AnOther Day...Yet Not

ज़िन्दगी नशा होती है...

JD होती है या Old Monk होती है...

नशा भी रंग होता है...

कभी आसमानी तो कभी Purple होता है ...

रंग तो असल मैं ख़याल होते है...

कभी annoyed तो कभी प्यारे होते है...

हम चाहे कितना भी घालिब पढ़ते हो...

असल मैं, घालिब हमारे ख़याल पढ़ते है....

a DaY

Blocked ear.

Pints of beer.

Non-medicated day.

Plans astray.

Typical....

Hot water.

Assured closure.

Breeze-less times

Still wind-chimes.

Alone-time...

Sorted thoughts.

Dissolving knots.

Gondola rounds.

Wooden sounds.

Melody...

Creamy fingers.

Paint lingers.

Colors mixed.

Headaches fixed.

Catharsis...

Smooth gulp.

Brain pulp.

Losing sight.

Laughing alright.

Intoxication....

Zeppelin noise.

Lacking poise.

Colors blaze.

Senses Laze.

Stupor....

Black night.

White light.

Grey traps

Under wraps.

Happiness....

While the night was high in spirits...

And Going to California looped and looped and looped...

GoldFish sa KhaYaal

Itnee si zameen

Itna sa aasman

Ek khayaal.... ziddi sa

Tairtaa raha

Tairta raha...

It rained outside all day.

The colors were green and grey.

Green,like the muddled puddle

Of my murky monsoon mind

I brushed (aside) a pink thought

Brightening my rainy day.....

OcTober PaiN

It has become a joke...

The relentless pricking of a cruel pin…

A hundred worms gnawing through my skin…

And I laugh as...

The feverish strokes of my brush effectively numb…

What is left is crushed, by the colors on my thumb…

I am a stubborn bitch...

This pain, it is not me or mine…

As long as I can blog, write and paint, my me and mine is fine.

I have analgesics...

These pricks, these bruises I do not own

My canvas will sigh, my words will scream, my colors will moan…

Chintan, many thanks!

This one is for my sanity, and for you!

WoRDs, HOmeStays and GliTter

I seem to be all over the place, arms outstretched.
It is raining words! Maybe not…
Words do not pour.
Nor do they fall down.
They float, on a meandering path
They gently wind down.
Snow snows, rain falls down, but I catch words that gently wind down!


There are so many I read, so many I hear…
They sometimes make a gentle popping sound.
After which opens up a bottle of rainbow soda!
Up come bubbles of psychedelic fizz
I thirstily gulp down.
Always!

Thane is always good.
We walked down the market street. We shopped.
We ate Rajmata Vada Pav and had Sitafal pot ice-cream.
We walked. We got tired.
We sweated. We laughed.
We stepped on each other’s toes. We frowned.
We saw Jogvaa I cannot write about.

A concrete road snaked
Under a canopy of two named trees
Could have been Gulmohar
Could have been Shirish…
Walking lightly against the gentle breeze
Like a bubble gliding in the wind
The falling yellow leaves
Was glitter at my feet…

LuCknow

In cities, one has never visited, it helps for the place of work to be far away from the place where one is put up. More the travel, more the glimpses of another city going by! A rickshaw would have taken 15 minutes to Ameenabad! Uttar Pradesh Parivahan took 45 minutes. It stopped, packed some more people, trundled along the streets of Lucknow! I feasted on sights like Umraav, the theatre showcasing Babbar, a hotel called Man Ka Meet, the Vidhan Sabha, road signs announcing Charbaug, Chowk, Hazratganj, Barielly, Unnav… all coming to me through the bars of the window of a rickety CNG bus.

I left early to reach Amausi airport. The rickshaw too took a longer route. Such a beautiful coincidence! I did not care about not visiting touristy places when I got to sit in a rickshaw that traveled through the city for 50 minutes until it dropped me off at the airport. 50 minutes of pure Lucknow! No chattering tourists. No cameras! Only the city, unaware, going about its business…while I watched!

A striking moment was when I was driven to my place of work in Charbag one very hot afternoon. I sat cool and refreshed in the air conditioned jeep while watching the city simmer outside. Ghulam Ali played softly in the jeep and life had the perfect background music! Yes, he sounds more authentic in Lucknow. Yes Lucknow seems more Lucknowee. Life seems livelier when there is apt background music! I, however, felt as if in a dream….

