My plan to go a little further east

Am I alone in thinking bucket lists are overrated? Maybe! But cynicism with bucket lists ends in Japan. Yes, I have a secret Bucket list (not so secret now) that has ‘Visit Japan’ written in neon lit up like Shibuya crossing! If you don’t what Shibuya crossing is, you have come to the right place. Here I will tell you all the things I would love to do when I set foot on the Japanese soil! Hajimemashou?

The minute you land in Tokyo, it is meant baffle you; tackle you to the ground and break your ideas of humanity! I would like to keep this for the last or at least a little further down my list. First, I would like to see a giant who has been looming in my mind for long. Known to the locals as Fuji-san and Mt. Fuji to us!

The view from afar is said to captivate your senses. I will take to Fuji-san so we can understand the insignificance of worldly struggles, just as an astronomer awes at space. Lake Kawaguchiko is said to sustain the best view of the dormant giant. Though there are four other lakes which have decent views, this Onsen town is the most developed and picturesque.

After basking in the brilliance of the snow topped Fuji, I would like some hustle bustle to wake me from the stupor. I am going to be taking you to Shinsaibashi and Dōtonbori in Osaka.

There is a saying that goes like, “Dress till you drop in Kyoto and Eat till you drop in Osaka”. You will come to understand that when you set inside Shinsaibashi and Dōtonbori. My suggestion is that we head to Shinsaibashi first, as it aisles and aisles of designer and luxury lined up. Take your shopping or window shopping game to the next level in these streets. When the sun sets we will make our way to Dotonbori. The streets are full of takoyaki(fried octopus dough ball), okonomiyaki(Fried pancakes) and Kushikatsu(Fried food on a stick) vendors. Get your authentic bowl Ramen (whoever is thinking Ichiraku Ramen, Dattebayo!)

To finish off this evening, take a boat ride on the canal and melt into your experience of an authentic Japanese night.

Next up on the itinerary is Hayakawa-cho. In everyone’s life at one point in time, we decide to live in a quiet mountain surrounded town. This is where your dreams will come true, well momentarily so. Hayakawa is a town in Minamikoma District, Yamanashi Prefecture. It is well known for its hot springs, view of its peaks. The town very sparsely populated and ready to be explored by lost souls like us. Perfect hide-out if you want to escape the mainstream and disappear into the steaming onsens. Find your place in this complicated existence and get ready for the rest of your life. 😊

Let’s pace things a little bit! Here comes the city known for its vibrancy. Tokyo, an Otaku’s dream and any human’s trippy dream! Times square maybe a tourist’s moment of wonder but Shibuya crossing is a neon wonderland on its own. This is a city of surprises; a city where the old values and new ethics coexist in perfect harmony. Tokyo is an easy destination for shopping (not easy on the pocket for the careless though). A pop culture heaven, head to Akhibara if you are an anime freak, maid cafes and anime stores will welcome with open arms. Roam around the city in your pace, make sure you have a pass for the trains. The taxis within the city is famously known to be costly.

Tokyo is a city of various lifestyles. In this fast-paced dream that is Tokyo you will understand that humans, whatever the lifestyle, however they dress are humans that’s it. What makes us special in this infinite existence is our power of choices and human nature of choosing happiness. So, choose this experience, choose Japan. 

Half-mooned eyes

I am taking that half-moon eyes and that upturned lips to my grave;

Give me that senile smile and vinyl voice, lets see who you can save.

I am lost in this giant maze, they named it life and I wake up to it's face

I used to kick and scream, now I kiss and smile. Because, I wake up with your embrace

Make the voices in my head sing of love and paradise,

Make it subtle and mellow, like the gold and stardust in your eyes.

You take a piece of my heart and proclaim it's a map. You hold it in the light,

you smile and say "I see el Dorado", me too, what a peachy sight!

Adventure, forehead kisses, chaos and that half-mooned eyes,

Give me everything and let me write it down, till my notebook cries.

Cries in longing as I write of your words, the stray stand of hair and the space between your lips

Morality is a concept and you are a dream. Where is the lie here? Oh! the way my heart slips

My soul in your sheer presence, it slides from the dark and has no fear,

Love looks at the way we look at each other and snickers and we hear

the sound of it's victory, because now we have hope, hands are wings,

hearts aflight, words are feather beds, when we kiss, the space between our lips sings.

Thank you Viria for the awesome picture :)

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In bold

       Has there been any moment in history where genius was not associated with madness? Every person, who has walked this earth without surging towards the realm of madness, has called mind with a touch of deviance from the norm, crazy. How frivolous and tiny of them! Such is an act of cowardice not of sanity. We know that the standards of sanity are set by men who are scared of the unknown. My good people, open your eyes and dread not the new, dread the mundane
     Free and curiosity with unconquerable thirst will go to fight everyday in our minds. It is what your inner self fuels, it is the thing which you tear your heart and feed to, it is that sensation which becomes you. Let the thirst and curiosity win over our loathsome fears and anxiety everyday. Let the wind itself sing with unfathomable electricity of the hunger in our eyes. Oh how the human mind can change the mountains and shift the oceans, be never weary of them.

