| Closing Time |
[Apr. 10th, 2009|01:27 am] |
After more than 8 years of anonymous blogging (7 of them, on LJ), I've finally decided to close this blog and move elsewhere, out of the shadows. This almost-decade of anonymity and writing-in-seclusion has been good and bad. Hopefully, I learned from it things I wouldn't have learned otherwise. It has been a constant companion through innumerable discussions, endless nights, and days -- happy and sad -- and I've enjoyed writing here at the odd hours of the dawn or just about whenever inspiration hit me in the face.
Over the years, I built up a fairly loyal -- even if small -- readership, some of whom I now have the pleasure of knowing in my real life as well. Thank you for your kindnesses all this while and for indulging me when my poetry was all I had left. When I started writing this post, I wanted to write something significant, something profound, poetic. And now as this final post is inching to its conclusion, I feel I have no profundity to pen, not even a funny limeric! :)
Anyway, I will continue to write at: http://hemantmohapatra.wordpress.com/
For all practical purposes, this is my last entry as ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) aimlesswanderer ; please update your bookmarks if you plan on following my work.
I'll let Shiv Mangal Singh 'Suman' take care of the rest:
जिस-जिस से पथ पर स्नेह मिला, उस-उस राही को धन्यवाद। जीवन अस्थिर अनजाने ही, हो जाता पथ पर मेल कहीं,
सीमित पग डग, लम्बी मंज़िल, तय कर लेना कुछ खेल नहीं।
दाएँ-बाएँ सुख-दुख चलते, सम्मुख चलता पथ का प्रसाद –
जिस-जिस से पथ पर स्नेह मिला, उस-उस राही को धन्यवाद। साँसों पर अवलम्बित काया, जब चलते-चलते चूर हुई,
दो स्नेह-शब्द मिल गये, मिली नव स्फूर्ति, थकावट दूर हुई।
पथ के पहचाने छूट गये, पर साथ-साथ चल रही याद –
जिस-जिस से पथ पर स्नेह मिला, उस-उस राही को धन्यवाद। जो साथ न मेरा दे पाये, उनसे कब सूनी हुई डगर?
मैं भी न चलूँ यदि तो क्या, राही मर लेकिन राह अमर।
इस पथ पर वे ही चलते हैं, जो चलने का पा गये स्वाद –
जिस-जिस से पथ पर स्नेह मिला, उस-उस राही को धन्यवाद। कैसे चल पाता यदि न मिला होता मुझको आकुल अंतर?
कैसे चल पाता यदि मिलते, चिर-तृप्ति अमरता-पूर्ण प्रहर!
आभारी हूँ मैं उन सबका, दे गये व्यथा का जो प्रसाद –
जिस-जिस से पथ पर स्नेह मिला, उस-उस राही को धन्यवाद। |
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[Mar. 31st, 2009|08:53 pm] |
What do you think
the cicadas dream
sleeping underground
seventeen years? |
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[Mar. 7th, 2009|09:05 am] |
Last night I dreamed that Mahmoud Darwish came to my house. He was sitting right here, right next to this makeshift bed I have slept on for years now. Although I do not understand a lot of the eastern european conflict, I told him I was sorry for all the mess. Mostly, I was sorry he was dead -- he would now never be able to see the end of a struggle he gave away his life to. Then he taught me how to say his name in Hebrew, how to spell it in Farsi. I told him I loved the dialogue he had had with this french woman at a coffee shop -- I had seen it on youtube. He laughed. We didn't talk much after that. In the dream, I turned around to look at my watch and when I turned back He was gone. It was 9am.
./w |
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| It is done. |
[Feb. 1st, 2009|11:26 am] |
It is done. It is like I never wrote a single poem in my entire life.
Which is just as well.
./w |
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| Cambodia Collage |
[Jan. 11th, 2009|01:58 am] |
( +detail )  |
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| Introducing NGOPost |
[Oct. 7th, 2008|08:25 pm] |
I've started working for NGOPost as a night-job. What is NGOPost, you may ask? Well, in short, quoting from the webpage: NGO Post is the people's platform for sharing and discussing various social welfare initiatives. You contribute to NGO Post by sharing new insightful stories, highlighting the best ones from all submissions, and sharing your ideas in follow-up discussions. And, NGO Post helps you in keeping up to date with the latest developments, finding quality information about topics of your interest and establish collaborations with other knowledgeable people around the globe.