Lucknow is much more than chaat, chikan and kebabs…. It’s a place that is capable of making life look as profound as Ghalib’s poems and as melodious as Ghulam Ali’s ghazals…. It is a place where life can have the perfect background music…

It is a place like itself.

*Disclaimer: I am well aware neither Ghalib nor Ghulam Ali have anything to do with Lucknow. I however associate both with it... simply :)

Wool and Warmth

When it got too cold, and 3 jackets, a monkey cap, gloves and all of us huddled together would not help us keep the warmth, we would roll up the windows of the vehicle.

There were so many woolens in the car. Jackets that would come off occassionally, gloves that had to be taken off when the scenery warranted a picture with the camera or when in those rare moments of "full network" hurried messages had to be typed out which gloved hands could not, wet socks (wet from accidentally stepping into stinging cold streams),monkey caps, head bands, scarves, kerchiefs...a lot of woolens!

During maggi/chai breaks, when cramped legs and backs would finally ease and people would literally tumble out of the vehicle groggy and struggling to gain orientation, along with them would tumble the woolens. Gloves that we had accidentally been sitting on, scarves on laps that had been forgotten...all would spill onto the ground! Someone would point out and somebody else would pick them up just as nonchalantly. I remember dropping my gloves innumerable times, in slush, in water, on hard ground and wearing them back without a care! As things are used and begin to get dirtier on journeys such as these, they become ever so charming and romantic! Everything attains character! And then it is difficult to part with them. I still have them floaters, powder blue in color that is now unrecognizable and also of a shape that suggests loss of all shape. It is a souvenir of all that Ladakh was. Becoming unrecognizable and shapeless in a gaining new recognition and new shape way.

Back in Mumbai, in moments of tiredness I have often wished for me to be in a vehicle. With music. On a long journey. To not reach anywhere soon, to not stop, to not have to talk, to not have to move yet keep moving.

During Ladakh,

The vehicle cruised from Delhi to Manali - 14 hours!
Manali to Sarchu - 10 hours!
Sarchu to Leh - 8 hours!
Leh to Srinagar - 14 hours!

Music and Silent Musings.

Precious. Unbelievably.

दिल ढूँढता है फिर वोही फुर्सत के रात दिन..

I remember Ladakh vividly only in bits and pieces...rest is a memory mist. Engulfing but escaping!

जाडों की नर्म धूप और आँगन मैं लेट कर
आखों पे खीचकर तेरे दामन के साए को ....

A special occasion warrants a special dress. And a special dress is saved, neatly wrapped, for the special occasion. Mountains need a special song. Some songs are meant for the mountains!

बर्फीली सर्दियों में किसी भी पहाड़ पर
वादी मैं गूंजती हुई खामोशिया सुने
आखो मैं भीगे भीगे से लम्हे लिए हुए

There were these mountains! Or was that a joke?

ठंडी सफ़ेद चादरों पर जागे देर तक
तारों को देखते रहे ,छत पर पड़े हुए...

Stardust fell on Stanzin's roof that night! No wonder we all gleamed even after the night faded. The starshine of stargazing shined....is still shining!

The memory mist engulfs but the memories largely escape...


औंधे पड़े रहे कभी करवट लिए हुए ....

All through the night!

MiSt

The mist missed my attention while I was in Ladakh. Now that I think about it, it was all around playing its solitary games. Following are words of another traveler which I have strung together a tad differently...



Tirelessly tackling the endless curves

There was no turning back.

Backed by an urge we rode,

Seeking a shrouded track.



In a maddening white shroud

Some wandering minds were caught,

Could have been the face of nothingness,

Yet cloaked their every thought!



In a maddening life’s shroud

some wandering lives were caught

Seeking their ten steps to clarity

Mere pawns(in a misty game)....never distraught!

LA dee daa da DAKH

I am back from work! I am also back from Ladakh. But I am not back to who I used to be.

Not because I am done with my holiday.
Not because I went to work.
Not because I am home.
Not for these obvious reasons
but for those unknown!

The powerpoint for tomorrow's meeting looms! The futility of it even more! It was a sad coincidence that I could not be online today from work, just when I thought I should, I would and wished I could!

When I was in the mountains
I did not forget to remember,
To gaze at the night time skies
Gaze at the myriad falling stars
Lodging stardust in my eyes.