     When I tell you humans are the midst exquisite of an the creatures to walk this earth, I am not considering about how much they have destroyed for once. I am considering how much they have created, they have discovered and reimagined. I am talking about the euphoria of the man who discovered fire, the dauntless courage of the music composer whole juggling the notes to make his new tune; I am talking of the awe with which the cosmologist hold the universe; I am taking of the wonder with which the architect sees the Stonehenge; I am talking about the graffiti artist who changed the face of the boring alley ways; I am talking about how amazed a Mathematician is with his numbers; I am talking about the humans who stand in the space beyond the line of madness to give the world around them new, the strange, the impossible. The exquisite humans who appear in bold!
      Oh these beautiful humans, let them never be fathomed by the downward spiral of the normal, let them spread their madness in waves; let their minds devour minds of the mediocre. Let mediocrity die, like it's destined fate. Let the dopamine flow be everlasting. In these moments of poor joy of creation, let the deal chaos either away. Let there only be the true light of madness and new things everyday for which we are destined.


Thank you viria for the beautiful picture!!

Dragons and the drunken Soul

That thin layer of lace that separates my hand and your heart

I will stand snickering, as I will return with a battalion to tear it down;

For I am a fighter, in my mind a fire igniter, but now the calm before a storm;

So, I will speak in allegory and conquer the seas only in metaphors.

Let me tell you of my rage inside, before I spew it in blood;

This thirst for the world started when I found I had a choice,

Oh how it grows ever so ragingly inside my fragile soul

I could not distinguish failures from fallacies shrouding my way, I wage wars of truths.

The nuclear reactions and quasars inside me fool you for the sun;

Light and dark go hand in hand, you will see that playing out in my eyes,

For I hold hands out of impulse, I kiss as keepsake but run when you hand me your heart

Don’t mistake me for a sprinter, dear, I want to stay even the winter,

But its your heart, its scorching a trail across my skin.

You are asking me to just stay, we can build camaraderie, you say.

Oh my silly dear, I have read Kafka, lived on Neruda and breathed in Bukowski

I know “only camaraderie” doesn’t escape into your broken soul through the crevices

So, lets stop calling it names, for I cannot name my feeling,

I cannot fathom the pleasure of seeing the lights hit your face slipping around your lips  -And resting there

When I think of that later, when the stars are high, I curl at the corners and lose my senses

Just tell me, love, what should I call it when it wakes me up like the hand of destiny

My drunken soul is asking for more, but there is lace

I can see your smile touch your eyes, I can see the arms which will house my dreams

But the stigma of the lace is profound and its breathing fire

Let me be my knight and slay my dragons, till then hold on to your heart for me

When I come home, hold me gently for I will be scarred

Lay your heart across mine, for now I will be as strong as your heart demands

Till then hide your heart with your smile and call my name in the dark

For in the dark I am drinking light and slicing demons; when I hear my name I will know                   -why I am fighting

 


photo courtesy: Viria

Deliverance

                   One minute you are working on that report you were supposed to do and the next minute hysteria grips you in a choke-hold. You have lost all sense of reality and you fall into an endless abyss of denial and self-loath! It feels like the worst ache you have ever come across in your life. You want to scream in pain but your vice goes mute.

                   Every possible failure, every possible mishap plays out in your head. You feel the ground trembling, in front of everything you love, you stand for shakes. All the dreams, hopes and ambitions that you built over the years are fading away like the castle in the waves. You can never be that person you want to be, you can never know wat it means to look at a mirror and feel content at the person staring back at you.

                   You want to rage quit this life. You want to end it. You think of all the reasons that makes you want to quit! Failures and mishaps! Ignorance and people stampeding over you! Insecurities and the unending sense of being inept. The battles fought inside oneself, the fake smile that is plasters on and the quintessential humorous trait which comes as a side-effect of bearing a demon inside! Sick of everything!

                   Sick of all the cities you will never see, sick of all the coffee that will never be finished by you, of all the songs that will mean something to someone bit not you. Sick of people and their sheer existence and non-existence! Sick of the grand plans of the universe which seem to make you the terminal miss-out or the scapegoat.

                  That’s it! You decide to stop it now! So during the last minutes, you close your eyes and think of that one person who you leave behind and then the words you want to tell them, your mind blurts out ”Don't quit, keep on fighting” you open your eyes with a start!

                  You want the person, who has stayed by your side through all the insanity that life spews at you, to never give up! You don't want to see them letting go; you don't want to see them back down from life. You want them to win. Wont it be bashful if you assume they didn't want the same for you? Wont it be double standards if you let go now?

                  Then at 12:23 am, by the light of the glowing laptop and the sound of your favorite band screaming “ We are the jack-o-lanterns in July setting fire to the sky” knowing that things get scattered to remind you tat they need to be unscattered by you. Only you can be the knight that slays the dragon or the heroic dragon that saves you the boy from the treacherous wizard or the wizened wizard who does magic to make children happy! In that moment of realization, you find your deliverance.  

