A Love Song

When there's no fire in your heart

And all the lights go dim

When you are sinking but lack the strength to swim

I will be there to hold you

And just as a lighthouse

Guides ships to shore

I will guide you home, to me

When you're living in a world where it's always Monday

And the sun refuses to shine

When you're cold and lonely

I will be there to dry your eyes

And I will walk on water

And catch you when you fall

So my love

I ask of you only this

Promise to think of me when the stars fall from your skies

And I promise to be a bridge over troubled water

Ferrying you home where you belong

The Bilge Master

The Market

Welcome reader. Welcome to the Market. The Market is a special place which can be found near a huge bus stand and it is like a collection of catacombs, except the tunnels have been replaced by shops and they are all above ground.

The Market caters to all. It is perhaps the most tolerant of place. Here you can see Hindus serving Muslims, a Jewish bakery employing Muslim chefs to make cake for a Christian festival, you can see short people, tall people, fat people and thin people and it is the same with the goods available.

From knives and forks or other cutlery, to clothes and tailors to curios and cake, the Market has it all. It would be the ideal place to make up fairy tales about but Neil Gaiman has already done that in Stardust.

The Market is an ecosystem. A living entity made of concrete and bricks. It has underground parking. It has a Clock. It has shopkeepers selling both fake and real merchandise. It has a restaurant. I don't think it is possible to explore the Market thoroughly in one day. It will take at least three.

So come one and come all. The Market awaits!

The Bilge Master

Lessons I Learnt from My Dog-A Guest Post by Kasturi Patra

I'd first heard of her from my brother. She was a POTF fan. That's all I knew when I sent her a friend request which she accepted. We talked and we became friends. We met at her marriage. She's been around, giving me advice now and then and is like a distant elder sister.

Kasturi Patra is a lot of things. Confident, sassy, smiling. I've never seen her angry. She's a wonderful human being and I am fortunate to have her among my friends. She's in the middle of writing a novel whose second draft she's finished.

She stops by the blog today to talk about her dog. This post was originally published on her blog ViaKat and you can also find it here. She's the kind of writer I hope to one day be.

Please welcome her to the blog!

The Bilge Master

It was a few days before Diwali in 2015. A friend had come over in the evening and while we were chatting with her, a soul piercing howl shattered our conversation. Two months ago, a stray dog in our locality had given birth to a litter of pups and it seemed that the cries came from one of them.

Hubby and I rushed downstairs to find this pup crying in pain. While some of our neighbours were busy fighting with the delivery truck driver and his helper for having run over the pup, I noticed that the furry bundle simply lay in a corner looking up for help. In an instinct, I took him on my lap. We hadn’t thought of adopting a dog before this. We already had two cats (who’d even travelled with us from Kolkata to Delhi when we shifted cities)  and that seemed more than enough. But the moment I held him, he stopped crying and stared at me with those huge brown melting chocolate like eyes. And we knew he needed us. A series of vet visits and treatments later, if you look closely, you’d still notice that Woof does not put his full weight on his right hind leg. Yet he is one of the most active, playful and happy dog that you’ll come across.

This really isn’t the day when I wanted to write good things about my dog. It rained heavily last night (the heaviest Delhi experienced so far, this year), the maid was late and he decided to pee for full two minutes on our bedroom’s floor. Dude is almost 3 years old, can you believe it? Well, if it’s wet outside, he refuses to step into the wet ground and instead chooses the room to be his warm and cozy toilet. Arrrggghhh!!

I was mad at him. He received a few spanks on his nose with a rolled up newspaper. And yet, after a while, he lay next to me and licked my face and all my troubles melted away. I do not know how they are so forgiving but that’s how dogs are. And while I was still upset with the morning’s routine being thrown into disarray with the dirty dishes and the wet floor and hubby’s getting late for office (hubby cleaned up all the pee in both the rooms, Yes, both because my other dog also decided to pee on the living room floor but more on her later.), I noticed Woof wagging his tail and trying to play with me. He seemed to say, “How long can you be angry with this lolling tongue, the wet nose, and these pleading eyes dipped in innocence and mischief in equal amounts?

My dog doesn’t keep grudges.

My dog lives in the moment.

 My dog makes mistakes but he’s ready to make up for those in his own ways.

Every time either of us are back home from outside, he behaves as if our mere presence is responsible for all his life’s joys.

My dog licks my tears and puts his head on my knees to show that happiness is just around the corner.

Irrespective of my physical or mental state, whether it’s my morning breath or I’m sick and miserable, my dog simply loves me. No judgement whatsoever. 

Before he came to my life, I never imagined it was possible to love an animal to this extent.