I did not forget to remember
To crane my neck until it hurt
At mountains sculpted by the winds
Indescribable in words!

I did. I did it to the fullest. Craned and strained. I am carrying sore memories in my neck.

I have a tan and a lot less hair. More stares. Less shackles. More questions. Lesser answers.

Stargazing is not my thing in act, it is in its idea.
I cannot tell constellations.
I cannot tell Venus.
I can tell the moon and that's more than enough!

It was cold and windy and I was clad in 4 layers of clothes while the sun burnt my nose. Nosequake!

Mountains are life rehabilitating. (Rehabilitation: The process of restoration of skills from an illness or injury so as to regain maximum self-sufficiency and function in a normal or as near normal manner as possible. For example, rehabilitation after a stroke may help the patient walk again and speak clearly again)

They REHABILITATE. They DETOX.
The pressure to stay clean is high.

I have Harry Potter to discover. And Terry Pratchett. I have discovered and lost myself in Madrid, Peter Gabriel and Patrick Watson. My mountain gifts from a fellow traveler! Thank you Jace.

I wish I had MORE things than PEOPLE to get lost in!
People do not provide enough ground to lose myself in.
The one's with depth come by rarely. I know that's the way it is. But why does it have to make itself HEARD!??!

If there is YUMMY Biryani waiting for me, what will help? Eating it first in order to feel good and THEN work on the crappy powerpoint presentation

OR

Getting done with the crappy powerpoint presentation FIRST and FAST knowing there is Biryani waiting?

Why am I so resistance dyslexic?

I love Biryani and hate powerpoint presentations.

LiPsTick

I started packing today. In my list of “things to pack” was my lip-balm! Glossy red and strawberry flavored!


I remembered a moment as I clutched the tiny round container in my hand before I could throw it in with the rest of the toiletries! I remembered a sepia toned snapshot.
…of tall trees, a winding road, a breathtaking sunset and snow-capped peaks looking candy flossed in the setting sun’s light or lack of it. The pinkness asserting itself amidst the sepia of the rest of the snapshot!


The sepia tone comes from the twilight of that evening…when a sumo with a family of four lumbered along a long winding road climbing higher and higher. My parents, well into 15 years of marriage, resolutely patient enough to take two young children, one grumpy (me) the other quiet (he), on a vacation!


It got colder and colder and mom helped us into our sweaters and scarves! Warm and toasty we were, but, feeling sicker with each curve and more and more tired!
Until mom did the coolest thing ever! She turned my head to face her, held my face by the chin with one hand and with the other she applied lipstick to my lips. HER lipstick! Glossy and sweet tasting! That thing I was not supposed to wear because I was not old enough. That thing I never dared to touch. She saw the utterly confused look on my face!


“Chapped lips are not good! The cream got left in the big bag. This is all I have at the moment to keep your lips soft”.

I willingly complied.


Having realized the novelty in it for me, she smiled and said, “Sometimes, small girls wear lipstick!”

The lipstick softened the rough journey ahead for a grumpy child!

The lip balm is safely in my bag!

Ladakh Looms.

Right now… this snapshot does!

ColoUr BlinDed

Blues,
Of Denims blue,
That tore without a clue!
My Denims wore away,
Adding to the monsoon grey.

Green,
Of the muddled puddles
Of my murky monsoon mind
Swimming in it is a rainy day
Adding to the monsoon grey.

Brown,
Of the ground beneath my feet
That was, that I no longer tread
Without a way to find a way
Adding to the monsoon grey.

Rainbow colors,
Of 3 nose studs.
And countless chats
Whitewashing the monsoon grey……


From thousands of miles away
Thank you Ramya.

FeAther(weight) fAll

The feather fell down
It stretched its own fall
It went round and round
And fell without a sound.

Featherweight fall.

It too came down
In a protracted fall
It went round and round
And drowned... in a sea of words!

Just like the feather.
But nothing featherweight about it.