The Quest

                         

He always believed he was a poet caught in the body of a cynical misfit who had no guts to shout out the words to the world. So, the era of the poet either never begun or was extinguished as soon as it sparked. So in the noisy room where the lead singer was crooning malleable poetry as punk-ass rock he belonged just for an instance.

                               So this guy wearing a bleached jeans, t-shirt that says “Vagabonds don’t eat breakfast” and with disheveled bed hair was the poet who never lived, one more mosh-pit away from being a hostile punk fan! His hail smile touched his eyes, makes you wanna kiss his upturned lips said the girl who left him for a member of a band he took her to see!

                               So now you know he has loved if not loved in return but he did love! He had tried writing verses which he thought would go well with the way light touched her auburn hair while she slept. He thought of writing a thousand line ballad highlighting how she smelled her coffee, how she never let go of the song she caught till the day was done! But instead he put those ballads to sleep and rested his lips against the nape of her neck. Now she was gone. He had mourned, now he does not need a third shot of tequila to forget her, she is gone with a flick of his memory’s hand!

                               So in that darkened room with jeering music with people rocking and gyrating according to the sound that seemed to swallow the air, he sat with a pen the quintessential heart attack inducing punk rock was his word awakening melancholy. He thought to himself to love an existence with the every fiber of his being, with the burning song was the way he loved and it rested so sweetly and addictive against his heart but to be loved back with the same ignited conviction, now there was his drug! So the port at last penned

“My secrets are burning bright and its blue

We’ll find each other through these mazes, I know I see you”

Acknowledgement : Thank you Viria for that wonderful picture!

He brought hope and She made it last ! - a tribute to The Avatars

                                        As a kid watching The Last airbender was all about the fun. yes, watching bald-headed kid with a Hermione like girl and funny as frak brother travel the four nations was a delight. Then the show disappeared in the midst of all the noise of all the other new shows and an obsession with football. Years after, when the engineering mathematics was too much to bear and when everything around made me wonder if I'll ever find my way I rediscovered Avatar!
                                       As I watched that show everyday,the bald-headed kid was now Aang the Avatar who disappeared hundred years back, The Avatar with mild manners and an unbreakable will and heart! The Hermione like girl was now Katara, one of the most talented waterbenders ever. The funny as frak guy now the hero who didn't need bending to be terror of the enemies! Toph, the blind bandit who did not let being blind stand in the way of being world's meanest, the world's badassiest earth bender! Zuko who taught our honor and redemption lies only within us and it is our own right to choose the path to follow and that past is called so for a reason!
                                          So, this is what the first team avatar gave me! They gave me hope, a reason to always believe in myself, the wisdom of Iroh! They taught me even in the midst of all the chaos you have the right to let yourself go and have some fun! The phenomenal struggle Aang has with himself as he weighs the things he was taught as a kid and the actions he must perform as The Avatar! Katara finding the effects of vengeance, Sokka learning that the minute we decide to outgrow ourselves we start to become powerful! Zuko learning to just let it go! Toph, well Toph is boss as always!


                                          All simplistic lessons we learned from these people, the times when they rose they brought us up with them they stood as guardians! As Aang found his purpose, he actually found my hope locked away when the strange came knocking! Thank you Gaang :)
                                         To know that Aang lives on in the next Avatar, wow that was happiness! Aang, a quiet air nomad boy with gentle manners and spirituality imbued within him was reincarnated as Korra, the ever restless soul with an innate urgency to move forward. patience was a virtue far away for Korra ! Now a teenager, Korra sets out to republic city where she is thrown pits of hurdle after hurdle! Transformation of kid into the woman who is the Avatar is spine-chilling. It was the duty of Korra to maintain the peace and order that Aang brought to the nation!
                                          When she battles Amon she conquered over the division and discremination. when she conquered Unaloq she did the unthinkable and bridged the gap between the worlds , When she brought Shakeer she conquered anarchy! When she conquered kuvira she demolished tyranny! This was not a walk in the park for Korra. Korra was practically destroyed and was forced to rebuild herself from dust, which she did!

                                          The Legend of Korra showcased one of the strongest women ever to be portrayed on television! Lin Beifong, Kaaya, Su Yin Beifong, Asami etc., The treats that The legend of Korra brought with it speechless!! getting a glimpse of the "Gaang"!, the Sokka vibe of Bolin! The actual complicated love web of Makko, Asami and Korra!, getting to see the first Avatar ever, special visits to the spirit world, life lessons from Iroh himself!, getting to see a dragon again! to top all of that all the new bending actions(real world out, four nation in)
                                         So wrap it all up what can I say about The Avatars who lifted from purgatory and gave me hope? what else one big thank you Aang and Korra! Now I know guys. All the good times I had with you guys I never stop reliving it! Because friendship lasts more than one lifetime, I don't see why not!