Puddles of Ambrosia

WASTED II

2011-12-24T09:57:00.001-08:00

To know that the heart you spill remains ungathered, congealing on stone-cold floor, fossilized, touched-up with rude foot-stamps;
To know that Time lies surrendered, sundered, the finer half playing to a deferred response;
To know that Power has been delegated, that it shall revel in cheap puppetry:
A theatre of your heart, the heart turned inside-out, now theatricalized;
To know all this,
To know and yet, to wait on,
To know that Poetry won't suffice, that finally, all shall be trivialized....

WASTED.

2011-12-24T09:55:00.001-08:00

Wasted you think were the words wrought,
Ripened a million fortnights since; ripening in solitude between sheets stifling-
Prejudice's terrifying foster care.
Wasted you presume would be words returned,
So build papery airplanes instead,
... Your flights of puerile thrill scatter forth words wrought-
Publicized, my thoughts intimate.
And now Rot begins to yawn and stretch as Stubborn Silence pricks into awareness,
A heart ignored, a heart lost, all gravitating towards Nothingness...

(A)WAIT...

2011-12-24T09:53:00.001-08:00

Built a little hut, left to rot and rain,
Walls nude blushing for cover, while builder-painter-plumber play at lazy cards;
And peeping prying into each train-bus-plane rumbling roaring through a shifty dust terminus,
Expectant key in hand, I await coherence.

GAPS.

2011-12-24T09:50:00.000-08:00

…Because winter shall be upon us soon,
a perennial lack licking at juvenile wounds slashed open annually
with ceremonial envy-fomenters hiccupping forth an airbrushed snow :
snow-rugs on windmills archaic, on street benches ornate, on church roofs, upon reindeers’ hooves;
longings for belonging,
... for worlds alien stamped into elusive desire-postcards desired in this part of the world,
where under sheets smelling of grandmas and prayer-beads old,
desperate eight year-olds weave fantasy-prayers for the white man in beard and red, carrying upon his black buckled boots, a hint of heavenly snow….

BUBBLES.

2011-12-24T09:47:00.000-08:00

Hope-buds nipped by keen-edged breaths sniffing out warmth
And dishing forth stiff leftovers dragged across your porcelain platter,
Dragged by the tresses, by tresses cold-congealed;
The tresses, now a mirthless smog lapped up by broom bristles:
Love-less\ Lust-less marriages all,
Rehearsing virgin kisses on apples plump while teeth-gnashing choppers even out wrinkles on wholesome love seats.

So…
A grin-plastered battle face awaits foetal-like,
Awaiting within copy machine bowels ink-flushed,
Awaiting maniacal replication-
When You shall be I,
And I the Almighty,
And Us, thus reveling in illusory proximity…

CROPPED. ALL.

2011-11-16T10:12:00.000-08:00

Steps infinite, each stubbornly disallowing the compass of a foot;
Shears plow through excess flesh,
Delirious frugality shooting crimson residues at uninspired designs;
Prodigality stuffed unceremoniously into death-cold dumplings waiting out nothingness at roadside shacks.
Censored tales grope for romance,
Tales fancying splendidly vintage flea markets selling ‘made in China’ replicas:
Taj Mahals all, nicely whitewashed;
Recorded Love screaming ‘U and I, Forever’ in piercing pink,
Infinitude atomized,
Raising a toast to the ‘now Cute Minimal!’
Shoulders patted over just-forged Five-Year-Plans: ‘Chalo! Let’s hoodwink!’
The Steps infinite,
Boasting of years vigorous, years of tap-dancing by a rebelliously misshapen sea;
The steps,
Now, stumps,
Simply…

MOONSTRUCK...

2011-11-16T10:09:00.001-08:00

Sighted tonight, an angry Angry Moon
Happy Passion-blushes for those cordoning off chill with arms a-weaving, Love-braids all;
Yet for a solo thread undone, the Moon rages on
An angry Angry Moon spleen-spitting through concrete, promising retribution by dawn....