Pi GoD

Life of Pi adeptly maintains a balance between telling of the fictitious (yet heart wrenching, inspiring, frightening and a lot more) ordeal of Pi and the factual details of the ways of various species. Every page throws up details about tigers, orangutans, hyenas and more! Details that normal people, living a city-life, exposed to the dismal zoos they are exposed to and uninterested in animals beyond the mandatory visits organized by schools to zoos would miss. Being one of those people, these are invaluable and even interesting details which wouldn’t have interested me in any other form or on any other day. However, in the form of Pi’s life in the zoo and then at sea (literally and literary ly), I am fascinated by them. Every page spews vital survival tips. The whole book is one survival guide in literary form and having a philosophical undertone to it. And as I find myself getting tired while with the book and reading the words but not taking them in, I feel I have lost out on something that would have come to my rescue were I to be stranded in the Pacific or the Sunderbans. I read it again just to be safe. I wait till survival facts register and then continue on Pi’s journey hoping the pieces of information have found their way in my long term memory. The book is educating and entertaining at the same time. Also draining with the textbook attention I am giving it! I cannot let a single sentence escape me and that becomes impossible when Martel / Pi launches on his long-drawn spatial descriptions of the life-boat, the position of his fellow survivors, his innovations and manufacturing of things in order to survive and the detailed step by step description of the processes. The reader is required to SEE it all! And I cannot. As I read how he took the rope from behind the oars and pierced holes in the mast only to pull the tarpaulin over the lid of the store box that lay towards the curving stern of the ship which had the gunnel a few inches above the water hoisted with the solar fills…. I lose myself! He ends his long drawn process description with “and my canopy was ready”!

I end the same paragraph with “Phew! However he did it, I am glad his canopy is ready!”

I continue, for the spirit of Pi and for the wonderfulness of the myriad species this book talks to me about.

MAThura NAgARpati

Before daybreak, in the hushed glow of dawn
My Lord you lie, spent and wan
The turmoil at its crest when you decide
To head to Gokul and her side.

Abandoning gold and glory and your Mathura O King,
You take to the flute again, heading
To that world where she waits, your Queen.
These riches you so heedlessly trample
Tell me, which song did she sing?

This song that kept tugging…
With unslept puzzled eyes
I watched that flowery bed and you
Tossing and turning.
Who is she, who waits and weeps…
For whom are you leaving?

The Jamuna is quiet, in tranquil thought…
The wind is at peace, but you are not
As tunes of the past haunt, you clutch your flute
Irresistible is Gokul that your feet do not stop,

Your Radha is with her King, trust me
She has learnt to love, believe me
She has found her solace
In her King’s land and his palace
Wiped away her tears long ago, of longing
But you still rake it up?
Can’t you stop Gokul from calling?

I am still here!

Eet Rassi

The Punjab Mail T.C. called him "hero"
For his Vivek Oberoi looks
Oberoi's Bhopal ized version
He said people in Itarsi are "not good"
I hope someone is picking you up?
(I nodded)
I live in Bhopal
Take my number and do call!
I took it...
Itarsi was forty five degrees hot.
Blessed with the frenzied work
of the Sister and her lot
It is, In Pope's befitting words
"A world forgotten by the world forgot!"
Sheetal Palace is the best in Itarsi (they said)
There are the usual reptilian brats.
It will only get a "little" bad
When they are joined in by the rats...

They did…join
It did get… very bad!

CrOw GodDesS

Standing on the platform

Before the "rush-hour" began

Talking about nothing in particular

Or to be precise, about Soha Ali Khan...

A crow zipped past,

Brushed her cheek...almost

He was startled. She shrugged it off.

Its not the first time and neither is it the last.

He seemed a bit droll

As he said more, about

These harbingers of death

And their darker rigmarole!

She listened as he went on

about Goddess Dhumavati

the unmoveable unmoved eternal widow

He said, they say resembles a crow.

The Goddess of unsatisfied desires, The Shakti

(Without her Shiva) written about in books

So what about her she asked, He said

You must see how she looks!

How does she look?

Thin, tall and gaunt.

What does she do?

While he ran to catch the train

he turned and said...

She looks like you!

WTF!

Neither Rushdie helps nor Gurdjieff,

with their wiseacring pages,

Neither help torrented discographies,

of the Doors and Guns n roses.

I am still knocking doors,

tirelessly for a clue.

I am still depending

on tentative guesses!

I have exhausted consolations,

and the Gtalk therapy.

the calls back home....

and the prescriptions.

But also my hope.

My courage.

Surely my will!

the dread only grows!

Finished today.

Exhausted some more.

Tomorrow,

opens another door...

Just WTF is this!

WTF!

