished in my college days to live and work in New York, the glamour thrown at me by movies and serials - enamored me, invited me with arms stretched out, the city lights and streets, and then my imagination. Me a sharp (intelligent) executive expensive suit, broad grin across my brown face, walking with confidence - like a million bucks.

The dream of many youngsters. By the time i left college and started facing reality, my dreams were turning to a sham, felt like a poor joke at the face of the obvious reality. Started realising that these dreams are just imaginations born out of boredom or lack of reality.

The initial struggle that i went through made seem as if there is a purpose to all this, as if there is a rythm to this madness, to this endless struggle, that i thought i never wanted, but is still getting me someplace "some place nice (Eddie Vedder) ". The imagined place, the imagined job, the imagined woman.

As time goes by met people, smarter, interesting, beautiful, and felt good, bad, and everything in between.

Sometimes there is a rythm and you dont realise it - i did not, i always thought i was just drifting at sea, sometimes i really believed it too.

here i am so close to my dream coming to fruition. I have just been told that i may soon, in 4 days, be going to New jersey, and work there for months to start with and then i will stay there for longer.

I can easily remember the day or the days when i thought i wanted to do this - when i wished for this - almost 10 or more years ago - the struggles that followed, the sunny days at my own company, no money in my pocket and no business flowing in - so far from my dream, so far away from anything close to my wish.

And now after so many many years - it may, just may, just may come true.

How fortune,
so sharp,
like a sword
honest - decisive,
Grants you, your original wish,
just when you did not want it..

After-word

Have been postponing my bike ride for long now. Since the thought appeared many many years ago - life has had quite a few turns, some sharp some shallow and grave. I did it - just want to ignore my hand that cut the deck.

This ride it seems will make me happier, this running away, this gas powered exit of sorts is going to make me smile.

Looking forward to this, looking back at some else.

Reading Gatsby has an effect i have heard - never been warned though. Parts of it sting you and make you realise how close you are to doing things you would not have otherwise done. Circumstance and you collude to do such wonderful and such unbelievable things.

Plugging parts of it to sound profound and intelligent - like this one for instance

" ...paid a high price for living too long with a single dream"
or another " no amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man can store up in his ghostly heart..."

it is so strange - even before i read this - whenever i visited the big city of Mumbai - i felt left out, i felt run over - like roadkill - if it were alive to feel.

Each evening after that seemed very important then - like a drill practice, or a well worded reason for better shoes, or a uniform, when i reached back at VT - all of those people just rushed one way or the other - i was there standing waiting for my train back to my "cosy home and town". That feeling of loss, of not getting what i came for, yet going back with what i could get - kept gnawing me.

Since then, many experiences have kind of brought this back to the fore - this feeling of what you want and what you get.

It seems to be self-inflicted.

Something kinda clicks inside you like bones that your heart does not have, Jay Gatsby reaching out to something that he has been longing for. Admire this guy, who held on to his dreams, for so long, held on to hope, held on to some vision he had.

I wonder if i held on to my dreams, i just see this vague direction - i need to be somewhere, but where is this place, or state of mind.

I have given up on so many things - and yet in a way gained so many others - did i want them or did i just pick them up as trinkets or did i just pick them up because i could.

Am i brave to live a dream, and then accept and close my arms around it when I achieve my dream, rather "when my list of enchanted objects diminish by one"