RANDOMNESS

2011-06-23T21:02:00.001-07:00

Skies respond to randomness,
To random queries of space
To random queries of space scribbled upon post-its;
Scribbled on afternoons of gaping worthlessness…
Worthlessness of a Self gone cockeyed in concentration, concentrating upon the hand-me-down flap of sky-identical blue-
A hapless flap of blue ripped from above, fluttering against Big Bully scissors, quivering in anticipation of its’ own genesis,
A one-dimensional shadow Self ballooning out with each hefty tug of baby-blue-braided fabric trailing at shadow Self’s absolute end…
Like hand-pumps’ exhibitionist exercises in obedience.
Random assertions of space,
Skies respond to them at smug Art Movements
Dog-eared-skin-shedding walls conform to form rooms… art rooms robed in arty paraphernalia that embark upon mighty voyages of confluence
Haphazard confluence of paper thighs and cardboard arms stamped into fatalistic togetherness…
With Super Glue of course!
Shadow Self basking in exaggerated existence directs spit bubbles at sky blue,
Memories of sky-identical blue flushed down tunnels of forgetfulness as shadow Self plunges into brilliantly mythical pools of brick-red-life-blood and pulsating life flesh…
But remember, skies respond to randomness,
To random forgetfulness of flimsy origins
Of brilliantly mythical originary tales sprouting in black-robed-Times Roman across the fancy face of magazines, of arty magazines contemplating Art in practiced baritone,
Of arty magazines substantiating existence, ballooning out….ballooning out paper-in-Super-Glue creations to encompass Nature. Itself.
So. Skies retaliate.
Hapless flap of sky-identical blue glued back to blue.
To sky blue.
To the thing itself.

A PRIVATE AFFAIR

2011-05-31T21:58:00.001-07:00

We all deserve the flourish of a Flag…

A private Flag, stitched with precision along the terrain of pulsating skin;
Causing the furtive flutter of coarse fabric upon a private heartbeat, with the release of a private breath, with the unholy exchange of paper bags of Heaven across windows stamped on to weeping walls embracing dank private alleyways…
The flourish of a Flag. Private.

Rucksacks of paint inflict perforations on the self, spewing forth polychrome rivulets of Choice.
Shreds of white may be soaked to their bare threads to arise Phoenix-like,
to arise in tremulous Blue, or somber Green; to slip underneath stiff public portals cryptic assertions of Democracy, of Peace…of a violently homogeneous polity in a Future foreseen.

To parody Conformity in impish delight,
weave the Flags.
Don them like a Toga or a seven-yards-wonder perhaps.
Emboss on to Official Paper your mock-resignation to the colossal Theatre of Symbols which stages nightly vaudevillian puppetry;
The puppets of the Nation- Flag, Stamp, Anthem and all!
All! Lashed into agility by the frayed ropes of Geography…latitudes and longitudes fast fading into fragments of fiction!
And while Fiction is forged elsewhere, continue with the weaving,
Of a Private.
Of a Private, private Flag.

I WOULD IF I COULD

2010-12-01T08:47:00.000-08:00

I would if I could...

disrobe you, gently, with my eyes.
warm my feet in the heat rising in your cheeks.
engaol the blood-beads erupting on your ravished lip, the shivering lip that you admonished ever-so violently lest it may betray your discomfiture.

I would if I could...

stalk the muddy imprints of your wandering feet, test their depth by shackling my foot to the end of the plumb line and plunging headlong, land on my bottom,curl up in your ribbed bowel, foetal-like.
then,conjure up a gigantic veil to shroud us, hide us away- just you and I.

I would if I could...

stifle your cries, breathe away the tears till two arid river banks cut through your skin mouthing angry narratives of the sudden silencing of their melodramatic gags.

Yes,I would if I could...

I would
I would
I would

....could I, please ?

THE FRENZY OF FEAR

2010-06-10T21:58:00.000-07:00

the frenzy of fear....
incessant drum-rolls, like irritable hiccups...
hiccups are the price you pay for divine gluttony; your gluttony, for which stands shuddering a God-fearing alibi- the callousness of a murky file of tomato soup sliding off the crack of a mouth and hanging by a hair at the chin....
and then, that preposterous drop dropped into the chasm of infamy by your one violent burp.
the sin, complete.
and fear....anticipated in the black veins fast erupting across the pale-faced egg-shaped surface of the earth.

