Friday, November 11, 2011

In a Nutshell

She carried it with her wherever she went. The smell of ink, old paper and the not-yet-callous feel of life. It was a gift from her brother who was leaving for Oxford that day. She had with eyes brimming with tears asked him, “What should I write, Adarsh?” Adarsh had smiled at her, held her close to his chest, patted her head and said, “Write what you love and love what you write.” Ten years had passed since that afternoon when the thirteen-year-old-she had watched, unable to control her tears, Adarsh pass through the guarded automated gates of the International Terminal. It was a hard-bound book with roses on the cover.

She was at the airport then, alone. Leaving for a foreign country sans the usual crowd of family and friends hugging and wailing, the exclamations of “look at her; she has become a big girl now!” A huge trunk, a hand bag and her book; this was her luggage. She had checked in. Her trunk had been name tagged and put away. There was still a good part of an hour left for the flight.

From among the usual clutter of keys, documents, id-cards, chewing gum, chapsticks and a pile of greeting cards which had been gifted to her years back, she took out a red fountain pen, another gift. She felt the need to write something before all that were here would become ‘back there’ and everything that was home, part of the wave of nostalgia that was sure to hit her on a rainy day. She poised her pen, ready for that feeling of pen gliding on paper, but it stuck like a lump in the throat. Refused to move.

The pedestal fan seemed to favor her at that precise moment and in that artificial breeze the pages flashed by in a flurry. Names. Some in bold; some crossed out and some others smudged by tear drops. Places, photographs, stamps. ‘Mine, his’, ours, home, vacation, school, college…’ someone seemed to whisper in her ears, spreading a warm sepia tint over the black and white.  Then long slanted sentences written in that sudden fervor. Couplets scribbled down quickly lest the emotion overwhelmed one. Words, the meaning of which she should have found out, but never did. Something that some high and mighty said. Damp pages where she had poured her heart out. Ten years and yet, these pages had not yet been fully filled. A deep sigh seemed to doubt if it ever will be.

28th June. How could she forget that day? Every time she sat down to write, the memories of that day would haunt her. Death, cancer, loss, tears, goodbye, daughter, dreams… these words reverberated in each line, every paragraph.

18th September. Forbidden love. Sweet sin. Guilt. The One. “… he took that duster and wiped the blackboard clean. There are no furious scratches and scribbles on that dark plane, a few specks of chalk powder still remain; but the wind of time will take it away too.” She smiled away the shadow of a sigh.

1st February. Passing out. Friends, sweet memories, broken promises.

Then without the pretences of form and structure, a tumble of it all, memories, pictures, dreams, loss, works.

Lost she was in this flood that pushed the hands of the clock backwards in one swooping motion. She had, for once, adhered to someone’s advice. Her brother’s. She had written what she had loved and she had loved what she had written. It had become a part of her and she was the hard-bound book with roses on the cover. The weight of all that was written made it heavier than her trunk which would soon be put in somewhere in that flight that promised to propel her to sunnier climes. Much more to write. Words, are there enough of them? Enough to fill in that book, the hard-bound book with roses on the cover? Impossible.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

What you should’ve done all along.

You walk down the corridors of HSB. Black predominates, though rainbow shades too exist, transforming the dreary corridor into a beautiful canvas. You wonder why the mundane assumes so ethereal an appearance. Maybe the marijuana of the day before, you tell yourself, laughing out loud. It is a high pitched, piercing laughter. You are embarrassed. In that sea of faces not one turns to look at you reproachfully for your insanity. You wonder why everyone is so absorbed in their own little worlds. That is not usual. Something is amiss, you conclude.

Has she always been this radiant, ravishing; you wonder. Her hair ripples in the breeze. Everyone else becomes mere inanimate objects in the background. You smile at her, she walks on, her face reflecting the multitude of thoughts; the many weighty assignments needing tending to, the insecurity that seemed to call out to you. You walk to her side, whisper a ‘hi’. She still walks on, preoccupied but unperturbed, taking no notice of you. You are stumped. Yesterday night’s late night meeting for the usual cup of ‘quiz-time mugging’ coffee had gone well. You try to figure out the reason for this indifference. You are afraid, suddenly. Fear overwhelms you. Has she, could she possibly have, read it; the million secret poems that you had written for and about her?

As you turn your eyes back to reality from the endless list of possible reasons, you see a guy’s stubbled chin right in front of you.  You let out a shout and screw your eyes shut. Blink! You open your eyes and he is gone, you turn around. Mouth agape in horror, you watch the guy walk on as if you were part of the encasing air. You touch your face, your hands, trying to inject some meaning into this madness. Then you realize quite painfully that you are dead.

Dirges ring in your head as you glide along the familiar path, retracing oft-taken footsteps. You see her inside one of the classrooms, her long slanted words overflowing from her pen.  You glance at her notebook and see your name etched in her ink. Your heart (if you still have one) skips a beat. This can’t be happening, atleast not now.  This should have happened when she sat near you in that sunny meadow. You could have clutched her hand lying on the grasshopper-green grass. You would have had an eternity of happiness, of fulfillment. You watch tear drops cloud her eyes, helplessly. You cannot run your hands through the auburn locks nor can you even wish for those slender hands gripping you in that moment of passion. You feel it, the air around you drowning you. The gasp, a sudden outcry of the solitary air as you sank into the depths of oblivion. Then you feel the impact, the hard feeling of a stone floor. You rub your eyes and suddenly stars appear, you blink and light falls. Heaven?!

Slowly your eyes focus on the face that looks concernedly at you and you realize that all this was a dream. Life has treated you well, so far.  There are material comforts all around you. All fruits of your hard work. Plaques and trophies talk highly of your achievements. Then you realize once more that you are dead. The dream, only that was real.  You tune out what your wife says, you blur the faces of your children to incoherent little spots. A new colorful picture zooms into vision.  The house is smaller, there is no car in the garage; just a bike.  In place of the laboratory where many colored liquids bubble and froth, there is a library and a small wooden desk with a wicker chair. A hard bound book with your name in golden letters engraved on the spine. A room of your own. The door opens and she comes in, a burning cigarette on her lips, pushing you to go make a meal for two. You watch her sit on the easy chair, reading the newspaper, cigarette still on the lips and smile. You have got it all.

