Ahhhh!!!!

I have a lovely kat ful gach next to my window. It is one of those prolific varieties that yield hundreds of red flowers all spring and summer. Winter chills all its leaves and flowers away. But today this skeleton tree bore its first blossom. I was kind of surprised cause its still too early but then the I thought that it probably wanted to dress up too. You can’t blame the poor tree with all the Valentine’s Day propaganda everywhere. The “day of love” becomes an excuse and a convenient one too, to sell cards, chocolates, bouquets and jewellery. No wonder my little tree was getting insecure.
I remember when I was in school. There was this girl I loved like a sister till our suburban hearts drifted in the city crowds and was lost forever. She always made it a point to gather as many wild flowers as she could on her way to school every Valentine’s Day so that we could spend the rest of the day finding names for them. I’m sure the flowers had their names listed in botany books but those were really unromantic scientific names not befitting any object of beauty. She always asserted that it was a shame that no one cared for these pretty objects just because they abounded by themselves. We named them and pretended that this made them less neglected. I know now how ridiculous the ritual was but we didn’t care. We cared for a stupid flower limping beside some dirty drain and that must have meant something. At least we hoped it did.
But as I grow older I find myself less inclined to leave things to hope. A friend told me the other day that I am too emotional and trusting. She was angry that I had managed to break my heart again. She said she didn’t trust anyone and that atleast saved the tears from executing their office at such alarming regularity. I try not to care about the little starved pup huddled against the cold wall of an air-conditioned restaurant. Does that mean something? Anything? I suppose dogs are better. They don’t break your trust. But my bokha kukur who thinks of himself as the master of the house and refuses to go to bed without comfortable pillow and a soft blanket, in a sudden display of animal instincts bit my brother. But then he treated it as a breach of trust and has not left Roni’s side since. Further more as an act of penitence he’s foregoing the pillow and sleeping curled up in one corner of Roni’s bed. Like a dog!!
That I’m sure means something.
But its Valentine’s Day and a bloke just passed my window howling a Fossils song at the top of his lungs. See if you can’t beat them then stop seeing them. So just when I realized that this Valentine’s Day frenzy was getting to my head, I switched myself off. That wasn’t difficult. Meanwhile, my darling boyfriend has overslept again. I’m glad some things remain the same even if this is “a day you show the people you love just how much you love them”.
Kancha thank you!

The Woman

It was going to be another warm winter, the sun glaring in through the train window was still quite oppressive and the heavy wind blowing in still enjoyable. I sat looking outside the window at the passing trees, the flowing walls plastered with cowdung and the railtracks, the railtracks playing a game of meeting and parting endlessly, going on and on to what appeared to be the ends of the earth. It seemed as if they were like life itself, pulsating, beating and sometimes a little rusted. Thomas Hardy had once famously introduced the railway as an alien disturbance destroying the pastoral landscape. But here far away from the epicenter of the modern world, far away from Hardy’s native lands, on the third worldly fringes, in this humid country were soft people ate rice and talked in lyrical tongues, the railway too like so many other alien things had been internalized. The stretches of green interspersing individual tracks looked like they had always been there and the little marshes and ponds lying just beside the railtracks seemed as much a part of the Indian railway services as the electric posts and signals.
The bogie swayed to and fro to the lull of the lazy afternoon. Most of the men in the compartment were sleeping, arms folded across their chests and heads hanging precariously in mid-air. Few others were playing cards. A young couple, probably students, were chatting away at the other window. Suddenly a hawker who had been standing near the gate furiously started scolding the old woman standing next to him. I always thought of hawkers as a nuisance. No civilized country would allow vendors, that too in such alarming numbers on trains. This man, I saw, was scolding the woman for not carrying water.
“I don’t understand you people. How stupid can you be? How can you come on such a long journey with a child and not carry water?”
It was at this point that I noticed the small boy beside the woman. He had just finished vomiting and was now standing shakily clutching on to the woman looking bewildered. They both looked like they hadn’t had a bath in three days. The old woman, presumably his grandmother was fussing as she had no water about her. I watched her as she wiped his mouth with the end of her saree and started stroking his head, softly throwing various terms of endearment at him. The concern with which she tended to him touched me. It seemed almost as if she believed that her affectionate fondles would make the boy feel better. Call me old fashioned but I believe that women should possess a certain degree of feminine virtues like softness, love and care, values that have been cherished by generations before us and which I am sad to say the modern generation of jeans clad uber confident aggressive career women completely lack. But this woman, this pauper, with probably not an ounce of culture in her possession was so akin to the Mohini Raja Ravi Verma had pictured. To love should be inherent in a woman’s nature but this dirty woman in the shabby train compartment was so different from Mohini with her cascading mass of black hair smiling as she swung to and fro for eternity. But a woman is an embodiment of nature and nature is never touched by money, class or creed. Why was it then so surprising that this poor old woman could be a representative of the lost values of a passing generation? It seemed unfair that my fellow passengers would probably laugh if I told them that I found this woman more charming than the majority of their wives and daughters.
“Excuse me sir”, a female voice broke my reverie, “Do you have any water?”
It was that same old woman. I hesitated, passing a swift from her dirt clogged nails to the water carrier attached to the side of my backpack. She had probably seen it. To refuse now would be embarrassing and so although I was shrinking from her dirty hands I quietly handed her the bottle. The little boy drank from it and his grandmother then proceeded to return it with a word of gratitude.
I protested, “There is really no need, you can keep …”
But she looked at me sourly and this kept me from finishing the sentence.