"amar kichu hobe na toh, saar?"
fear, as it sun-bathes on the flats of your feet as the flats of your feet drag the colossal weight of happily-sun-bathing-fear to the public hand pump and struggles to wash it all away.....but the pump yields not a drop.
fear rolls among synthetically-coloured carrots, licks the crimson off shrivelled tomatoes, sucks a tunnel through and through impoverished brinjals....in your very shopping-bag. you sweat in profusion and mumble the initials of your three and twenty gods and goddesses. the shadow of a stretching dog appears to you as the very missile of wrath set with the precise instructions to puncture the north-east corner of the left valve of your heart.you sleep with gaping pupils, alert claws clutching at a claw-hammer....
and all the while, you hunt for salvation in the kind eyes of the tea stall owner, in the garrulous mien of the butcher, in the accidental pat on the back by an outstretched hand clasping a ten-rupee note in the swaying fetid congregation of a public bus.

but, in the end, do you not pull the trigger yourself on your own brain?
do you not commit suicide while mumbling assuredly- "amar kichhu hobe na!"
and do you not wonder in that single fleeting moment of self-betrayal that the grand machine of annihilation has missed its target by a long shot- from the designated north-east corner of the left valve of your heart to the right side of your skull?

the murder that you anticipated with religious conviction has spurred off the very frenzy of fear.
"what was my sin?" you may ask, teary-eyed, breathing in the pure nothingness of heaven.
was it the the drop of soup? you may wonder.

and each man would hastily procure a pristine white handkerchief, holding it at attention a mere millimeters away from the lips as the lips sucked in noiseless civility the spoonful of tomato soup....the frenzy would thus erupt, in pretty little flowers embroidered into the corners of death-white handkerchiefs.

you would never know the seed that sprouted into this FEAR.

OF MACBETHS AND INSOMNIA....

2010-01-04T07:18:00.000-08:00

The creative prowess of the mind- imagination….
The mind that is terrified to behold its own black reflection.… The mind that would be precise in its operation of tearing out the eyelids so that sleep may find no abode. The mind that waits impatiently at the shore, biting its nails, with vigilant eyes fixed beyond the horizon.

Macbeth and Lady Macbeth would sleep no more…
And such had been the decree of their minds; iron-fisted, whip-wielding minds marching above, slow and menacing- the rhythmical march of boots on cold cobbled stones...
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth had never slept. They have forever been awake, attentive to calls from above, careful to avoid the sharp bites of whiplashes.
They have forever been awake…

Untie the mind, take apart the pieces, gently…what do you see?
Macbeth desires no crown…no! Not the mere expanse of space that the crown encompasses…no! Not that! he desires much more…Desire in Macbeth is a vintage bottle of concoction- a heady blend of naked power and brute domination stifled to silence by the cork; the bottle, moldy at the mouth, frothing and hissing incessantly. He desires to behold shuddering vulnerability staring back at him as he raises the spear of death above the head of his captive…. Yes! Shuddering vulnerability! Lusty vulnerability reflected in the glassy eyes of a helpless nymph in shackles. Dominion it would be for him…the dominion over the inaccessible; the vicious pairing of victory at war and satiation of throbbing lust….force triumphing in both. And his captives would fall at his feet, kiss his boots; their eyes would scream for mercy…and then Macbeth, the King , would descend upon the suffering soil of mortals…he would don the robes of benevolence…the king as protector…All hail the king! They would rejoice….Macbeth shall live forever!

And what of Lady Macbeth, you ask?
What desires does her mind harbor- The desire to be queen, and no more? Or, is it much more than that? Scavenge through the cluttered shelves of her mind…see what keeps her awake.
In Lady Macbeth too, there burns the intense desire for dominion; and yet, has she not dominated enough? Does she not call the ramparts of her husband’s castle ‘my battlements’? Does she not usurp the envisioned murder weapon as ‘my keen knife’? Does she not order Macbeth to put the night’s business into her dispatch? And yet, her dagger shall not pierce Duncan’s heart. The woman shall only beget life, not destroy. So does she desire to be ‘unsexed’….
To be unsexed…a terrible feat would be performed on her being, the womb razed out, left to grope for the last wisps of breath, her sex denied, ridiculed, kicked and smothered in mud. Would she really have that?
No, she would not. And yet, she fears to manifest the deepest desire of her heart. The fiery woman sailing the tide, unburdened hair lashing against her face, etching merciless determination onto her soul with every whiplash…such is her absolute desire. But the combs rush towards her, barring their canines, bunching up the free cascade of her hair, binding it into submission. ‘You are free!’ they assure her, ‘but keep within the circle’, they warn.
So what does she truly crave for? Once again I ask, what keeps her awake?
The answer is desire for feminine power…the power of the most powerful erotic being. Power shall burst forth, anarchic, chaotic; power desired in its barest of manifestations; and power that would enable her to render all things powerless. She also desires the power of visual presence- her presence, and the absence of all action. The mental capacity of all beings shall shrink to the mere space of her body. Yet, nowhere does she exude the slightest wisps of eroticism…but such is her misery….the bottled up desires frothing at the mouth, the desires that she dare not mouth. She desires for that which she does not have. No, she would not be content with the mere crown of queen. She would represent the queen as an icon of desire….unattainable desire translating into awe and willful subservience.