Dreams, you know, are only escapes. A cheap sort of escape for which you pay a hefty price once you come back. What if you could just fast forward to the end, go on a long holiday, an everlasting dream, from where there is no coming back? Why live as if dead, why not die with dignity? There is enough cash in the children’s name, enough to give them the wings to fly on their own. Your wife will manage, you are sure, without you just as well as when you are around. You do not have dreams about them, only a sense of duty, which you feel you have fulfilled. Listen! There is no escape, no final death. Even of you go down the drain, you will wander about sustained and survived by those here. Your wife’s rage at your final and extreme act of cowardice will impart a good color to you. The desire your children feel for their father will tether you here so much that you will wish for the detached existence that you lead now. The money they draw will reek of your sweat, the gory odor of unfulfilled dreams, of compulsions, of heartless mechanical labor. The cane that stands on the corner will keep shouting orders and threats, long after you are gone. Every memory of yours will send sour, bitter tastes to them all. You will live on.

Two burly hands throttle you. They provide painful relief. At last, you will have your escape. The sweet taste of death. You find the grip a tad too hard to bear. You can see the depths you are sinking into. You know there is no coming back. Something beckons you to complete what you had begun. Something urges you to come back, the grip does not relax. Your hands tremble violently. The end is near. Oblivion is just stone’s throw from here. You tweak the little finger of the hand holding you. Yelping in pain, the hand disappears. Then it dawns on you that all you had to do all along was that. You forgot to tweak and twist a little finger whenever you found life stifling. Now, there is hope; there is life. Death is now a dead ember of a dying dream; devoid of its charms, dark.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

She

It starts as a spark. A vestige of an unexpressed emotion. Then it becomes as infectious as an idea, spreading its branches far and wide, gripping those folds ever so tightly. For a moment, I wish she would give me repose. As she thunders on blinding the caws and the hoots, blurring the sweet and the sour, I wish for a moment that all was black. Dark, silent, empty.

Empty; that lack of fullness, definition, in short, the absence of everything. Empty means the overwhelming multitude of emotions associated with and the realization of loss. The perfection of that absence, that gaping hole that seems to grow wider and wider engulfing the little that was left after the impact, never fails to awe me. There are still tell-tale singes and fissures. They construct a boundary, something that defines the emptiness by. Open spaces can never be empty, it is said. But to me, emptiness is the curve of her back, that lock of her hair, the fragrance of lavender, her smile. Everything else is empty, black.

I can still hear her laughter, see her smile, that lock of her hair dancing near her ear, her step falter, her smile transform to surprise, shock, horror. There she dangled by the edge of that cliff, her eyes pleading for help. We all stood and watched. Later, I termed my inaction helplessness and slept peacefully, unperturbed by the ghosts that hovered in my chamber. There were some who watched her fall, unable to laugh and rejoice, bound by propriety; oh, how their heart ached from suppressing all that! She could reduce everyone else in the vicinity to dumb objects when she came in. Such was her aura. The air of mystery, an eternal sadness that seemed to emanate from her, perpetually. There was no way another could replicate them all. Like evil step-mothers they comforted themselves; they were the fairest on earth once again.

Nobody looked at her as she fell, save myself. That look on her eyes as she descended into the murky depths of oblivion. She did not accuse me. Those two black onyxes seemed to ask “Why aren’t you here, holding on to my hands, unwilling to let go? Was I wrong?” The fault in her was not that she fell, it was not that she did not heed to all those words of caution, her fault was her trust in me. She trusted me with her life which I saw wither away in front of my eyes. She became a symbol, something mothers would point to and say, “Do not be so”. For me she is an enigma. She was my failure, the one long yard I fell short of.

There isn’t a way to make amends. Sugar-coated or otherwise, pills do have constraints. Perhaps the gnawing pain might cease, but I doubt if the dent can ever be smoothed out and made perfect again. More than a dent, I think something has chipped off. I am sure that it is her. As I climb down into the murky emptiness where I believe she rests, all I have is a tiny, flickering light of hope. I hope that it will fall on that tear drop whose fall I witnessed from my safe perch. Maybe she will ‘shine on and never burn’ in the same hope. I will find her. I must.

Friday, August 12, 2011

Life's Masterpiece.

A broad canvas. One stroke at a time.
Red, blue, green and black
Symmetric, asymmetric…
Move back and behold
The picture I painted.

Look not until I am done
Laugh not at my naivety
Question me not now
There will be answers,
There will be a picture
Once I am done.

There is no time to pause
To draw a deep breath; reflect.
No room for correction
A mark made is made.
Cry for all you want,
Tears do not wash away
The blues nor the greys
Nor the cruel, uncalculated strokes
How I wish I could for once
Hold my hand, stop myself
“Not that one, not there
There is a time and a place.
Wait!” Words I never got to say
To myself.

It is still summer
An occasional drizzle drops in
Once in a while
But soon, everything is bright again.
Red and orange on a yellow background
Drops of green dashes of blue
Rich, colorful, happy.

Soon will come winter
Bonfires lit to bring warmth
Will devour my art
Brown and burnt, reduced to ashes
At the end of a long day’s work.
Maybe a scrap will survive
Bearing my fingerprint
Someone, somewhere (maybe yet to come) is sure
To chance upon it
Will she take heed?
To look at it for one long, lone moment;
Try to hear what I tried to say?
Or, will she throw it into the heap
To join the unnamed junk?

Life-giver you are, my fate rests on your eyes
Read me!
Give my strokes your voice,
A new life; the chance to live
Another summer, maybe yet another.
Grant me the elixir
To live on and on
To see me looked at with reverence,
Disgust, criticism or even cluelessly
Don’t leave me to the tides of time
To take me into its forgetful bosom.

There is no world but this
And I yearn to remain.
To see someone similarly inclined
Speak out what I would’ve said.
You give me my life
I rest on your hands
Don’t toss me away.

Years down the lane,
The paper will perish
The colors will fade away
My strokes will be illegible
Photograph me in your memory
Display it on your showcase
There let it lure a vacant stare
To ponder upon all that is life.
Then it will become I
An individual.