…………………

On a quiet deserted platform I got off the train and proceeded to go home. I found a dark corner and swiftly threw the bottle. It fell with a thud against a stony dung plastered wall. I turned and walked away in silence.

Evening approaches on the wings
Of buzzing flies, the glowing twilight
Rippling on the dusty streets
A lonely dog playing with some filthy rag
Yet it all seemed so different once,
Beauty was the word I was searching for
I had tried to gathered the letters in
Some scribbles that we exchanged
Something snapped, the ink was
A hazy blur, nothing tangible,
Nothing important, it felt like rage
And the mind refused to contain
The throbbing brain burst open
To say with a silent scream
I dreamt of you the other day.
Dreamt of a form, an image, a chimera
And before I looked it was gone.
And a million other things that
Words refused to grasp and the pen,
It said nothing.
I think I have measured out my life in
Cups of tea and words forged out by force
The never-ending sides of railway tracks
Where a woman pissed, a man died
And a baby played in the sunshine.
There was no end.
But you, you claim difference when
Your pores ooze out the same blood
As mine. It reeked of folly.
This play, this game, the lies or
Whatever it is that you say
The recent years contained.
And in a moment you walked away
There was no point staying anyway,
We are too alike.

A Hero

I guess I was sleeping for a while. Well, here's a comeback...

