Delirium

I have forgotten now, the scent of sunlight ever since I chanced upon those fateful eyes.

Each morning as I am catapulted from the chasm of my dreams, I see the first rays of sunlight paint these filthy walls purple. My head is still reeling from the visions of hell fire and annihilation, and suddenly those eyes; cold, hard and peace less as they are, make my existence feel like a peaceful pulsation. These windows, with shards of glass on their edges, let the cold November wind intrude into this house that was never a home. Sundays are the most painful for us. She had nowhere to go, and I had no one but her ever since I was with her.

I have burnt my existence away, ever since I chanced upon those fateful eyes.

She climbs out of bed, with a disgust that seems to me so immaculate. I caress the side of the bed where she laid, the side that’s lucky to still touch her skin, to still feel her breath, to still catch her tears. She undresses with her back towards me. I see those scars on her back; it was the skin that bled where her wings had grown and had ruthlessly been clipped out. I longed to reach out and touch the indented piece of flesh, but those eyes; those eyes flashed full on me all of a sudden, and I squirmed away with overwhelming fear.

My reality has slipped away from my fingers, ever since I chanced upon those fateful eyes.

She painted a door that led me to a world, where the torture of love was blissfully sweet. All these years I have known not of happiness, but of those emotions that you have no word for, but know them only by the absence of something that you do; perfect calm, perfect terror, and the existential reality of the non-existent.

My veracity has been ebbing away, ever since I chanced upon those fateful eyes.

I still remember the first time our fates entwined. She looked like a fallen angel from a land short of heaven, as troubled as trouble could be. With lace not ribbons did she make, but she made a snare to capture my existence and choke it till I believed it to be rightfully hers. I heard church bells in the distance, and even the leafless trees seemed to bend around her by the gravity of her mere being. And when those eyes, those eyes that stabbed me for the worse gazed right into mine, I felt the hair on my neck stand up in fear, like acetone on my skin. And as she placed her frigid lips against mine, an odd sense of satisfaction seemed to seep in, and the sense of belonging to anything else, any place else, and anyone other than her seemed to vanish from my memory. I felt myself crumble under the strength of her love. Collapse. I felt the brittle edges of my existence dissolve into hers. I felt a state of delirium set in.

I forgot to live for myself, ever since I chanced upon those fateful eyes.

Now, many years later, her silence is screaming for escape. But I realized that only when she left. I would've realized that her screams became more apparent and louder as the times passed by, or that the kisses stopped feeling frigid and felt like nothing at all, if she hadn't consumed me whole. I lost all my judgment the day she clawed at my skin and as she bit my lips in frenzy. Her love, if it was ever love, festered on ever since then and has always fed off of my deplorable self as I slowly became a bundle of despondency.

All sense of my anguish was lost on her, ever since I chanced upon those fateful eyes.

Her skin has always been lifeless, but to me has always felt like spring. Her kisses devoid of all passion, but to me felt like nothing could have tasted better. Her eyes have always been cruel, her iris transparent, her existence a lie, but to me, they’re an oculus to the only world I belong to. And today, when she got out of bed, I decided not to look at her since it angered her so much. I heard the satin slowly slip off her skin. I heard her getting into that black lace dress that sounded so fragile, I’m surprised every time she wears it, it doesn't tear. I heard her zip up her dress, and walk away in those pencil heels that she hated. But then, I can never be sure of what she loves and what she hates now.

Always have I known that I could keep her, but never have her, ever since I chanced upon those fateful eyes.

In my consummation, I sit against these windows with shards of glass that let in the cold November wind, into this house that was never a home, and saw her walk away. I wanted to ask her why she wasn't taking the car that day, but a voice within, that sounded oddly familiar, seemed to tell me to let her walk away.

And years after I chanced upon those fateful eyes, have I finally woken up from a dream, so strange and so obscure. And the eerie sense of incompleteness that comes almost simultaneously puts me at ease, like I’ve been snapped out of a lifelong hypnosis.

~ Carloine Xavier 

Music Review: Imagine Dragons

It’s not always a compulsion to write a review about mainstream rock bands just because you have this enormous love for the sound of heavy guitars and thrashing drums and screaming vocals. Sometimes it’s good to ‘expand’ your region of musical taste and try something new and fresh out of the CD cover. So I heard about this new breed of musicians from my oh-god-I-cannot-handle-that-noisy-crap friends, distinctly about this one particular song which has become the so-called ‘song of the year’. It’s all over the internet. With their explosive chartbuster ‘Radioactive’, I present to you the newest and currently the coolest indie band on the turf – Imagine Dragons.