Here, I have paused too long
Reflecting on what this canvas will offer
A century from now.
It is time to clasp that brush
And that palette with a determined hand
Thinking not of what you are to be.
I will give you my best
All that my teachers taught me
And those forbidden that I saw
There will be no dilution
For this is not for the faint at heart
This is for rebels who dare to read.
This is for anarchists who can’t help speaking up.
This is for you, standing on the edge
Precariously, waiting to break out
Of your chrysalis.
Spread your wings, awe the world
With your beauty,
There will be a few
Who frown upon those speckles and spots
But they define you, that is your beauty.
A day is all you have
Make a difference however small.
Generously gift happy curves
For they will turn upside-down
Once you are gone.

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Journey Of the Magi

Poets do speak for all of us. They make us feel that the poem is written for and about us. As I read T.S. Eliot’s ‘Journey of the Magi’, I find that I can relate to it to a very great extent that I am surprised that it was not written by or about me. ‘Journey of the Magi’ is about the journey that the three wise men of the east (the magi) undertook to pay their respects to the new-born, the son of god, Jesus Christ. They regretted leaving behind the comforts and luxuries of their kingdom and embarking on such a difficult journey which presented them with huge hurdles by the minute. When they finally reached the place where Jesus was born the spectacle for which they had suffered all the hardships of the journey seemed only ‘satisfactory’. Though they had witnessed the birth of Christianity, an introduction to a new faith, it was not easy for them to be able to give up their old beliefs and values. On their return to their kingdoms they found themselves ‘no longer at ease’ there. Their people seemed so primitive and pagan with their many gods and they felt like intruders, strangers. They were neither here nor there.

It is a bit ironic that I should use this journey to describe my situation because what I witnessed was not the birth of a new faith but the death of my old beliefs and maybe, you can say, the advent of rationality. The journey was not so pleasant. I tried clinging to what I had known and believed in for so long. I tried defending the irrationality that was my faith. Finally, there reached a point where I could no longer make a fool of myself and speak for something which I myself was so uncertain about. As god disappeared from my life, I could feel the liberation, the limitless freedom which was exciting and at the same time frightening. There were no taboos, it was my way. Everything was up to me and my “rational mind” to decide. Soon, I began to cope with it. I found out that I did not need a set of dogmas or the fear of someone watching me from up above to do what was right. I have a frigging brain for crying out loud!

The tough part was coming back home and defending why I am no longer the simple god-fearing girl who left for IIT. Everybody seemed to be convinced that I was under the spell of some evil demon. There would be debates daily which did not even for a moment make me doubt my stand. The last straw was when I was dragged to the temple on my birthday and it ruined the one day people usually try to make me happy. Everything seemed so primitive and pagan. I could feel the resistance building up inside me. Not one particle in my body wanted to be there and I felt my rebellious best. Forcing someone who does not have faith is not the way to bring them over to your side, it will only convince them that they are right. I still have some respect for religion for it brings people together even those who do not have time to eat proper meal and the morals that it tries to impart to people using figures, symbols and stories so that the layman can understand. One more forced outing to a temple and even that may go down the drain.

To sum up my situation, I will have to borrow a few lines from Matthew Arnold’s "Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse"
        Wandering between two worlds, one dead
        The other powerless to be born,
        With nowhere yet to rest my head
        Like these, on earth I wait forlorn.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Bits and Pieces... Sweet and Sour

Sometimes it seems to me that summer break is just euphemism for slow death by boredom. Like everyone else I am searching for an anodyne that would lend me a much needed break from this stifling monotony. Sitcoms and movies were temporary solutions that did not do me much good except for giving me a bed-ridden air and a sore and rusty body. Reading was another recourse that was touted to be a remedy. I used to be quite a book worm few years ago and my reading skills have gathered a fair amount of rust and so, I decided to bury my nose into something worth a read. ‘Love in the time of cholera’ proved to be truly magical, Vikas Swarup’s ‘Six Suspects’ not up to the mark and I found myself bitten by the ‘reading bug’, if you will. One of the newspaper supplements had a little something on Jaishree Mishra and I was quite surprised to find out that she was a Malayali. A literarily inclined kindred spirit had taken to calling me her ancient promise based on the title of one of Mishra’s books. So, running my hand down its paperback spine, I felt a strange sort of accomplishment. Finally, I would know what ‘Ancient Promises’ was all about. 

I have not read it fully, yet. I have just completed part 1. For a book that is written in clear, crisp and simple language, peppered with Malayalam words and expressions here and there, I found it surprisingly difficult to read. It was not for any fault of the author or the book. The striking similarity of it all made me pause every few pages to give way to a torrent of forgotten images to tide over me. The innocence of those days I spent at my ancestral home at Muthukulam seemed to appeal to me with an intensity that made me pine for a return to the good old days that were.  

The smell of vazhaykkappam came wafting back, so did the tingling of tamarind on my tongue, the piercing cry of the fishermen as they passed by our house in their long, black boats, the feel of blobs of mailanji on my palm and the silhouette of Achachan sitting on his armchair twirling that steel thing in his ears at dusk. All my senses seem dead now for want of experience. I yearn for a smell, a taste, a sound, a touch or a sight from the good old days that were. Among the myriad memories that came tumbling back to me these seemed precious enough to note down in case they get buried once again under thick layers of junk.

Sunday evenings, when women and children from all the neighbouring houses would throng the living room (the only one in the vicinity with cable television) to catch the movie at 4.

Standing by the veli with Sreekutty, watching fishes battle for the rice mischievously smuggled from the kitchen.

Boat journeys on the viridian kayal, watching jellyfishes bob up and down ever so charmingly.

Boisterous camaraderie with the maid’s daughter; my sister, I used to say. Cutting up every herb in the vicinity with shaving blades stolen from Achachan, under the pretext of making beans thoran. That evening when, wide-eyed I told everyone that I had accompanied my friend to her ‘scenic’ bathroom (the banks of the backwater) and the grownups put an abrupt full-stop to our ‘sistership’. I do not remember her name, but I wonder where she is now. Married, for certain and maybe, even a mother.

The many wonderful summer vacations when Sonu, Kannan and Cuckoo would meet. Making ladoos and many other delicacies with the white sand for our bakery and the memorable inauguration ceremony afterwards when we would jump on all the ‘items’ laid out, reducing hours of hard labor to smithereens. Watching ‘Small wonder’ with no small wonder. 