SHE

Chris Etheridge / Graham Parsons

She'll let you in her house
If you come knockin' late at night
She'll let you in her mouth
If the words you say are right
If you pay the price
She'll let you deep inside
But there's a secret garden she hides


She'll let you in her car
To go drivin' round
She'll let you into the parts of herself
That'll bring you down
She'll let you in her heart
If you got a hammer and a vise
But into her secret garden, don't think twice


You've gone a million miles
How far'd you get
To that place where you can't remember
And you can't forget
She'll lead you down a path
There'll be tenderness in the air
She'll let you come just far enough
So you know she's really there


She'll look at you and smile
And her eyes will say
She's got a secret garden
Where everything you want
Where everything you need
Will always stay
A million miles away

KoLkata 2

Kolkata is not “lazy” or “laidback”. It is throbbing passionately, simmering (literally and metaphorically) with only a semblance of laziness if you will. A colleague says, the judgment that Kolkata is lazy may have arisen from a general tendency to label everyone and everything involved with the arts, literature and other such leisurely activities as “laidback”. Kolkata has exemplified aesthetics since forever, thus, falling prey to being labeled if you like. Locals here have options of and time for theatre, concerts, exhibitions and hence not running around like headless chicken in malls in Kandivli, malls in malad, malls in Andheri and malls in Mulund. Not yet! Anyhow, a city which was at the forefront of political, social and artistic reform and movement cannot be lazy, not THEN and not NOW.
I have seen very few beggars in Kolkata and none at all at traffic lights. I do not know the reason. I have seen women, dressed like how we do back in Mumbai, but I have seen very few women. There are still a larger number of independent, quaint homes lining the lanes of Kolkata than high-rises or apartments. This, however, may not be the case after a year. No pigeons (read that Ramya) except for at the Dakshineshwar temple! I have not seen too many fancy cars and the roads seem like the domain of the yellow ambassador cabs. The streets are FULL of them and their size and color makes the swanky esteems and civics look dim-witted, lackluster and boring! The sheer number of these darting yellow blobs with the sun beating down upon them casts a YELLOW glow on the entire frikking city. Kolkata gets its color from them AND from the dusty dark green shutters adorning windows of ALL houses. And I thought the color of Kolkata was RED :-)

Speaking about connections I feel with this place, I discovered something that added to it. My ever so charming hotel is situated right next to a 3 storeyed brick red building by the name of "Jamuna" and anybody entering the lane leading upto my hotel cannot fail to notice the white alphabates bolted vertically on the brick red wall! I see my own name each day as I enter the lane that leads to my hotel. And it feels great!
And to boot, I stumbled across in crowded goriahat on a ballet school by the name of "Udayan".
I love Kolkata!

I return tomorrow and not at all with a sigh of relief as is usually the case. Rather, kolkata is now one of those "living-things" I write about and talk to. We are exchanging good-byes and i have promised to return.

KoLKatA

8th April 2009:
This is the day I flew ALL ALONE for the first time in 27 years. I lost most of this landmark of a journey to overpowering slumber. The much touted “long” flight to Kolkata was not long, not when I would have liked to catch up on a few more hours of sleep. I flew across the country in just a few winks. It took a few winks to get to Kolkata! Hell!

Colin described Kolkata as “a city that is like a beautiful, intellectual woman one wants to have a relationship with”. To me Kolkata is like a melody; painfully tugging at my heart and bringing a lump to my throat. It swamped me in nostalgia even though I have no associations with this city. I am thinking Kolkata is a wrong place to be in if one is looking to get over a relationship! Or I would think it is a bad place even if one is happily in one! It rather dramatically pushes you into catacombs you thought you found your way out of! I think Kolkata rakes up sweet pain. I do not know how the real Kolkata is. I never will. My perception of it will forever be affected by Tagore’s stories and The City of Joy. Maybe these poets, authors and filmmakers made Kolkata hard to be just another city, maybe Kolkata IS difficult to be just another city. The conclusion is it is very well NOT just another city, whether it owes this to its artistic portrayal or to itself.