A HERO

This was the big night and for the first time in so many years the commissioner was feeling exited. It was as if he had become a little boy again. His wife saw this and smiled. She gave his hand a small squeeze and whispered a barely audible “congratulations” into his ear. The screaming siren was drowning every thing else. He looked out at the rows of shops and the people in them who had now begun to stare at his passing car. He couldn’t help but feel proud. He was once one of them and look at him now. It hadn’t been an easy journey though. He had his share of troubles, a dead father, the civil services exam and the years of hard work. And today the state ministry had called a special ceremony just to award him.
“An exceptional track record,” he had heard the Home Minister say to the media. It was true. He had after all been in the front line of a long campaign which saw the elimination of over a hundred criminals in the past one year. With twenty-five dead, ten serving death sentences and numerous others behind bars, the Police Department had reasons to be proud. And he was the star that had made it all possible.
The Banquet hall was glittering with the flowers and the decorations. It was suddenly swept with the sound of clapping hands as the commissioner entered and went up to the stage. After a really brief speech unusual of politicians, the chief minister handed him a bouquet and congratulated him. Someone had remembered that he loved orchids. The commissioner was touched. He looked at his wife, seated in the front row, and mused- she was looking beautiful. There were prominent lines on her face and streaks of gray in the opulent hair but she still was beautiful. Well, he too was loosing some of his lustrous mane, he was not a young man anymore.
He felt he heard a gunshot. After all that is one sound that his experienced ear could pick out among thousand others. He was suddenly aware of a dull numbing pain in the chest. The world around him had started to swirl. He felt seeing glimpses of people running around and muted screams. The assistant commissioner and his wife and few others were leaning over him. She was saying something but he couldn’t catch the words. A void had begun to form. The survival instinct of a fighter tried to push out the drowning feeling that seemed to suck him in a dark hole but in vain. He desperately took a gasp of breath but it didn’t clear his head. He was sinking further and farther.
It was pitch dark. The commissioner couldn’t see a thing. He peered his eyes hard only to shrink back in despair. He could neither see the surface on which he was standing nor any ceiling or wall if there were any at all. But he was conscious of a presence. He tried to look again but failed.
“There he is, the man himself!” said someone all of a sudden.
He couldn’t exactly tell which direction the voice came from so he looked all round him
“Who is it? Why can’t I see you?” he asked, his confidence sinking with every passing second.
“Of course you can’t see me, you silly man!” the voice mocked, “ I am the angel of death.”
On any other day the commissioner would have thought that this was a bad joke but at that moment something in him was telling him to believe what the voice was saying or it could have been that he was simply afraid.
“It’s not funny,” he squeaked.
“Silence,” the voice thundered, “you mortals have become more and more skeptical over the passing centuries. I am not sure whether it is entirely a good thing. Do you have any idea of the amount of trouble I had to go through to secure this meeting? I even had to manipulate the poor man who shot you into doing it.”
“You manipulated whom?”
“The man who shot you, yes, that’s against our ethics. We don’t allow any direct interference into human lives. However I was granted permission in this case as the matter is of utmost importance.”
The commissioner didn’t know what to think or do. His mind must have been playing tricks. May be it was a hallucination, drug induced or otherwise, he knew that these things happened or may be he really was dead. As far as he could remember, he had indeed been shot.
“Am I dead?” he asked hesitating.
“If you were dead you would be able to see me”, replied the voice. “But I have not come here to answer your ridiculous questions. I needed to see you because you have been sending too many people over to the other side and in most of the cases before their time and we are suffering from chronic overcrowding.”
“But sir, I mean how can that be?” the commissioner asked, “ I thought no one can die before their time. Aren’t you supposed to see to that?”
“Of course I am,” came the reply, the tone a bit subdued, “but you see with the world population growing at such an alarming rate we are being forced to rely on human intelligence. Not that it is getting us anywhere. Your judiciary has been convicting too many and mostly the wrong people. I accept that you have your internal politics but think of us once in a while too. We haven’t been faced with such a problem since the witch killings in Europe and the world was not that populated then. You wouldn’t be able to imagine the amount of extension we had to do both in heaven and hell to accommodate the growing number of souls. God has to do something about the rising population on earth or we don’t know what we are going to do.”
“Are we looking at a flood then sir?”
“Quite possible or some other natural calamity but that’s none of your business. Look I don’t have much time so let me finish what I have to say. You have done your part in keeping me busy. I haven’t had a break this one year and I am not going to tolerate this kind of treatment. I have my rights too. So when you go back I want you to be more careful with your…what do you call them? Encounters, yes, that and the death sentences.”
“You mean I’m going back?”
“Of course you are. What is the point to this meeting otherwise? No wonder things are getting so hard in both the realms. It should with people of your IQ as officials. Now go! I have work to do.”

His wife was still leaning over him but the surroundings had changed. He tried to get up but was held back by the series of tubes and pipes.
“Take it easy,” she said, “you’ve just gained back consciousness.”
He was lying in a hospital bed, his chest wrapped in heavy bandages and his whole body aching. But he was too occupied to feel that. In all those years, after each successful encounter, he could feel a second voice trying to squeal something inside, but he had always silenced that with his logical reasoning for the flashbulbs and all that glamour. After all in his trade, the line of right and wrong has always been too thin.

A doctor came in to check his blood pressure and pulse. The assistant commissioner followed him.
“Sir, Welcome back!” he saluted.
“The doctor said you’re going to be fine. It was miraculous that the bullet didn’t enter your heart.” said his wife.
“That brings us to the man sir. He is a sub-inspector and was in the security squad. It is still not known why he fired. The doctors believe he is mentally disturbed but then it is a mystery how he gained admission into the force at all. He is currently under observation. But personally I think he is feigning madness. It is best if we arrest him immediately. He could be dangerous.”
“No! No! ” the commissioner cried, “It is all wrong….”
But his wife interrupted, “That’s it. You are getting him all excited. He is still weak. Please sir if you would kindly come with me. It is best for the commissioner’s health.”
So saying she ushered both herself and the assistant commissioner out of the room. She cast one last loving look at the man lying on the bed. He hadn’t really been the best life partner but he was the most courageous man she knew and she was proud. He had even fought death and won. She wiped a straying tear with her handkerchief and closed the door with care.