The room where countless mangoes would be laid on sacks, waiting for our pick and sucking onto the juicy, ripe mangoes unmindful of the drops that never failed to fall onto our shirts. 

The many promises which I am not sure I can keep. If I am to, Mr. Amrit Anand (Kannan) will be getting a duck, the first thing after I get my first salary. 

Learning to play shuttle-cock and to ride a bicycle, both from Kannan, whom I owe a lot in terms of gurudakshina.

Watching Chindu itta and Akki itta make 4-5 konju vadas disappear in the bat of an eyelid.

 Ammamma fretting and fawning over each one of us.The many tasty dishes she laid out for every meal with so much love. The karimeen mappas, konjuvadas, pazhamporis, diamond cuts and the assortment of chips, all of which tasted simply like Muthukulam. Ammamma would always know what each of us favoured. Vella payasam for Vishnu Chettan, pulissery for Sreekutty, urulakizhangu curry for Kannan, pulao for Sonu and a bharani full of curd for me. 

Bhanu uncle, the man who came to fell coconuts would always  remember to hack down some tender coconuts for us.
We were little kings and queens then…

As I sit here with watering eyes, I wonder; did Cuckoo, the naughtiest girl in the family, have any sorrow back then? Did she know that years from then, she would be sitting in a two-storied house in the capital city wishing to be her again, just for a single day? 

Saturday, May 14, 2011

The Ashtray

Ten minutes, that was all she was allowed. Ten minutes to be in his nest, to feel the depression his body had made on his mattress, to be alarmed by the mess that was his room. He had many things to show her; books he treasured, his old photos, a carved wooden pipe, significantly insignificant tit-bits which held puddles of their moments together and finally, an ashtray. As he retrieved each item like a conjurer pulling out rabbits from a top-hat, her kohl-lined eyes danced to his tune. They popped out, smiled, inviting… and then without warning they drooped, sad and silent, complaining. The ashtray was a remnant of the past that she wanted him to forget. The black bird in the now reddening sky swam in a tide that threatened to break barriers and flow any moment. He loved seeing that pointed nose twitch, her eyes become red and swollen, her lips tremble. Cheekily, he brought the ashtray close to his nose and inhaled deeply, his face a picture of bliss. She gathered the folds of her sari and her tender feet slid into her sandals, she was about to leave but then something held her back; it was rather, someone. The twinkling, naughty eyes met the tearful, complaining ones. The ashtray lay forgotten on the table….

Coming out of the court-room Lisa could not help smiling. She had broken out of her prison; bonds built upon love and trust had been suffocating her in an iron grip for long. Lisa drove around aimlessly for a while wondering what she wanted to do first thing after attaining liberation. She looked over at the dashboard; she seemed to notice the ornate silver cross for the first time. Rick, ever the god-fearing Christian! The cross was one among the many sacrifices she had made for ‘them’. Lisa brought the car to a halt and clawed at the cross frantically. Her determination was accelerated by sheer desperation and in a few minutes the cross lay on her palm. With maniacal pleasure she threw it out of the window. No place for a cross in an atheist’s car. Humming a tune she unlocked the door to her apartment. A wave of all that was his’ hit her, suddenly. The painting on the wall, his books, his tooth-brush, his perfume, his smell…. Braving tears, chiding courage into herself Lisa set about throwing all that was Rick’s into a huge carton which would join the day’s trash. Sleep evaded her that night, she was sure that she had forgotten something. She switched on the lights and ambled aimlessly along the corridors and finally settled down on the living room couch. Her sleep-starved eyes fell on something that was another reminder of her dreary past, a crystal ashtray, his’. She never smoked and she detested people who smoked, yet, the ashtray had found a place on her coffee table. The day he left the house, she had cleared the ashes, yet to this day she finds it full of dead ashes and dying embers. Lisa could just toss it onto the nearly full carton but it will hardly make any difference. Her life is in itself an ashtray of the dead past and its dying embers….

Waiting outside Nambiar doctor’s cabin, Janaki kept a relentless flow of questions rolling. Her father knew just what was to be done with her, he asked, “Janaki, do you know what doctor sir will do if children do not keep quiet?” Janaki did not know. “Well, he will give you an injection on the tongue”. Horrified, she kept her questions to herself. Nambiar doctor surveyed them through his enormous spectacles and then peered into the lab report. “Janaki, right?” Her parents nodded. He looked at the child who was playing with the paper-weight (wondering if she could ride a hippo at the zoo). He detested moments like this though they were inevitably a part of his life as a doctor. Looking into his own interlocked hands he said, “These days people get diseases at a very young age but there is always hope as medical sciences have advanced. Your daughter has cancer, I suggest you get her admitted here at the RCC at the earliest”. Her parents sat there shocked, seeing many dreams being charred to death in front of their eyes. Janaki would soon learn that reality never spares anyone from needles and injections. Janaki spent three months of the summer within the walls of the pediatric ward watching the dilapidated television, waiting for transfusions and chemo sessions and writhing in her bed as excruciating pain took possession of her eight year old body. Great things were promised to her; new clothes, toys and a visit to the zoo to see her beloved jirapps, a return to her innocent, untainted life and greater were promised by her; a graduate, a doctor, a mother…. Promises are meant to be broken and on one Thursday evening, as her mother fed her, she vomited blood and joined many others who had lost the battle against the crab. For her mother and father, the light of their lives had been doused but for the unsympathetic world, she was just another spent stub that joined many others in the huge ashtray….

For someone who does not smoke, I feel I have an ashtray too many on my table. One is for the many ideas that make great beginnings but fail to progress into great stories (masterpieces they promise to be) and another for the million dreams, for the castles I built and those that many kind-hearted others built for me, and yet another, my own graveyard where part by part I kill myself as the hour suggests. On a lonely night, these are no company but then if I take a pinch out of each and inhale, it leaves me with a concoction of tumultuous memories, varying emotions, loud voices and even louder faces. They are the dregs of my life, the proof of my existence, my comfort and my sorrow, my prized possessions and my burden. As much as these ashtrays remind me of what I could never be, seeing them full always (no matter how often I empty them) makes me proud of having a rich bundle of experiences. And as much as I realize that ending up in the ashtray somewhere, sometime is inevitable, I can strive to keep the flame burning bright as long as I can. With the hope that this bit (and the others which I want to follow) will not end up in an ashtray, be it mine or yours, I begin three months of isolation with a foretaste of the impending despair.