Half an hour back I was on the verge of a breakdown and I was searching for guided meditations on the Insight Timer app to calm me down. Then something came upon me, and instead, I chose to write about my dog. I’m already feeling better. I don’t know if on that night before Diwali, it was him crying for help or my soul inviting him over to save me again and again and again.

Chris Daughtry- In Appreciation

I love music. It speaks to me on so many levels and there are so many songs- some make me sad, some make me happy, others make me think and some are the equivalent of a hug. I am going to talk about one artist today who came second on American Idol and started his career. His name is Daughtry.

I discovered Daughtry when I heard his album Leave This Town. No Surprise was the first song I heard. I remember playing it on loop and later getting the whole album from a friend and playing the album on loop. No Surprise is currently playing on Spotify as I write this article.

Leave This Town was an introduction to a different type of alternative rock for me. It paved the way for me to appreciate bands like The Fray and Three Doors Down. One line in that song stood out back then and is relevant even today

"The loving look that's left your eyes

Is why this comes as no..as no surprise"

Suddenly the song changed from being a song about changes happening in life to one about dealing with change in life. At the time I was in high school and me and my brother Sagnik (Satan) Mukherjee and I used to hang out and we would discuss lessons and music and specifically Leave This Town.

Daughtry went on to write other songs and produced an album in 2013 called Baptized which I got hold of in 2015. Somehow it seemed to be different from the Daughtry I was used to. It had good songs such as Cinderella but it seemed to be an experiment. An experiment that worked in some tracks and didn't in some tracks. But it was Daughtry so it was special.

This was the guy who wrote

"All that I'm after is a life full of laughter

As long as I am laughing with you"

Insatiable hunger was born in me. A hunger for Daughtry. Imagine my joy when I found out that he had brought out an album in July 2018 called Cage to Rattle. This album features a grown up Daughtry. He has matured in the five years since Baptized. This album is like wine if Leave This Town was beer. We aren't in high school anymore. We have grown with Daughtry. Tracks like Just Found Heaven, Death of Me and As You Are are a testament to this. (If you haven't heard the album yet, check it out. It's not going to disappoint).

Daughtry is special. Leave This Town is special. It's the soundtrack to my school life when I was a mood swinging teenager barely surviving the hormones in my body. The songs are a comfort. The lyrics are branded in my brain.

The dude is back, with a new set of songs which now appeal to the me who went through college and is a man. Daughtry has appealed to the adult in me just like he appealed to teenage me.

Here's to growing older with more Chris Daughtry.

The Bilge Master

An Attempt to Raise Awareness About Suicide

In a fictional TV series, a fictional psychiatrist tells a fictional surgeon that he had a patient who used to hear voices in his head asking him to commit suicide. "In the end, the psychiatrist says, he went into a room and listened to the voices".

Life can often become overwhelming. The stress of a job, the stress of studies, the weight of expectations laid on your shoulders can serve to bog you down and in some cases lead you on the path to a very dark place.

I remember sitting in my room one day with a bottle of aftershave in my hands, debating with myself whether or not to gulp it down.  In the end, I did gulp t down and I remember my stomach burning and my breath smelling like lemons.

I did not die, but at that time my only wish was to die. A few years later, I had the same thought. This time, I knew drinking aftershave wouldn't do the trick so I decided to take a prescription to a few of the local drug stores and buy sleeping pills. I remember buying about fifty of them and a bottle of Coke and then calling my father and telling him I was about to take the pills. My father talked me out of it.

I did not die.

I am not here to tell you that suicide is bad. I do not know what goes on in the mind of a person who has lost faith to that extent where he or she wants to take their lives. However, I have been in dark places and suffered and am still suffering from depression. Over the course of this suffering thoughts about taking my life have gone into my head and wreaked havoc. I have had to be sedated and kept under observation.

I have felt angry with myself, longed for release and when these thoughts come into my head I desperately seek shelter in music or in my parents. I am writing this as an effort to raise awareness about suicide. It isn't about whether it is the right answer or solution to everyone's problem. Suicide is more complex than that. It's a series of thoughts that enter and possess you. But it can be fought and the thoughts can be driven away.

I will now return to the fictional TV series and the doctor. In another episode we meet a young man whose face is scarred badly owing to an explosion occurring near him. He wants to die. He tries to kill himself twice in the same episode but fails. Finally the doctor takes an oxygen mask and clamps it to the patient's face and turns up the dial. Immediately, the man starts fighting back and rips the mask off his face and calls the doctor crazy. This is the part where I learnt a very important thing.

The part of you that wants to hold on to life is stronger than the part of you that wants to end it. Remember this.

If at any point of time, you feel worthless remember that ice cream exists and go and buy one and have it. If at any time you are angry or frustrated with yourself, take a walk and listen to the radio. If these thoughts persist, seek help. It is okay to feel like this.