Imagine Dragons has a completely different ‘feel’ than most of the bands in this genre like Coldplay or Arcade Fire or The Killers or even Mumford & Sons. And honestly speaking, I wouldn’t mind deleting Coldplay and off this world’s ‘I think I’m gonna cry, these songs are so beautiful’ playlist. I mean get over it already! So the first song I heard was, again, Radioactive, which is undoubtedly the most popular track of their debut album (Night Visions). But I wouldn’t call it that. Two more tracks into this album and you’ll find more fascinating music you may not have heard in a long time. Somehow this group has produced a new thrillingly ‘percussive’ form of stadium anthem-ish music which I’m sure I have never heard before. The energy is amazing and the vocals (Dan Reynolds) especially, just add to the album’s raw emotional instability. As you go through Night Visions, it effortlessly drifts from the depth and power of Radioactive, through the celebratory On Top Of The World and emotionally-driven wailing of Amsterdam.

Facts: This Las Vegas based band is lead by frontman Dan Reynolds and blah blah blah – not important. What’s important is that the way I see it, Imagine Dragons will give you every kind of music you would want to listen to when you go through a series of emotions during the day. What you expect from a group of hardworking musicians is to soothe, energize and refresh your mind and this band will give you just that. Not too much, not too less – just the appropriate required amount. We all have our favourite artists, bands and internet rockstars rotting in our ancient perfect playlists. I say recreate them. Let them be imperfect with startling melodies by artists no one has ever heard of. It’s time to let these dragons take over you for a change.

Must Download: Radioactive, It’s Time, Bleeding Out, Fallen, Amsterdam, Demons,…the whole album! That’s a better option.

- Harshil Bhardwaj

(Dream Compass Team)

Book Review - And The Mountains Echoed

Author: Khaled Hosseini

I’m a God fearing man, and perhaps that’s the reason I liked the book “And the Mountains Echoed” by Khaled Hosseini. Though it has nothing to do with either God, or life and death, but the book has a character better than most humans. Khaled Hosseini takes you from Shadbagh to Shadbagh-e-Nau via Paris, Tinos in Greece, and California, and anyone who can pronounce “a, b, c” would love that. But, there’s more to understand. There’s more to the book than what the commoner would suggest. It’s well written, and probably because Khaled Hosseini is a God fearing man too. That is probably the reason he chose to describe what any Amar, Akbar, or Anthony would look like instead of describing something which would indulge the reader to take him to another level of a mindset, and understanding, and then leave him on his own, to experience the world ahead.

The book is somewhere in the middle of multiple short stories, to not ‘just being about a single character’. But each character, be it Adel, or Nila Wahadati, or Parwana or Iqbal are so much interrelated that getting “Goosebumps” while reading it wouldn’t even begin to describe the sort of a feeling one would have, while reading the book. The book ends with Pari realizing how close she has always been to her brother (Abdul) through his memories and through hers; and through her brother’s dreams. Both, the ones that Abdul used to have, and the ones that his daughter gave him.

Having read “The Kite Runner”, and “A thousand Splendid Suns”, I wouldn’t lie to myself or anyone else by saying that I did not expect more from Khaled Hosseini. One would be touched to know more about Nila Wahadati, and her life; or why Timur ended up helping Ana’s daughter (Roshi), instead of Idris. But I suppose a path more travelled is the one that brings promises along. It is a MUST READ for everyone, just like Hosseini’s other two books.

-Vishwa Vijay Singh Dhandu

3rd Year, Civil

DRAWER FULL OF MEMORIES

Two years into college and almost 2 decades into life and all of it seemed to fit into one drawer. This drawer is a palpable form of the days and the moments I’ve lived so far. I was just about to place another memory in it when something else caught my eye. That was it, the next hour I spend reliving the last nineteen years.

I found a photograph of the first boy to whom I ever confessed my love. Before your mental horses start running wild I must tell you that it was when I was 8 years old. After the admission of my ardent desire for his company till I died, guess what he did? He told the class teacher. As lady luck has always been graceful towards me, this time too, it sprinkled a little bit of the luck dust on me. My class teacher was best friends with my mother who was incidentally a teacher in the same school. Perfect! As the news of my inappropriate behavior raced through the staff to my mother’s ears I thanked the lord for the wonderful fortune he’d bestowed on me. Amen. The ear twisting and the scolding by class teacher in the staff room and then my mother at home certainly added to the purity of my first ever romantic moment. Call it karma, but the boy is in the same college as me, only, he doesn’t remember and I’d like to keep it that way.

I tried on my old friendship bands, one of them was delivered to me by one of friends at school but was actually from a boy who I had lost touch with after I moved houses to the other end of the city. This was his way of rekindling our past. I laughed because whenever anyone asked me who the boy was, all I said was that “We’re just good friends.” Right! We all know what that sentence means. So much for the clichés!

A little bit of reshuffling and I saw two key rings that looked exactly the same and both of them broken from the same end. My friend broke one key ring and then I made him drive to all the Archies stores in the city to buy the exact same key ring. I didn’t like that key ring but I was mad at him for breaking the first one. After I told him that I didn’t like it at all, he broke the second one too.