Friday, March 25, 2011

A Promise Kept

Pen poised, I waited
For verses to flow.
Two crystal beads raced their path
Through the uncut stone.
This is my poem for you,
My own;
Two drops, fellow tributary
Of pure, unadulterated
Love.



Tuesday, March 1, 2011

About Steven... and me

Sun-proofing, that is one great invention that humanity has to be thankful for. All the world is just a blue-hued blur as you speed past the tanned bare-backs bearing the brunt of the mid-day sun. You do not see the sweat, the tears nor the million hued dreams that fly in the swirling dust outside. Your world is cool, comfortable and cosy. Just as you step out of the air-conditioned car, attendants rush to your aid with umbrellas and a mint-cooler awaits you in the parlour. Life is the same for you, lad born in the lap of Luxury, wherever you are. In some countries you are a majority but in lesser privileged ones, you are a towering minority, the few ravenous mouths that eat up the major chunk of the pie available to hungry millions. I spot you in over-priced malls buying up solitaires the size of a nut, you grin at me from the cover pages of magazines – news-makers you are, you are all around us, but I feel your presence most profoundly in the tears that spring from scarcity, those that flood the huge ridge of inequality you have created. You are our pride and our sorrow. I can pick you out from the teeming many, by the sheen of your dress and the glow of your skin. (both of which have had a price to pay) I pick you out Steven, for this is all about you.

Steven never knew that I was following him, nor did his better(worse)-half. If they had known, they would not have went about spilling oil to their bed chamber just when I had a match lit. It was not the cobblestones in their path nor the walls, that surrounded them as they went about with their dark deeds, which betrayed them; it was their careless mouths which led them to their doom, I just made your voice resound in the streets. He was the fodder that my curiosity fed on. How could someone with a brain the size of a pea earn millions every single day when thousands toil for him in his huge establishments, earning hardly 50 bucks a day? I had to find out. My eyes followed him as he met the bureaucrats in star hotels, as he trudged his way back home; I watched with amusement as his obese wife and overfed children fawned on him with all the love in the world only to curse him behind his back the very next second. His dark deeds made my unblinking eyes clamp shut. Steven made his castles from thousand rupee notes that have a black smudge on them. He was a master at work, snatching every grain of food from the mouths of the hungry millions, stuffing them in his granaries and selling it at prices that even he could not afford to pay. Steven dealt in your hunger and mine; he was the reason for the thousands who die of hunger, for the children who suffer from malnutrition and for the sickle-bearing hands that disappear into oblivion every single day.

As we watched him trample on us to his throne, a mother cried out, “The all-seeing eye is watching, you can't trick Him”. The flood of misfortunes I showered on him began as a tiny trickle; I overheard one of Steven’s confidential chats with a bigwig in the cabinet and I could not resist spilling the beans to all who would listen. The whole nation woke up to his grinning face in the newspapers, to his raspy voice in televisions and radios, I made him a notorious celebrity. In the days that followed a pack of hounds hunted him down and, with a little help from my part, tore away the mask covering his ugly face and made him stand nude in the view of the whole country. Within days Steven’s repute lay in the dust, his castles were razed to the ground. He stood, burning in the nation's ire, wishing me a dire end. I became an obsession for him. He would not speak without searching the surroundings for me, though he never really knew me. Maybe, he hoped that my appearance would give some cue to him, maybe he hoped that I would leap from behind a bush and proclaim that I am the reason for his doom. I was one among the many pairs of hungry eyes that were around him, but he never knew which. All the while I laughed.

Steven smiled, yes, a smile of contention. It was then that realisation sunk in that I am addicted to his tears and that I cannot live without it. That was a shady smile too, I could not help noticing the red rose in the background. So what do I do? The next day morning, mothers all over the nation took care to see that their children did not see the newspaper or television. But for old granddads and grannies, it was a hot topic for their evening discussions. Infidelity is a far greater crime than murder, if not it is undoubtedly the most sensational. You can never say that I never did him a favour; bags packed, his wife and children stood at the doorway and sped away in the only car that he had taking with them what remained of his fortune. His fury found its target in a wine bottle which lay in pieces on the leopard skin carpet in the living room; alas, it could neither quench my thirst for his destruction nor could it douse his hatred for me. As Steven went out on his evening walk people spat on his face, women pointed at him and giggled, his friends acted as though he was just another face in the crowd, he could have asked me then to stop, but he did not, he just cursed me.

Sleep is the greatest luxury, poor Steven, he realised that too late. In the dark he saw my hands groping for him. He heard my voice proclaim all that he never wanted to be known. He felt my gaze wherever he went, he took care not to leave any footprints as he trudged his way to the place that would witness his final showdown. It was somewhere in the romantic mountains, I saw him with a spade digging on and on panting and chanting curses at me. He slowly unearthed a wooden crate which contained a small fortune. Whistle-blower, I proved worthy of that name! As he gloated over this fortune and the possibility of an escape to a better future that it seemed to offer, a siren rang somewhere in the distance and a group of khaki clad police officers appeared on the scene. His face was a picture of enraged helplessness if there is such a condition. The officers dig a bit further and found similar crates and cartons of hidden fortune. Steven is just one thread that has been successfully taken out from a tangled mess of dirty threads. There are many more to come and they might not be so easy to untangle. But I will never stop trying nor prying.

Stevens in our country, this is my voice you hear. Some of your lives may have been touched by me and the others, I might be a recurring nightmare for you. In any case I am as familiar to you as your own self. I am no divine providence who keeps watch over you, no god. I have only one religion: truth and I preach it in every breath of mine. Wrong-doers you are and I will make you suffer. Do not search for me. You will never find me, for your sight is jaundiced by the lustre of gold. You will see me only when you have something known as compassion. You will see me only when you learn to see the millions who toil for you, to provide you the creature comforts you take for granted. I am always with you, though I never stand by your side. You never noticed me, I was by your bedside, on your table, on some mantelpiece, somewhere, I am just an hourglass.