And now, their desires would be joined….unbridled desires shall pour forth. The potters-wheel has been summoned, wet clay lies ready…the process of sculpting to life the abstract eddies of desire would now begin. Now they would spill an enormous drop of ink right at the centre of the barren canvas and drag the tips of their pens from within that gleaming pool of ink, outwards, like words spilling out of a single drop of blood…...

DOORBELLS

2009-09-29T21:17:00.000-07:00

the mushroom sprouted...
it tore through your being,
a harvest unexpected, unwanted...

it was a blast, wasn't it?
a blast of colours...
colours?
hell yes!
colours unidentified,discomposed...
colours, whose searing blush imprinted on quivering skins, the patterns...
patterns of trivial life, imprinted on skins by the searing blush.
and colours, whose hue and tinge would be debated over still-
was it red? black? yellow? or white?

she was caught unaware...poor thing!
with a baby pink porcelain cup pressed to her lips,
the lips...
lips?
yes,lips....though charred to wooden silence, but lips still.
lips pressed to the cup...pressed in prayer...
a single urgent wisp of prayer, stillborn.

8:15 in the morning...
yes, 8:15 it was, when the postman yawned his way into your land...
into your land...
and dropped the Little Boy into your letter-box...

I shudder to behold doorbells-
they gleam a menacing shade of crimson...
the crimson of sudden mushroom harvests, of cloth-patterns embossed on skins,
of soft lips parched black, dripping tea-drops.
the crimson radiating off the bare backs of the world...
the doorbell....
the doorbell that hunts for answers, retaliation, a kick for a kick...

and so the dates are rolled out...like mock red carpets, one after the other-
1941 tied in a love-knot to 1945,
1945 furnishing its abode with reels of unyielding metallic curtains...
the metallic curtains, lovingly erecting haphazard walls...

the doorbell continues to ring...
a jarring sound that knows no respite.
you have to answer it, there is indeed,no respite...

and the mushroom sprouted....twice.

MIND IT?

2009-07-29T05:10:00.000-07:00

how would it sound if she blew her nose on rich green satin?
would you wince? grimace perhaps? shake a disillusioned head at the depravity of a wanton age?
but is it not music still?
earnest attempts at the trumpet...pathetic, but earnest?
here! let me assist you-
a gentle puncture would do the trick...go forth! go, puncture those insidious pupils that are insomniac by choice, noting vigorously every minute detail of your life in artful shorthand from behind rich green satin curtains!
go and set ablaze every brewery frothing at the mouth with despicable precocious lies!
and now...
now the court would be adjourned, brick by brick.
jurymen would stumble in the dark, elbows kicking shins, knees punching bellies, angry curses wrestling each other for a firmer foothold...
come on! smile now!
the hegemony of the stiff-collars has perished, extermination of all pupils carried out with sparkling precision!
accept the anarchistic music with open arms!
poor girl, her nose will be spurting red streamers soon...
tell her! go, tell her!
tell her the party is elsewhere!
come on girl! welcome to the club!

THE NIGHT IS DONE....

2009-06-27T07:26:00.000-07:00

Drink in deep…the boiling oil, burning the night lamp….
The night will heave a sigh,
The night is done,
The night would untie her feet-
Nurse the wounds dealt by stiff iron shackles,
Curse the sun that had dived into the shimmering pool of oblivion.
Hence, let the night be done.
Drink in deep…the boiling oil burning the night lamp…
For they would pull him up by the collar now,
They would pull him up….the sun.

DANCES BY NIGHT....