I found a couple of my fallen milk teeth in a small jewelry box gifted by my best friend. She would hate it if she knew what I kept in it. Gross. I still haven’t thrown those teeth away.  The sea shells that my brother and I collected from the beach because we thought we could sell them back at home. Mom made us throw most of them away but we managed to save the best ones after a lot of crying. The “ghungroos” used in the two years of Kathak lessons. Sadly, I’ve lost all the grace and poise a classical dancer entails. The front caricature that I cut out from a t-shirt that I wore for seven years and couldn’t part with but had to because the supreme court (mom) had passed a ruling that I had to get rid of it.

Everything that I felt made my smile because it reminded me of the person I was and how I have come miles from that, or not. I am a hoarder. I collect these souvenirs and keep them in the back of my closet so that I can reminiscence my past whenever I want to. Not just think of the memories, but touch them. As for the thing that brought to light the time gone by, my most recent collectable, a pick up postcard from CCD and the hilariously horrible encounter behind it is a secret meant just for me. For now.

-Dinaz Malik, 3rd Year CSE

Blackhole

I have spent my days months and years wondering,

The answer to life is nowhere to be seen,
Sailing in an old scotch bottle,
The answer is lost in the pacific.

All directions show no promise;
None shows the path to true happiness.
I hear, I listen, I even try to see,
But the words that fumble from my mouth,
Are still melancholic and shear,

People try to guide me to wisdom;
They try to show me light.
My questions are bigger, beyond the natural,
My questions are beyond the heaven and the hell,
They have a mind of their own.

I realize now how small and insignificant I am,
The answers I begged for make me feel weak and low,
These are not the words you tell a sailor,
Who is yet to start the engine of his Titanic.

These words consume everything you once felt or will ever feel,
They take you to a different dimension,
Where real is unreal,
Where real is surreal.

I hope I could not have heard it,
I hope somebody had stopped me,
But as I waited for that somebody to appear,
My answers presented to me an alternate reality.

Now I want to go back to the place I come from.
I want to forget everything,
My questions, their answers, their significance, their depth, everything.
I want to be that child I once was,
Not the child who yells without any vocal chords.

I try to be my past self.
I try to rewind to restart.
But then again as I try,
Those question do not stop the haunt,
They chase me again almost taking control,
I fight with might with all the energy I can muster,
And I am winning those daily battles.
But I am afraid I am losing my life's greatest war.

-Aanshik Gupta,

3rd Year Meta

Haze

Lost in the middle of a crowd

Every one is familiar, but just

Strangers jostling you by as they pass

All a part of your life and yet so unfamiliar

Your feet begin to move of their own accord

And before you know it you've crossed the same path

Several hundreds of times

"Where do I want to go?" you have no answer.

Reflections, images, shapes, moving around,

You can see your face, but just

A plethora of colors all around you

A multitude of faces, and shadows

All move with a purpose, all move with a finality

They seem to know exactly what's going on,

They seem to know exactly what they want

Before you know it, you lose your face amidst them all.

"Who am I?" you have no answer.

Streaks, ribbons of light, fill your vision

You are trying to breathe, but just

You can feel your heart throbbing violently

Perfectly in sync with your feet pounding wildly on the ground

Everything is blurry now, you realize you're weeping

Things go whizzing past your ears, sounds, music

In too deep, so lost, so hopeless

And when you finally open your eyes

You're staring precariously at the edge of the precipice

You let it all out, the anger, frustration, despair,

Overwhelmed by the melancholy of it all

And then you're diving head first.

"What have I done?", you have no answer.

Kicking, struggling, trying to resurface

Light within reach, but just

The depth so inviting so alluring,

Almost beginning to grow warm

The tendrils of comfort begin to over power,

The will to break free

The instinct to live, to be, tries to flare up

But that is squashed out by some invisible force

"What do I really want?" you have no answer.

-Priya Ravi

3rd Year

The One Night Stance

Silence, they call it, of what,

I may never know, and it won’t ever matter.

The strange custom before a storm, was stranger,

Today, as a guest in proceedings of war.

Blows becoming sodden expressions of a raging world around

Wounds an obvious affliction, memory the natural drug,

Indifference the natural cure.

All full of pity, and hate alike,

A casualty among living they name it,

As the victim was reason, slaughtered by some private treason.

A daft and blunt version, I say,

Of a mind corrupted by lack of reflection.

Let treason be the trigger,

But the shot was the devil’s sacred thought unleashed.

A victim of of reason, held up against pointless existence,

Being turning savage, for against what it was pitted.

The essence of laughter changing by day,

From an elated sense of victory,

Becoming a peace from ease of loss.

Slowly it and its breath choke on fumes, turning into,

My lone awareness to a fire that lives on me

When it leaves, will it leave me burnished or ash,

Is an unlucky man’s guess, and I’ll be making it for him,

But depart it will, I won’t let it stay,

For the love or blood of God, I say.

Faded illusions that passed in time,

Black faith in passiveness to back it,

The season past be a painful night

A nightmare of thoughts endured and endeared,

A wishful fall, a leap, a flight,

A belief abandoned a one night stance.

-Piyush Bhatti
2nd Year, Mech