Monday, February 21, 2011

An Eternity of Waiting

She waited by the ocean. In the distant horizon she could see the familiar sails of the boat. ‘Don’t your eyes ever get tired of waiting and watching?’ Boy asks. She doesn’t have any answer; her eyes are still hooked to that same distant point. Boy mumbled something that she could not make out. She knew that everybody thought her to be out of her senses. Nobody saw the ship with its fluttering white sails. ‘One day they will come’, she would say over and over again, every now and then to any person who paused to listen or sometimes even to nothingness, to the passing air.

Rain poured; incessant, dispiriting rain, drenching all those who ventured out devoid of black umbrellas and bleak raincoats. It did not spare those who stayed inside, within the safety of their cosy houses.  It lashed at the window panes, it poured in through cracks, holes, ventilators. The rain spared no one. She still stood there, rooted like a marble statue of the virgin goddess. Rain did not blur her vision, something else did. The rain was not bitter for her, it was salty.

It was by the maple that she always stood, house of squirrels, giver of shade, a grandfather figure to all. The green slowly became a slight orange, then a bit darker, darker. Soon it was a flame of color. The trees looked as if they were on fire. Slowly, one by one at first, then in torrents they began to fall. On that one solitary branch a single leaf still stood, braving all the odds. The songbird perched on the branch and the lonely leaf went down to join the others. For many, hope went down with that last leaf. But there was something green that never drooped nor fell; it was she who still stood waiting, her eyes on the horizon.

The branches of the maple became heavy again. It wasn’t full of green, it was white. Snowflakes adorned the window panes, blazing fires burned in the hearth of each house. Families huddled together, dressed in woolens, near the fire to keep away the cold. Many dreams were buried under the snow and the sleet. The morning next, someone strew salt on the sidewalks and shoveled it all away, the dreams and the snow. Eyes glazed, lips blue, limbs numb, she stood there next to the snowman the children built, by the frozen stretch of water, for her, the fire kept on burning in the hearth of her heart.

The sun’s rays trickled through gaps in the snow. Slowly, the gaps became wider, larger, the world bathed in the glorious sunshine. Green, red, yellow, orange, the earth was blooming in multiple shades. Life seemed to ooze from every grass blade, from the breeze that blew, from the endless chirping of the birds. Children came out of their homes, dressed in bright shades, singing and laughing loudly, their mothers chasing them with bowls of food they refused to partake. They chased the butterflies, smelt the freshly bloomed flowers, and mimicked the songbird’s doleful song. The world was a burst of color; a delightful cacophony of voices, a celebration of the joy of youth, of all things growing. She stood still, her eyes fixed on that point afar. Still, stationary, static…. Wait! The corners of her lips curl slowly, could it possibly be, in a smile?

She stretched out her arm, as if to touch something. She said, her voice hoarse and otherworldly, ‘They are here’. She reached out again, groped the air, her face fell, the smile drooped a bit, she mumbled, ‘Just a bit more. Almost here’. Boy went near her, tugged at her skirt and looked into her bright lively eyes that for some reason seemed full. She said in rapture, “See, I told you they would come! They are almost here”. The boy looks out into the expanse of the blue ocean, sees nothing. He starts to ask where but realizing that it is pointless, shakes his head and moves on, smiling sadly.

Anger, seething, boiling hot, the earth dried and cracked, the leaves drooped, the flowers wilted, the water in the ocean seemed to dry up. Parched tongues, cracked heels, sweaty necks, burning eyes, they crowded around the wells, fought for water. She stood there, near the ocean, that vast body of water, the sight seemed to quench her thirst forever. She held out her arms, hugged someone, kissed the air, laughed at the jokes that others could not hear, blushed at the unseen someone's compliments. The onlookers knew that ‘they’ had finally come for her.

Who were they? Friends, relatives, family? Where had they gone? Why could not the others see them? Where they as real as the blue leaves and the pink trees? They did not know. They saw her smile, her bliss: the thirsty and the angry became pacified, filled with some sort of vicarious joy seeing her return to childhood, to happiness. Now! There she was with tears on both sides of her face, waving her hands as if in goodbye, holding someone in tight embrace. She cried out, ‘Goodbye, I will wait for you. Come back soon’. The thirsty and the angry, the children and the adults got water, salty water on their cheeks. Who was she? Why did she cry?

There, by the accustomed spot, she stood still and pensive, wounds raw, waiting for the next summer, waiting for the warm embrace, for the company she hoped, for her unseen, unheard beloved. Yes, she had something, or rather somebody to wait for, to look forward to and to long for with hunger. The boy went to her, patted her on the shoulder. She turned to him. ‘My sons, they will be back next summer. I have their dinner ready, their beds made. Wait with me for them, won’t you?’ She shivered, she cried, she gripped Boy’s arms tightly. ‘The sails, where are they? The bright sails!? The ship! Where is it? Ah! Is that what I see sinking?’ She fainted, fell into Boy’s arms.

Is it rain? No, it wasn’t, someone was sprinkling water on her face. She starts, leaps out, rushes to her spot, pushes all the onlookers away from her path. Huffing and panting, her frail form looking ready to break any moment, she stood leaning onto the maple tree, her eyes fixed on the horizon. Waiting for the rains to wash her and to immerse her in misery. Waiting for autumn and the impending despair. Waiting for the cold, dreary, bleak winter and the lively spring. For summer to come. Waiting, waiting, waiting….

The Imposed Exile

There is nothing but rubble here. These stones were once much bragged about architectural symphonies. Ah! Something glitters, it dazes me; what is it? A shard, a broken piece of the mirror she used to preen herself in front of. What is that blue? Is it a reflection of your periwinkle eyes? Reflection! you remain, but where is she? What is that piece of wood? Was it not our sideboard which held many a savory she prepared, seasoned with love and care? The life has gone out of them, these bits of material wealth. She was the life; no they were the life. They breathed life into all that was around them; all that we fancied to be ours. Where did they go?