My first impression of the streets of Kolkata was that I will NEVER have to go WITHOUT anything here! The streets, all of them, are lined with such an abundance of tiny shops seeming like they are selling everything under the sun or almost, that all I need to do to get what I want in Kolkata is take a short walk! In an hour-long drive around the city I saw shops, cafes, multi-cuisine hotels, residential buildings, ponds, gardens, colleges, schools, hospitals, a fine arts academy (of course!), a mall, a crossword, a theatre and there was not a doubt left in my mind about Kolkata and what it got! It got everything. And it shows it. One doesn’t have to wait to get to the market area to see the market, to the residential area to see homely homes and to the corporate area to see offices! Markets are everywhere, people live everywhere and everything co-exists everywhere. In extremely narrow lanes opposite Tolly Club, are quaint houses with indecipherable names (I bet they are worth getting to know. Bengali names always are), in Bangla script, adorned with typical green shutter windows (dust coated but charming) and trees. What are not charming are the aberrant and abrupt skyscrapers. They fail to blend. They herald a new Kolkata rising with an avaricious eagerness, towering over the old city and looking tawdry next to the existing homes. Amidst bustling narrow streets, small houses, cycle rickshaws, rickety blue buses and the anachronistic trams are the anomalous skyscrapers! Kolkata appears to be in the middle of a skyscraper epidemic. In the midst of a Heightened Mania!

Kolkata, by virtue of what it means to me and does to me is NOT a place for me to be alone in. Or be “without work” in. Kolkata should not see me idle. I react to idleness in Kolkata!

This post was meant for something else. But something else takes precedence. I was groped by a hand today on my way back from work. Just a hand, because I do not have a face or form to give that hand. I was not walking “in the open” or on the streets, I was not in a crowded place like a Railway Station, I was not in a dark alley, I wasn’t in a pub getting drunk and being unethical or immoral nor was I wearing “revealing”, “vulgar”, low waist denims and a short T. I was as revealing as revealing could get in clothes suitable for office, huddled in a corner of a rickshaw, with a big bag and another bag of some purchases!

That’s where the groping happened! And I realized as I type, that I am avoiding the sentence “That’s where I got groped”. Passive voice comes to the rescue if I am grammatically correct! Framing the sentence with an “I” is like a slap on the face. But let me face it. “I” got groped by a pedestrian while I sat in the rickshaw.

Am I angry? No! Am I sad? No! There are no emotions… is that a problem? My rickshaw slowed down in traffic, when I was caught unawares (unaware and relaxing after a days work, listening to music, enjoying my rickshaw ride back home…is that a problem? Was I careless for doing that? Did I ASK FOR IT?). It all happened so quickly. My rickshaw was moving ahead already. I asked the driver to stop and got down without knowing what I was going to do…shout? Hit? Chase? I got down only to face the traffic and a sea of people. I do not know who did it!

What is the change? The rest of the journey, I sat with my bag closer than it was, alert to every passerby each time my rickshaw slowed! And I think this will continue for a long time now. Shock value maybe!

This slot was meant for a happy and pleasant post!

It has turned out to be something else…

My friends read this blog. Hell my family reads this blog. For me, my personal victory is that I can talk about it… with no shame! Because the shame is NOT MINE!

Point to Ponder: What can be done? Blogging and some more blogging maybe.......?

And what the hell do I title this post as?

DisiLLUsionMEnt

An American actress said she stopped believing in Santa Claus when a Santa in a mall she was visiting with her mother asked her for her autograph.

Disillusionment.

My first palpable feeling of disillusionment came at the age of 7. I had a runny nose and was taken to the doctor's, the only place back then where I could browse through film magazines (and of course in beauty parlors mom took me to because I was too young to be left home alone, or because mom felt guilty about getting a facial done while I was home alone. Either ways). That was the year of Maine Pyar Kiya, friendship caps, pigeons and corny one-liners about dostis. Disillusionment crept in when I saw Salman Khan with "another woman" (Manisha Koirala in a light pink dress with hair tied in a yellow ribbon) on the cover page of a magazine. That was my first vivid memory of holding a film magazine with glossy pages in my hands and feeling something akin to an ache in my heart. I worried myself sick, teary eyed, how Bhagyeshree was going to hold herself through THAT?

Disillusionment. (Bhagyeshree's seemed greater and more REAL than mine but disillusionment it was)

Disillusionments, I guess are many. Small and big.

Sometimes, disillusionments stop disillusioning. They become "the way of life". The norm. They do no elicit a reaction.

Disillusionments no longer remain a "let down".

Such a let down!

Disillusioned with disillusionments disillusioning.