King of pain

There's A Little Black Spot On The Sun Today
It's the Same Old Thing As Yesterday
There's A Black Hat
Caught In A High Tree Top
There's A Flag Pole Rag And
The Wind Won't Stop

I Have Stood Here Before
Inside The Pouring Rain
With The World Turning Circles
Running 'round My Brain
I Guess I'm Always Hoping
That You'll End This Reign
But It's My Destiny To
Be The King Of Pain

There's A Fossil That's
Trapped In A High Cliff Wall (that's my soul up there)
There's A Dead Salmon Frozen In A Waterfall (that's my soul up there)
There's A Blue Whale Beached By A Springtide's Ebb (that's my soul up there)
There's A Butterfly Trapped In A Spider's Web

I Have Stood Here Before Inside The Pouring Rain
With The World Turning Circles Running 'round My Brain
I Guess I'm Always Hoping That You'll End This Reign
But It's My Destiny To Be The King Of Pain

There's A King On A Throne With His Eyes Torn Out
There's A Blind Man Looking For A Shadow Of Doubt
There's A Rich Man Sleeping On A Golden Bed
There's A Skeleton Choking On A Crust Of Bread

There's A Red Fox Torn By A Huntsman's Pack
There's A Black Winged Gull With A Broken Back
There's A Little Black Spot On The Sun Today
It's The Same Old Thing As Yesterday

I Have Stood Here Before Inside The Pouring Rain
With The World Turning Circles Running 'round My Brain
I Guess I Always Thought You Could End This Reign
But It's My Destiny To Be The King Of Pain

I'll Always Be King Of Pain


How I love the singer and this song!

Memory Mines

The crowds filling in. Frenetic shouting. Bags picked up, bags left behind.
People running.
The din.
The clamour.
Nothing. None of it.

Dadar is darker and gloomier than ever, at half past eleven in the night. The rain has taken a break. Perhaps it knows whats happening down below, and has decided to lean back and watch.

Theres nothing. Less than a dozen souls on a dark platform. Next to it, a darker, wetter warehouse, with the lights of a urinal flashing, where you've gone to relieve yourself, while I relieve myself of tears, which if held back, would rupture my cornea and flow out. Like your piss I think of the sight, smile and wipe them away.

You come back, and stand silently next to me. We're having a silent conversation here. Our words are the ghosts of the past. What is unsaid are memory mines. Our silence is as tactful as an equilibrist.

We avoid eye contact while seein each other. I read the 'Armani exchange' written on your T shirt, while you inspect the date of manufacture of the bottle of packaged drinking water I'm holding. Our ineer eyes are busy in contact though. Our silence, concrete, unbreakable, sound is only interrupted by the cacophony of an occassional local howling away, two platforms away.

I could have lived in this moment forever, had the light not pulled in.
Had the distant headlight not made itself visible.
Had the tracks actively participated in our silent conversation.

EW 6545 Indian Railways, Valsad, chugs in, giving out an ear piercing horn, as it passes us by. Compartments roll away like time. And then they stop. We need not walk too much. The door is right in fron of us with S-3 written on it.

What else is there to say?
What else is there to do?
Stay back and step on the memory mines? Cry my eyes out? Go to a coffee shop nearby? Apologise? Expect an apology?

I choose the easier way out.
I walk in.
You stay out.

I can't help it. Our eyes have to meet. The customary goodbyes have to be said. And so it is done.

The train is stubborn. It won't budge. You are getting late for the last local to your suburb. I need to remind you about that.

But you! How audaciously you want to grab a last sight of me. You want to enjoy our silence till the last unsaid word. You want to savour every sorrow before swallowing it. And never let it out again.

11 40. I have run out of words.
Why don't you go away, leave me to my fate, which is hopelessly, irreversibly linked to yours.
You light a fag, and walk away. By the time you have walked ten steps, the train starts, slowly in the opposite direction.
You don't look back. You walk along, as I watch the smoke over your head disdainfully.

The journey carries on.

Current read: Rohinton Mistry: Family Matters

PS: Before you accuse me of plagiarism, I got the title from Suketu Mehta's Maximum city.