I try to call out their names, my lips refuse to move. I try to move my arm, the pain blinds me; I smell blood, my eyesight fades. I should see them, I should hold them close to me… ‘Get up!’ I chide myself. With excruciating pain in every sinew in my corporal self  I manage to get up. Where are you my dear, dearest? I search for you amongst these bricks, stones, dust; all that remains of the great civilization. Cry out to me, I will pull you out of this mess. Am I deaf ? This silence is deafening in its eloquent clamor. And them, those lovely little cherubs, ours; where are they? Come! come rushing into my arms. They can’t be gone or are they?

I am searching; searching among these lifeless, worthless pieces of junk for you, for my vision, my voice, my life, myself… I want to call out, I want to scream at the top of my voice, screech out their names so that they will come running. My mouth is dry and parched, I am unable to make a sound. Have you taken my voice with you wherever you have gone? Who is pulling me down? Can’t you see I am searching for all that was mine. You should understand how… precious… li’l… mine… life… gg… g..go…

I wake up; no! I should not have slept! Things have changed, days have gone by or even years. Still no sight of them; I am lost, I am dead. One by one the rubbish clears itself. I see boulders being lifted, slowly, with painstaking effort. The rubble is vanishing before my eyes, yet the dust remains. My eyes fill up; it is the dust, yes, it really is. Pang? Why does my heart yearn for that disorder? Those ruins, they did veil my grief. I sought solace in that disorder. They justified my wails. Four walls around me, I feel claustrophobic. Break them down once more! Is that, could that possibly be, footsteps? Grey walls, you do not seem to be as suffocating as you once were. Somewhere I hear laughter ringing, I join in. No! I shouldn’t be laughing. I do not deserve joy in a world that is no longer yours. Bring back that rubble, let me cry! Dolor, make me your child!

I hear voices; concerned voices that inquire about my well being. Go away! I don’t need you. Yes, I do. NO! I DON’T! My eyes have feasted on those dilapidated scenery long enough. They have had their fill. Don’t add baggage to an already leaden heart, I might bend; no, I am sure, I will stoop and fall. Who will embark on a journey that knows not a destination? There comes a time when the boots will have to step off that muddy road. The doors of my vehicle will open to let them, my fellow passengers, out and that toxic silence will set in once more to plague me with its distinct murmurings. Better, I travel alone along this path that many before me have cleared and made less savage. I don’t have that hand to hold, I yearn for a shoulder to weep on. Deny that luxury, stain not him who gives you company.

Indulgence, you have reaped your reward. Here you stand again tasting loss in the dust. Boulders, rubble, twisted iron rods, deja vu.  Pain? In plenty. Been bathing in blood, it ceases to horrify. Two roads before me: one a similar path that brings me back home, the other a complex jungle, sharp thorns and jagged rocks it is sure to hurt. Familiar dilemma? The poet preaches one way, I know the other way well. See the leaves in your branch wither away or let all your sight be a blur. Depressing! I choose to bury myself in this chaos I’ve created for myself. Amongst that rubble, those material remains, I have lost my heart. To seek that bloody vital from amongst this confusion, I have not strength; giving up, I choose to lie in this graveyard where all I hold dear lies. Oblivion! take me as yours, as you have taken mine to be.

Wait! what is that green I see yonder? Sapling! We planted you here, did we not? I see my cherubs, their eyes wide, watching her as she tenderly placed you in earth’s warm womb. I still see her pale, slender fingers patting the mud around you, making sure you were safe and that you would grow. White, dark brown, green. Watered you each day, didn’t we? With love. My little ones; crooned they to you, did they not? Mentoring the foliage, that looked ready to wilt and droop any moment, to look up and face the sun. You! you green plant, you are all that remains of them, of us. I live through you. You are for my sight alone, all your hues are mine, exclusively mine, to behold. Sustain me in your evergreen growth…

The Quest

They looked like angels, gods. Otherworldly, there is no other word that describes their beauty. Auburn hair, bright twinkling black eyes, pendulous lips, dusky complexion, goddess, I fall at your feet. There is none to surpass your beauty. Wait! I see another, (could it be possible) more beautiful than you are? Another! yet another? This is paradise. Gold fountains that squirt pure milk, mounds of heavenly food, downy beds with drapes of silk, birds that sing delightful symphonies, bright eyed does that dazzle you with its magical elegance, smiles all around, no tears, no grief, no poverty, no greed… Surely, this is paradise. Earthquake! in paradise? Why am I shaking back and forth, who calls my name?

Everything is blurry at first. Slowly things come into focus. The dirty tin walls, the grimy opening and the bright ray of sunlight that fights its way through the dust. My vision was obstructed by the imposing figure of Martha, my better half (three quarters, actually). She was yelling at me, waving a rolling pin. Slowly the doleful music of the birds begin to fade, I could make out angry grunts and pitiful wails of hungry children. She was asking me to move my you-know-what. “There is not a single penny in the house, not a bite in the larder, nor a speck of flour. The children are starving. Go, pawn your dead father’s chain if you have to. Don’t you dare come back without food.” She shoved me out of the shanty we six call home.
Perched on a rock, I try to get that beautiful dream back into my pumpkin. Sometimes I wonder why I ever got married. When I was a chap, someone told me I would go places, see sights. Yet nothing happened. My rag-picker dad married his rag-picker son off to a fellow rag-picker’s daughter. (Yeah, we have a pretty decent lineage) The day my dad died, he gave me a thick gold chain he had nicked one fine rag-picking day. To pawn it would be an insult to his honorable memory. I will sell it and get something to feed those stick insects who call me ‘dad’. Yeah, that will do for a couple of months or maybe, another half, but after that? I am sick of this life, I tell you. Born a rag-picker, I will die a rag-picker if I am to stay put in this hell. The angels, the gold, the food, the fountains of milk…

I can see the blue of the ocean behind me, stretching on and on; endless. Suddenly, I notice something I have never seen before, a land that isn’t all green and brown like the others, but gold. Maybe that dream was not just a nightly illusion that visits everyone, but a message, an answer meant only for me. That land I see there is Paradise, I will have angels to take care of me, food to satisfy my years of hunger, milk to quench an eternity of thirst, everything that I need to turn that permanent frown on my burnt and lined face upside down forever. My heart beats like a drum roll on a Republic Day parade. It is not fear; it is the excitement of finally knowing what I want, of knowing a goal for the first time in a life of meaninglessness. Slowly, reason transcends. How will I get there? My heart skips a beat. Will this be yet another unfulfilled dream? No! I won’t let it be. It is the purpose of my being. I will sail to Paradise at any cost, even if I have to drink and drain all the water in the ocean.