( Read more... ) |
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| for Ravish |
[Jul. 11th, 2008|12:37 pm] |
5 years now. J, A and I climbed in the Adirondacks this May and talked about you. A is running the marathon this year; you would've liked to be there. Things are good, things have changed - without you, none of our treks are the same. I sometimes message you on YM!. No one has claimed your ID as yet :)
Rest in peace, my good friend. Rest in peace.
./w |
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| Car + Concert Video Post - II |
[Apr. 28th, 2008|08:26 pm] |
March was a good month. Month of music, photography and some travel. The concert videos finally came through a few weeks ago and I managed to edit+upload the second solo piece this past weekend. Not very happy about the poor audio quality here though -- the accompaniment sounds too bassy and some of the upper melody is lost in that deeper hum. Regardless, I was glad I didn't make any obvious errors during this piece (I was almost sure of making a handful of them).
The video is embedded in the post although it has been edited/blurred for obvious reasons; if you'd like to have the original, please email me and I'd be happy to send across the link.
( Part [I] of the video here.. )
March was also when I finally took the plunge into my first material extravagance and bought myself the car I had taken a fancy to since the first time I saw it. It has been a source of joy and long, long drives on endless highways all through this past month.
( More behind the cut.. )
./w |
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| It has now come to this |
[Feb. 11th, 2008|12:36 am] |
That I don't feel like writing, talking, meeting, or even go to work. I only want to play the piano and do nothing else.
./w |
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| दैनिकी |
[Jan. 27th, 2008|10:21 pm] |
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| Peru - in Black and White |
[Dec. 4th, 2007|09:01 pm] |
Film: Ilford FP4 Plus (B/W) - 125 ISO, Ilford HP5 Plus (B/W) - 400 ISO
Camera: Canon EOS Rebel 2000 Lens(es): Canon USM EF 28-105mm, EF 35-80mm Chemicals (for negative + print development): IlfotecDD-X developer, IlfoStop stopbath, Ilford Rapid Fixer |
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| Yo! |
[Sep. 16th, 2007|05:19 pm] |
Kim Addonizio replied back!
In my head, I am already married and having kids sex with her. We have a cottage in the Andes. You should visit.
Bring wine, all you buggers.
./w
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| Requiem |
[Jul. 13th, 2006|11:59 pm] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  nostalgic | ] |
This day, 2003 July, Ravish Dewangan, a close friend and a dependable comrade on many a treks died in Amherst, Massachusetts. Gone swimming in a pond, he went into the danger zone and drowned. He made his peace with the world. His body was recovered a few hours later.
He did not die without a fight. If death has to come, I hope it comes the way it came to him - doing something he loved, in the open wild and, most importantly, in the headlines.
I have thought of you atop every mountain I have scaled in the last 3 years. See you on the other side.
./w |
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| Towards more Picturesque Speech |
[Jun. 29th, 2006|01:00 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Home, Austin | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  awake | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | The Face Of Love (Extended) - Nusrat F. A. Khan, E. Veddar | ] |
I haven't spoken to anyone with photographs in over 2 years now. Too often, this place has all been about words, and nothing more. Well, like they say, every bad thing comes to an end and here I am without any more words, willing to sit on the sidelines while the photographs do the talking.
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| Waiting for Marianne |
[May. 22nd, 2006|10:10 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | AMD | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  geeky | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Nocturne in C Sharp Minor - Joshua Bell | ] |
I have lost a telephone
with your smell in it
I am living beside the radio
all the stations at once
but I pick out a Polish lullaby.
I pick it out of the static
it fades I wait I keep the beat
it comes back almost asleep
Did you take the telephone
knowing I'd sniff it immoderately?
maybe heat up the plastic
to get all the crumbs of your breath
and if you won't come back
how will you phone to say
you won't come back
so that I could at least argue?
Leonard Cohen - Flowers for Hitler
./w |
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| Gift |
[Apr. 24th, 2006|01:26 am] |
| [ | Current Location |
| | Austin | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  hopeful | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | Munh Ki Baat Sune Har Koi - Jagjit Singh | ] |
You tell me that silence
is nearer to peace than poems
but if for my gift
I brought you silence
(for I know silence)
you would say
This is not silence
this is another poem
and you would hand it back to me
- Leonard Cohen
./w |
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| Came Hell and High Water |
[Jan. 4th, 2005|12:15 pm] |
While your moist garden groans under
the weight of last nights snow
my earth is warm with bodies burnt,
buried this year past.
./w
ps: It has been a difficult new year party this time. Please donate whatever you can for the benefit of those who have lost not just their families, but entire histories gathered over hundreds of years.
http://www.america.cry.org/tsunami.asp |
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