Life is special. It's precious. Breathe. Live. Don't stop believing. Love. It's going to be okay.

The Bilge Master

Broken Faith

What makes a god false?

When is it that a god falls?

Is it their actions?

Their broken promises and demands for blind faith?

Is it when that faith we have in them breaks

Into a thousand pieces

And lays at our feet?

Has nobody stopped to wonder

Why the chants have never changed

Despite centuries having passed by?

Gods are not like shooting stars

At least shooting stars can be seen

So I wonder

When is it that I lost faith?

Or did I just stop looking?

The Bilge Master

Nostalgia- A Guest Post by My Mother

My mother is back on the blog people!

The Bilge Master

The alarm goes off, I reach out and dash the clock onto the floor. Cushioned by the carpet the wretched thing still goes on ringing incessantly. I take my pillow to cover my ears but I can still hear it. Mind and body, so tired, the warmth of the blankets so dear that one just cannot leave it . I wonder why I bought an alarm clock at all with such a piercing, ear splitting ring. Then comes the knock on the door- your parents open it and both come in. For heaven's sake, I am 16 plus but there is no privacy, no respect at all!  I wonder why I didn't lock my door at night. By night I mean three am. They are both smiling. One wonders at them, forgetting that I had voluntarily given them the key to hide and be sure to wake me up despite the alarm (which by the way is still wailing away with gusto).

Mama has a hot cup of tea in her hand. Too inviting! I sit up and suck in the brew gratefully while Papa picks up the clock and very kindly switches it off and places it gently back on the bedside table. Mama next comes in with a basin of warm water and a small hand towel. I finish the tea and hold out my hand to sponge my face, while Papa starts packing my schoolbag. I think caring parents are basically something that should never be allowed at times of crisis, by which time my dressing gown is handed to me and I go towards the bathroom , when I go I mean stumble. Mama calls after me to be sure to put on my hair cap for not risking getting it wet in this London winter. I hate my hair. It's thick, it's long, quietly forgetting of my insistence of letting it grow and how proud I'd always been of it. Shower indeed! She'd be lucky if I even brushed my teeth.

Have you ever noticed how terrible toothpaste tastes like? I rinse my mouth out and come out to find my school uniform washed and ironed waiting for me in my room. Mechanically I dress, pick up my hairbrush and my purse and completely ignoring a well cooked, sustaining breakfast, go downstairs and let myself out without a word spoken.

I'm late.

I have to catch the 7:30 bus and I somehow manage to do so. As usual,  my hair gets caught in the sliding doors of the bus and as usual the bus jerks to a stop while the conductor gently helps me in with hair intact. I return his kindness with a look of loathing and grudgingly hand over my three pence and make for the stairs to go up. The conductor cheerfully calls out - "Saved your favorite seat love." I slide into it and sit there like a zombie and mechanically brushing out the tangles and find a rubber band to tie my hair up.

I've always needed two hair bands, but as usual I have come out with one. So I leave it alone. 

Too soon, I find myself at the crossing of Wood Lane and climb down and somehow walk to the school. 

All my friends are late and all crowded around the notice board where the time table of the exams is displayed. Just three more days till the first one. We look at each other and see shadow blackened, puffy eyes, with despair on all their faces. I know the timetable by heart. We all do. But what we don't know is anything about the subjects printed out. Three months of revision and blank minds! We all troop up to the library reference section and take out the necessary books and nothing in them registers.

I passed my exams with flying colours and now, forty years later I face my students and tell them about alarm clocks and the rest of it. 

The turbulence of life, of raising a kid, managing the house and teaching 8 hours every day makes me smile. I wish I was sixteen again and the only care I had was of 8-10 hours of studying every day. My hair isn't long anymore, it's cut short and my son is facing his first board exams and the weight of the world is crushing him. 

Will he feel like this when he is fifty eight or will he long as I do for these days to come back?

The House on the Hill

The house on  the hill

Has been there for ages

An entire generation has lived there

But now it stands empty

And some say it is haunted

Though no ghost has been seen

But the oak trees make sounds

When the wind blows

And the house takes on a menacing appearance at night

Just as in a typical horror movie

Maybe it is I who haunt the house

In my wish to see a ghost

Maybe I have become a ghost

Either way one day

The house will crumble

And with it the legends surrounding it

So let me put it in verse while I still can

So that one winter night

When the wind makes the windows rattle

Maybe I have become a ghost

Either way one day

The house will crumble

And with it the legends surrounding it

So let me put it in verse while I still can

So that one winter night

When the wind makes the windows rattle

You can tell your children of the author

Who haunted the house on the hill

The Bilge Master