I shake my head, slap the clouded old lemon a few times, and try to get it to work properly. In sheer desperation I grab at my chest and I hit gold! My dad’s one noble piece of work; the gold chain! If Martha and her pests are hungry, they can go out and beg. This honorable piece of heirloom will not be wasted on worthless pieces of dirt; I will buy a nice little sailboat, one I can manage by myself. Ha, ha! The angels await, Paradise, here I come. My stick-legs carry me to the market. I sell the ornament and make a small fortune. I buy a few things that will come in handy for the journey. Some food, a jar of the finest wine, a nice and decent pair of clothes and on an impulse a thick woollen sweater and a pair of boots. (Who knows if it snows in Paradise?) Next, I head for the dock. I meet a nice chap there who sells me a little skiff. I spend all my money on that little beauty and include a handsome tip for the chap. I am off to Paradise, why would I need money there? Life there is free like the smelly air here. I wrinkle my nose. Heavens! The smell of this place!
 
Without further ado, I jump into my chariot that will take me to my dream-destination – Paradise! I row on, energetically. My spirit spurs me on, I am unstoppable. I stop to catch my breath, grab a handful of grub, take a huge gulp of that wine and row on. I can see the sky getting dark, night is falling, I do not stop rowing. At some point I might have fallen asleep. When I wake up I can see the land of gold quite clearly, it will take only a couple of hours to get there. I row on with all the strength that is in me. I stretch every sinew of my body to the breaking point. I reach the land of my dreams.
 
My face is wet, washed in a torrent of salty water. No, it is not the water of the ocean; it is mine, my bloody tears! What do you reckon? Tears of happiness? Joy of reaching my destination? The pain of salvation? Bah! To hell with all that! There is gold here, true, piles and mounds of gold. Tiny specks, they are. SAND! A vast expanse of sand, nothing else. And the HEAT! You could fry an egg on my head now. Aaargh! Yeah, I met the first life-form here; it is not a doe, it is a rattle-snake! Is this P-A-R-A-D-I-S-E? I feel a kind of numbness all over my body and a kind of pain deep down. Now I know what it feels like to get your heart broken. Mine isn’t just broken, it has been fist-pounded into fine powder, in a way you can never glue it back together. I weep shamelessly. Why be ashamed when there is nobody to see you in this unmanly act of crying, of converting your sorrow into comforting beads of salty water that cools at least two tiny parts of your face?

I shake myself up; try to cajole myself to move my backside. It is no use crying over spilt milk. I walk on and on. It is miles and miles of sand. I throw away my costly sweater (pashmina, they told me). I rip most of my new clothes off. It is too much heat for me to bear. I am itching to throw away my boots too but I bear the heat in my legs for fear of snakes and the burning sand. I do not know how many times I fainted or how much time had passed. In my solitary march, many a time the sunlight becomes too much for me and I blink. When I open my eyes next, I would be lying on the sand. On one such instance when I rub my eyes and shake the sand off my person, I spot green and long trees laden with some strange fruit. I drag my feet along hoping with the only trace of optimism that is left in me that this isn’t another one of those illusions that haunt me. Every other day I would see springs of fresh water, my thirsty eyes would urge my tired legs to go on and on. My parched lips would wait for the fulfillment of their unquenchable thirst. Yet there will be nothing, just sand and more sand for my eyes to feast upon. No, this isn’t another of those, the green is getting closer. I can make out shapes. There are people there, there are houses and there are some horse like animals with huge lumps on their back. I am relieved.

I reach the pool of water, I lap up water like a dog. A man with a huge handkerchief tied on his head speaks to me in some alien language. I am bewildered. I point to my stomach. He nods. There is no language for hunger. I am provided with those strange fruits. No taste registers in my mouth, I just eat. Even dog meat would suffice to satisfy my hunger. The woman who served me was covered from head to toe except for a rectangular portion that revealed a pair of hawk’s eyes. She said something in that alien tongue. I shook my head. She mimed by rubbing her thumb and index finger. Oh! Money! I do not have anything left. I shrug my shoulders and look to the ground. They throw me out, swearing. Language is no boundary for that too.

I wandered through the market alleys that displayed wares I had never seen. I came by a shop that sold perfumes. They smelled heavenly. I sniffed in deeply and my heart knew at that moment that I had come to the wrong place. I had not reached Paradise, but left it. My nostrils craved for that smell of garbage, of the uncovered sewers, of Martha’s sweat, of the land that was mine. I do not want succulent meat or pure, wholesome milk; some chlorinated water from that ever-dripping tap and dry, unleavened bread that knew Martha’s touch would do. I don’t want this otherworldly music that the chap plays on his accordion; I want the chirp, the irritating chirp of my stick insects, my children. I don’t want gold; I just want to be back to where I was born, to where I belong. I fill my wine jar with some water, trade my boots for some food and start my journey back. Luckily, my little skiff was there by the shore. Who would take it? Who would come here? I start rowing, enthusiastically.

This is a journey to where my heart belongs and not to where it longs to be. It is my land, the paradise I dreamt of. The land of happiness and fulfillment. Happiness of the hourly sorrows, fulfillment of the daily denials. I crave for all that, for that is what I am made of- my element. You complete me, my home-soil. I set upon my final voyage where the destination is the land from where I embarked on this journey to Paradise. And I tell you, I have found it, my Paradise.

Saturday, February 12, 2011

A Mirage

Vert-hued you are, I behold,
Sapphire tinged to bards,
Lacking in loneliness.
What are you?
Green, blue or neither.

Pure you are; maiden's tears
Speckled you are by
The naughty sun
You dance, you walk
We talk. Glow you
Sparkling, shimmering silk

Vainly I gaze at the horizon
Origins? Question thus put
Grimly, towering ancestors frown
At me. You belong
To them, the hands that
Caress you, pat you as
You run your solitary race.

Restored unto me the deserter
That on a meandering course
You stole from a brother
In art. Gratitude flows
In torrents. Mirror we
Each other, crystal clear!