2009-06-27T06:54:00.000-07:00

Stifled cries by night…
Thread-bare pillows, dampened…
Dampened by the night….a night of smoky foggy memories.
Tap dances on the brow,
The feet, skidding on perspiring brows.
The dance will continue still,
Silence, a forlorn musical note-
Like invisible wheels skidding recklessly on a rain-washed street,
Of feet…feet stuffed into stiff stilettos, skidding on perspiring brows…..

A SUBLIME JOY!

2009-03-12T07:54:00.000-07:00

the sublime joy of it...
a sadistic chuckle would escape as restless steads of imagination would be spurred on to hear the satisfying crack! of a brain split open, or an immaculately painted toe nail crushed....or still more soothing, the eyes gouged out and hurled plink! ponk! into the canal.
ah! the sublime joy of it!
it felt like giving the miss to death itself. or, maybe to life...who knows? who cared?
all that He felt, was the 'giving the miss'...yes! that in itself was occasion enough to whistle and clap, to exhale triumphant wisps of breath through the holes of His socks...those very socks! the ones that gagged Him in mock-strangulation, and when the white-hot fear of death numbed Him, eased its hold on Him and patting the prespiring cheek proclaimed- "do not worry son. me, your only ally!"
"my only ally!"- He wondered aloud for four days and nights, gaping at the marvelous circumstances and in the process, paving a tempting dark alleyway for mosquitoes and flies....
and now, the game began- giving the miss, waving a greasy thumb, sticking out His tongue and flapping it like a crazed victory-flag!
how it scorched His heart in unspeakable rage as He saw Them standing a mile away, patting into strict array their carefully-combed hair, straightening out invisible creases on their beige and white shirts, checking for the millionth time the narcissistic smile plastered on the upturned faces of their polished black boots. ugh! how he detested Them! and then, They would click their tongues in distaste and impatience all the while, throwing dirty looks at Him. i am not God!- He would scream in His chest. and yet, They would stamp their squeaky little boots to let Their dissatisfaction be heard....and how well They succeeded, even over the wild cacophony of the metal-and-smoke world!
and thus it would have been, had He not felt the twitch of His sock...the silent message conveyed briskly up his feet, leg and brain. yes!- He exclaimed in ecstasy...the game would begin...now!
so it is now....They stand there in all Their combed-and-polished finery. He halts at Their feet with all due reverence, even aiming at a dramatic genuflection...and then! just as they lift one polished extremity on to the footboard, down comes His hole-in-the-sock foot with majestic emphasis....whoosh! the accelerator springs to life...and off He goes!
off! off! off into the wild free cemented sky, honking away in delight!
and there They stand, seething with anger..."did you see the audacity of that driver? we could have died under those wheels!"
ah! the sublime joy of it all! honk! honk!

WITNESSES....

2009-01-15T07:14:00.000-08:00

Tight-lipped they stood...neon-lights, pedastal-fans, earthern jugs. Dull yellow grills on windows budged not in fright. Papery peels of paint froze on brick walls, very much like the jagged wings of a sparrow electrocuted into stillness on serpentine telegraph-wires. A clay basin in the corner tried hard to camouflage its existence, but the incessant tip! top! of murky water-drops from the tap, falling like slender fingers on the black tuning-disk of a tabla, betrayed its intentions. "Hush!", warned the mosaic tile with a garish pink lotus painted on its face...His fellow tiles turned ashen in an attempt to hold their breath as the oval pool of blood started stretching and yawning....breaking into haphazard crimson distributaries, they surged on in a bid to touch the walls.

"Murder!", she had screamed unwittingly the last time...and that was the last of her. They smashed her even while she hung suspended by her cord. All watched in muted terror as they blinded her first with a swish of their hockey-sticks, and then, smashed her fragile bulbous figure with a triumphant stamp of their booted feet....

They were clever this time.

This time their would be no witnesses. No gasps. No screams. No cries.

This time, they would stay just what the animated world expected them to stay...inanimate....yes, just that.

DO NOT HARASS THE MADMAN!

2008-12-30T20:14:00.000-08:00

"Do not harass the madman!"

