‘In these corridors of Maharaja’s,where hundreds of students have walked past after us,
I still recognize your footprints’

These lines are scribbled with broken red bricks on a shady corner of Maharajas college in Kochi.One lonely nostalgic lover has wrenched out his heart and pasted it on the walls of his alma mater.Its sheer pain out there in the open for the indifferent world to read.A reminder to generations who read it that love is still possible in this world.

Every corner of our campuses reminds us of some person,a bygone time,’those days’……,and each time we revisit we feel a vaccum,we relive some pain of separation

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Balachandran Chullikad (earlymoon shrubforest) comes up with many anecdotes like the one above and he is one of my favourite authors too.He belongs to that much hyped and romanticized era of campuses – with vietnam and hippies and naxalism and hot blood – straight spine idealism and lots and lots of dope and sex and stuff.

A time when lot of young men and women in campuses felt it was worthwhile to ruin a career to fight on the street for some child getting napalmed in some windy corner of the world.Chullikad’s memoirs at Chidambaram virtually shattered my comfort zones for a while,he had pasted himself naked on the pages of that book.Days he lived like a beggar inside and outside his campus,the day he forced his girlfriend to abort their first kid,his pre-marital and post marital asymmetries – well, I never thought he was honest and my friend who took the book from me confirmed – this cant be true.How could a person deny himself to such an extend.You can live without air but imagine living without this inflated ego.

Chullikad continues to write insightful prose and poetry of ‘remembering and saying’,an artform of literature introduced long back in our language by Kamala Das.He shocks and disturbs you with truth and discomforting existential questions,but tells you that inspite of all misgivings,love is still possible in this world.

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I read these blogs that guys and girls write about themselves,the way they tackle those inner fears,articulate expressions of self and so much of truth that at times,seriously, it bites and makes me think.Hats off to them,its a big deal.

I hope someday I shed this hypocrisy of mine,get the hell out of this comforting esoteric ambience that I have around my words,stop giving fundas,stop writing between lines and finally make some sense.One day I’ll explain my passions without a quote.The same day I’ll wrench out this poor heart of mine and paste it on the walls of blogosphere.Water bubble !!