Happy Birthday

Birthdays demand contemplation, I believe, and as I step into a new decade I stop to ponder over the person I have grown into. This is “emotion recalled in tranquility” for it has been three days since my birthday ( Rimi di was right when she said that we are too well read for our own good) and now I sit with the afterglow of the day. It is recognition of the irreversibility of the aging process as it is about my feelings of helplessness. I have become helpless, I realize, a mute spectator of sorts to the drama of life that unfolds in front of me, I wait and watch but have no say. Somewhere in the exchange between adolescence and adulthood, time set in and left me defeated. I am awed by the strangeness of life, shocked by its sadist humour and amazed by its power. I linger to savour each moment that it offers as I see that survival would require me to let go of every inch if the person I was.

I stare at the picture of a stranger. He evokes emotions in me which I had forgotten I had the capacity of feeling. It is this voyeur I have become. I watch myself perform the rituals expected of me, I feel the fragmentation of my self as the world around me rapidly changes. I see the world I love so dearly fast disappearing. The loss is irrevocable. I refuse to grow up in the attempt to stop time’s flow. I desperately hang on to the tiny vestiges of the daddy’s little girl. My father asks whether my birthday gift made me happy. I smile, I lie, the euphoria that was so spontaneous once doesn’t happen, I try to fake it.

Nothing makes sense any more. The world has lost coherence. It was so easy once to arrange events sequentially, logically, but now they decline to fall in place. I think of the sweet simplicity of the earlier decade when a diary entry on 29th July, 1996 read “My Happy Birthday” and tears come to my eyes. Every step I take takes me further away from solidity, from meaning and from sense. The lines become crooked and blurred. My body is slowly melting away but the surrounding space refuses to receive it. I have ceased to have an identity… I remain stranded in between…I scream…A very happy birthday to me.

For You...

The blank screen gapes, it almost feels like a voyeur, staring and judging while I try desperately to type the right words and as usual fail. The alphabets look like nothing more than signifiers, signs impregnated with thoughts and feeling, while I seek to represent the raw gnashes itself. But I am condemned to write, it is the only way I know of defining this existence and getting rid of the hurt. I am damned. It is fate that I repeat the same mistakes. What am I hoping for as I shout these futile words into the cyber jungle? It is in vain that I cry. I am claiming recognition when I have no right.
I am reminded of some old songs I wrote of love. This feels nothing like it. Do I love you? I wish I knew. Words escape me and time fleets away. But I hang on to hope. I deceive myself as I frantically search your face for a sign of tenderness. I misinterpret all you say. I almost believe that I know you…
I despise you for what you have reduced me to. I blame you for not knowing but it doesn’t matter, nothing does, for I know you don’t care. And so I remain silent. I watch and I don’t speak. It is to escape the sneer I know you’d give me when I say that I deserved it, I deserve your love and more…. I loathe you. I’m addicted to you.

On times like this I feel alone,
Standing on an empty street,
Walking with shadows
Eyes seeing, gaping, judging,
But seldom understanding,
And the hand that reaches out,
Feels just like skin
And nothing more.
Some friend tries to save me,
Protect me from me,
But I feel it coming again,
This time it’s on a roll,
Something chokes from within
The feeling is overwhelming.
You felt like home to me,
But I no longer care
And I ain’t blaming,
I guess you didn’t know,
So many times you hurt me,
Still I didn’t show.
But here by the sea
Everything’s washed away,
Except this emptiness,
And the cold cold tears.
I’m leaving the city,
The people, the lights and all.
Sight has lost meaning
And sanity sense
Spirit calls, the wild beckons
I’m tired of existing,
Just smiling lies
The strings strum
While I drown in song,
Everything’s reduced
To an overpowering surge
It brings the traveler home.
And even though I fall,
The waves catch me
It offers a salty kiss.
My memories are gone,
The nights of sleeping alone.
And as the last bubble fades,
Sleep, peace, darkness follows...
I wake up with a gasp.