He crawled deeper into the winding cavity, clawing desperately at its slimy squirming wall...The oxygen-mask hung helplessly on to his prespiring mouth...his mouth, the putrid rim of a century-old bottle of vinegar. He retched several times...Several times he had to quiten his heart as a silent scream burst out from within, on feeling a sudden terrifying pull at his booted feet...The feet were but ensnarled in a mesh of leathery cords.Yet the clip! clop! of the menacing scalpels continued, scavenging through the crimson marshland- a glistering set of earnest gardeners out on an 'extermination spree'...Out with all cheeky rodents!

The sudden smell of alien air had startled him...he had re-coiled without knowing why.

Yet he had been pushed out...pushed out in struggles of rythymic breaths..."Push! Push!" He heard them chant...and pushed out he was.

There were party-hats and confetti bursts, blaring music and dance...and all this, interspersed by misplaced soppy kisses dealt with a hilarious cordiality that is the pride of all overtly-sober minds!

His journey had begun- first, a spirited wide-eyed sprint...then, a more tedious uphill climb...and finally, a cynical stroll on all fours....And they called him a 'madman'.

He stood at street corners, proclaiming that the earth is round...He promised that men could fly...He shouted himself hoarse tring to persuade marching men in arms to buy his potted plants...He wrote on peeling paint- 'love is what makes the world go around'.

And they called him a 'madman'.

Pelted with stones, bruised with malevolent kicks, beleaguered by fist-blows, he scrambled back...Up! Up! Into the winding cavity he crawled....

"Do not harass the madman!" He shrieked!

Yet the scalpels followed him...hot on his heels, sensing him out, smacking its lips in gastrnomical delight.....Aha!

Deeper and deeper he pushed himself, "Push!" "Push!", He egged himself on....

The womb quivered with the chilling desperation of his silent prayers...."Do not harass the madman!"

SOARING...SEARING...

2008-10-27T21:44:00.000-07:00

On nights like this one...restless summer nights, there would be the listless flipping through magazine pages, the impatient tapping of fingernails on polished glass table-tops, the loud sighs...The blades of the ceiling fan would scoop up bundles of hot oppressive air in a bear-hug...huffing and puffing in the act. Dry throats would drain the water tanks dry...Soaking wet shirts and blouses would lie face-down on prespiring backs, clinging on helplessly, refusing to let go...The nagging whine of a neighbouring air-condition would make the mercury level leap and dance...Plastic chairs cooling on the balcony after a searing afternoon in the sun, would glow a menacing red and black- a challenging glint in the eye inviting bravehearts to have a seat! The stench of burnt earth would overpower...Burnt Earth...Burnt foliage...Burnt flesh...Burnt All ! Water would break in refridgerators; a blinding flash of pain followed by silence...Metal pipes would melt, slithering sliding slipping down the sides of buildings, scraping off sheets of cement and paint with their scaly bodies, bubbling and frothing at the mouth, emmiting final exhausted hisses of defeat. The moon would turn a fine shade of orange, the spots on its face erupting into chagrined craters of seething anger....The world would gasp for water....buckets and buckets of water....Fire-engines would come charging down the streets...tubes of Burnol would be squeezed on with theatrical immediacy......

And yet....

At the end....

The industriuos Cook would still think it much more palatable to shove the platter containing the Earth swimming in red wine, into the steaming oven....!

IN THEIR SHOES....

2008-10-13T20:36:00.000-07:00

It felt oh-so good slipping my feet into the woman's shoes!

She bunched her fist and kept shoving it deeper into her mouth- a desperate attempt at civility, giving way to sudden unguarded snorts and sneezes....

A steady stream of tears issued down her eyes. She did nothing to wipe them away...as long as they maintained womanly propriety...so be it.

Yet, i could sense Hope retreating...the soft retracing of padded feet....

And then...Euphoria!

Out of the operation-theatre rolled the stretcher-on-wheels.

The ride was over....The woman choked on her fist as a loud scream exploded out of the corners of her mouth....

Ah! It felt oh-so good slipping my feet into the woman's shoes!

And then, the sudden tap on my shoulder...."Son, we tried our best, but we just couldn't save your father..."

The discomforting silence, the shuffling of feet, the strategically-misplaced 'Welcome' sign on the door of the operating-theatre wanting an immediate shift....it all pierced through me till my brain lay scattered in a million jigsaw pieces....i made no effort to put them together....

