Witnessing Rain

This is a small piece of pure spontaneity. There’s no rhyme, no alliteration. It’s just a couple of verses that came out when I was chilling at the balcony, watching the rain. Things like this resonate with me more than the poems with rhymes and refrains. What about you?

Photo by Anna King. Source: unsplash.com

It’s raining outside. In phases.

Fast? Slow? It’s a rhythm I can’t tap to.

It smells nice. Like gentle familiar novelty.

Smell with my eyes. I smell colour.

Like colour on a fresh painting.

It’s preaching into the air.

It sounds like love.

If there is silence in between, that’s all I feel.

My arms are feeling the drops that I only see.

I’m under construction, a puzzle.

Oh, Lord, your creation is in awe of itself.

Hope you enjoyed this. Thank you so much for reading and have a blast just existing!

The Right Shoes

I’m an Indian kid doing his undergraduate course in English Literature. Most people don’t know this but in India, the number of kids trying to get into Medicine and Engineering is insanely high. The competition is so high, there are literally lakhs of unemployed engineers. It is in the midst of all this that I decided to study English. When I tell people that I am studying English at college, they are mostly extremely unimpressed. And I can’t blame them, IITs and Medical Colleges rule India. I mean it does hurt sometimes. I mean, I did get into one of the best universities in India and I love what I do. I love it so much that I would rather be at college than enjoy a holiday. I would never be at such a great place in life if I had done what everyone else was doing. A lot of people go through life doing what they don’t love. Instead of their work life nourishing their personal life, it sabotages it.

A few days ago, I made a small track and wrote a small poem (though it’s not a proper poem) to articulate how hard it is to go out and ‘do your own thing’. I hope you enjoy it.

Th track is called ‘Leg-Shoe’ and I’ll share the Instagram link to the track here. You can also listen to it at my YouTube channel at Stef Guitar Geek but there’s something wrong with audio at some parts.

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Something I made ft. another weird drawing. It's kinda long and I couldn't fit it all into a single video. It's about learning to make a career with the things you love and care about. Which is what all of us want to do and what God made us to do. But at the same time, your work has to feed your personal life, not starve it. Your relationships have to remain intact. Here's a small poem ( if you can call this that) about it: I feel burnt out. Utterly inexistent My legs have grown out of the shoes that i have come to love  I find myself locked into a room full of old worn out shoes And I must choose. For the world is not for a man with no shoes. But I can't. They stink and they are revolting to the eye. They are torn, bleeding leather, but  they are warm They are warm because they are worn. Everyone wears them. They wear 'em till they die. Some never even take 'em off. They go to bed in them. They bathe in them, some even make love while still in them They are definitely not for me. My toes want to feel a virgin pair. So they can in time rest in a pair of their own. A pair that has formed onto the shape of my feet. Not in worn out shoes they can't even feel. But I am locked in. The keys do not even exist. I do not know how to pick a lock that isn't there. So I examine the worn out shoes. They are introduced in pairs, yet are undeniably incongruous. But I persist. I put aside my pernicious eyes of judgement and peek into the intricacies of creation I see where the needle cut into the leather. I look at the lines and curves. I search for marks made by time but seldom come across one But I come across in plenty , marks made by man. Marks made in his haste to conquer, but sometimes because he lacked succour. For years I've been dragging my shoeless feet, leading my eyes onto more worn out shoes. My mission is to make my own worn out pair, a pair that Iooks like my feet. I pick up the pieces of leather falling off the shelves, I bring them together with the threads that survived. I sew them over my feet. In doing so, I feel a prick or two but never in the same place. Like the men with the worn out shoes whose toes feel pain again and again.

A post shared by AMERICAN CHOP SUEY (@goose_speedbreakers) on Jul 17, 2019 at 10:12am PDT

Here’s the poem. I don’t have a title yet. So feel free to suggest one. 🙂

I feel burnt out. Utterly inexistent

My legs have grown out of the shoes that i have come to love

 I find myself locked into a room full of old worn out shoes

And I must choose. For the world is not for a man with no shoes.

But I can’t. They stink and they are revolting to the eye.

They are torn, bleeding leather, but  they are warm

They are warm because they are worn.

Everyone wears them. They wear ’em till they die. 

Some never even take ’em off. 

They go to bed in them. They bathe in them, some even make love while still in them

They are definitely not for me. My toes want to feel a virgin pair.

So they can in time rest in a pair of their own.

A pair that has formed into the shape of my feet.

Not in worn out shoes they can’t even feel.

But I am locked in. The keys do not even exist.

I do not know how to pick a lock that isn’t there. 

So I examine the worn out shoes.

They are introduced in pairs, yet were undeniably incongruous.

But I persist. I put aside my pernicious eyes of judgement and peek into the intricacies of creation

I see where the needle cut into the leather. I look at the lines and curves.

I search for marks made by time but seldom come across one

But I come across in plenty , marks made by man. 

Marks made in his haste to conquer, but sometimes because he lacked succour.

For years I’ve been dragging my shoeless feet, leading my eyes onto more worn out footwear.

My mission is to make my own worn out pair, a pair that Iooks like my feet.

I pick up the pieces of leather falling off the shelves, I bring them together with the threads that survived. 

I sew them over my feet. Sometimes, I feel a prick or two but never in the same place.

Like the men with the worn out shoes whose toes feel pain again and again.

I really hope this inspires you and encourages you to go out there and do what you love to do. God has a plan for all of us. So be brave!

And as always, have a blast just existing!

Silence Is A Perfect Sound

Shhh…..

Silence. In some cases, we strive in our efforts to push it out of the picture. But in others, we love it, are amused by it and find solace and comfort in it.

It’s morning. The sun just peek-a-booed into the sky. The tree leaves moved gracefully in the wind. The branch of a crooked coconut tree  was  somehow serving as an  eyebrow to the sun. The face of the earth was dipped in yellow. A yellow that smelled of novelty, hope, victory and simply colour. It was raining too. But the skies were clear. It always confused me when that happened.

There is a silence in my room. I shift inside my blankets to try and sleep some more but end up just lying there, my eyes squinting into the sunrise. The silence is loud. Outside  the window of my room, the signs of life are so evident, it’s loud. It’s waiting to enter the silence in my room and break it. Not that it is evil. The loudness outside is very beautiful, extremely calming too, ironically. But letting it in, would mean giving up the silence. I would be giving  up a  perspective of reality inside the boundaries of my room. One that I was starting to enjoy.

Silence seems to add an iridescent beauty to all movement. It does so by just existing in a world of inactivity. The only thing that let’s us know it’s there, is time. But when it takes over, it lets you know that it is not brining about a cessation to activity, but rather adding meaning to it. In other words, it is a pause. And I find that so beautiful. If you follow this blog, you would know how much I love playing the guitar. A good musician has to know when to let his instrument speak and when to keep it silent. I would spend hours and hours, honing my skill of knowing when to allow silence to take over.  When silence takes over in the middle of a song, it’s definitely not a cessation of activity. On the contrary, it feels incredibly similar to standing still while your heart is beating like it’s on a rollercoaster. It is according to me, the best example of inertia, but one on an abstract level. And that silence, I find to be an ephemeral display of amazing.

Almost everything I have has some kind of cartoon or doodle. If you look at my laptop, among all the crazy things I’ve drawn on it, you’ll see this:   Silence is a Perfect Sound.  And I hope that today, I have given the world, a muddled up, arcane reason why it’s there. And if you didn’t understand this post, don’t worry. I’m still learning how to put silence in the right places.