All i did, was smile....

i smiled as my eyes started scavenging for fresh squeaky shoes...Shoes that would hold my bare feet.

GROWING OLD....

2008-08-25T09:07:00.000-07:00

You burn incense-sticks before Me...every single day...with frightful earnestness.

You scavange stealthily among the neighbours' rose-bushes, throw open your shameless blue umbrella to the deluge of their insults, and finally, place that single white rose at My frozen lips...And, I still smile.

Then you cry a little, wipe the redwood frame girdling my face vigourously, in a childish attempt to prevent nature and its cobwebby creatures from gnawing at Me....I am yours...You still hold that true.

At the end, you shuffle your feet free of the slippers, take off your glasses, rub your forehead slowly...uncertainly....

And then, you throw up your hands in defeat...The dialogues of your character, forgotten, you now scurry behind the comforting balck wings of the stage, breathing in wisps and sighs....

Slowly softly your head touches the pillow....My lap.

Even as you cringe and cry in your sleep, as that four seconds of horrific Life blasts through your dreams yet again, like a sheet lightening- the screech of tyres, the thud of flesh against steel, the dull bump, the suffocated screams of hellish pain muted all too suddenly, I rub my palm comfortingly over your prespiring brow.

You feel Me not.

You never will.

And yet will I stay...in the unruly folds of your handkerchief, in the dark tunnel-like spines of your wordy books, in the very centre of the palm of your hand, couched contentedly behind the petals of the white rose.

Yet will I stay, with you....

Even as you choke gallantly on your tears when garlanding me with fresh white wreaths on my birthdays, evan as your hands shake uncontrollably as you strike matchstick after matchstick to burn the incense-sticks before Me, even as you avoid the mirror for fear of painful Lonliness blinking back at you, I would surprise you now and then, when counting the proliferating grey hairs on my skull, I would wink slyly at you and say- "So my old man, are we not growing old together?!"

THE COMB...

2008-08-14T23:23:00.000-07:00

Three days later, they were unearthed from beneath the debris, their faces- upturned bowls of pale china clay, with cracks snaking their way out from the corners of their parted lips, a dried string of blood stretching form the forehead to the chin, the eyes, two polished glass mirrors stitched to perfection, reflecting the clear blue sky....

the comb lay split in half in her stiff hand...flies buzzed around, piercing her, drawing no blood, withdrawing in dismay...

the foolish fastidiousness that Death demands!

comb your hair! brush your teeth! iron your clothes!

and off you go!

the first tremor made her irritant...it made her hand shake, and the sharp-teethed comb bit into her scalp maliciously...drawing blood in glee.

the next tremor pulled her in....

Ah! The foolish fastidiousness that Death demands!

THEIRS....

2008-07-09T20:32:00.000-07:00

Sometime between their seventeenth or twentieth visit, they let slip from their velvety pouches, tiny rabbits, and held up stiff-backed menu cards like protective walls, as the little rodents went about their task- nibbling furiously, artistic frenzy gleaming in their blood-shot eyes like headlights, employing the left limb to sweep back wood shavings...that too, in perfect unision, like a troupe of ballet dancers. The task done, prespiring foreheads were wiped, all the ten and twenty cannines tapped for assurance of their durability, papery dust and shavings puffed away, the artisans- escorted back to their velvety burrows with thought-balloons of plump carrots and walnuts inflating before their eyes....

Now, the seigh seemed complete.

The table was theirs. Their name would spit back at intruders of every shape and colour, the deep incisions on wood would glare menacingly, sometimes glowering, making diners uneasy, making them avert their eyes. The slender legs of the table and of their chairs, would graze against the intruders' legs, death-cold...hostile...making a million goosebumps erupt.

Finally, they would change seats.

The waiters would scratch their heads in confusion- hungry diners willing to wait it out in the lounge till another table emptied out, but not daring to occupy the one with the ugly scars on its face!

Those who dared to seat themselves at Their table, returned home with crimson gashes and scratches on their bodies which only they could see.." Can't you people see these! Look at this- the bloody scar! Why the hell is it invisible to you?"

Young spirited boys, with a hairy Tarzan hanging from the arteries of their heart, challenged each other to graze their hips against the demented piece of furniture...They had fantastic stories to recount- " I felt a spark! Like a high voltage electric shock!"...." What grazed againt my hip was not wood but the edge of a knife! See...see the deep cut! Maybe then you would believe me!"

Some heard groans..others, high-pitched shrieks.

Some swore to have heard a low deep voice...like a drum-roll, beating out a warning for all.

A few heard roars...felt jolts and kicks...

A man had put his palm against the wood, a sharp splinter flew into his eye. He could see everything, but would remain blind for the rest of his life....

So, the table lived.

It collected dust, ants, pecks from rosary beads and curses thrown from afar...

Yet, it lived.

Its owners never returned after that day, the day that they sealed their names on the table-top.

Their job here was done...they need not return.

Now, for the rest of the world....

They remembered in hazy snatches, words of their fifth grade teacher...He had told them once- 'Make the world your home.'

Thus, now....for the rest of the world.

HIDING PLACE...

2008-06-14T21:25:00.000-07:00

In his own shadow, he finds a hiding place. Clawing desperately at its edges, he attempts to pull it tight around himself...hopes the black cloak would pounce on him and devour. Not a trace of him would be left then. Just a figure in misty black, rubbing its paunch contentedly, belching rhythmically...

But it seems as though, the monster never swallows him...it just pushes him to the side of its mouth and keeps him there...and when the celebratory arson begins in the east, the monster spits him out. There he lies, defenceless and weak, the cloak having slipped off from over him, leaving him shivering in his sleep...

The world flashes torches on his face...rudely, mockingly. The stones roll over stealthily to his side of the road and wait to make him stumble. His habits they know well. His comical gait they ape when they gather for their nightly ritual of ale-drinking and merry-making. He walks with his eyes closed..this they know. Thus, he never notices the lean lamp-post striding puposefully across the street, egged on by the enuthusiastic clamours of the stones, pillars and flower-pots, as it posts itself innocuously just where it is sure to collide with him. And their plan succeeds...like always.

His letter-box bears no ruddy roses with shy pink ribbons clinging on to them with the committment of a lover who has been sentenced to indefinite exile, and for whom, these fragile red petals are the only carriers of the agony in his heart. No. His letter-box bears no token of love. It shifts laborously all the way to its owner's door and knocks angrily...a pregnant blue letter-box bursts with irritation as he opens its door. Unpaid electricity bills, letters of warning, rejected resumes...each battle with the other to reach him first, not to be wisked off their feet in a bear hug, but to be torn open and done justice with.

Euthanasia they beg for. And he begs for it too....

he searches for corners to hide in...but realises, that the world is but, round.

LOVE...IT WILL BE

2008-06-10T20:44:00.000-07:00

Bangles i like, and their sound too....the way they clank and cry, giddy with happiness...the little rascals!

And oh! The pinch of vermillion...how the red dust snakes its way coquettishly along the parting of my hair, and having completed the journey, look up innocently in denial of the carnage they have caused!

Yards of brocade in peacock blue scale my frame, twisting and turning, contorting, bunching up conspiringly at my belly and then diving in. Almost instantly, twisters of intoxicating sensuality ravages through my being. Wholeness consumes me.

I smell fresh jasmines...feel their soft pulse under my finger. They embellish my tassels with surprising feminity. I close my eyes and dream of soft satin sheets and polished four-posters..of the deep breaths of insense sticks and of slender hands pulling at the strings of the sitar...also, of urgent explorations on a moonless night.

I want to blush....to feel the heat rising like the sun in my cheeks...

I want to gaze at my reflection on the mirror through kohl-ladden eyes, and lower them abruptly as you enter the room....

I want to see love settle contentedly, on my bangles...on the lids of my eyes...on the parting of my hair...

Flecks of love it will be, billowing out before me, caught in a trance in the light falling through the shutters of my window as i wipe the tops of cupboards and dressers....Yes, love it will be.

THE WAR....

2008-06-08T20:02:00.000-07:00

they fought all night till their eyelids drooped in protest.....
the next morning she rose early to continue, but he never woke...
there he was, pushed to the extreme left of the bed...had thrown up his hands in submission and let her claim that coveted side of the bed that ensured sweet breezy dreams....
now, his submission seemed eternal...complete.
the upper edge of his lip seemed to have pricked itself up just a bit...the grin never had the leisure to assume its full form, but there it was, jeering at her- 'which side of the bed will you sleep on now?'
it never struck her that this sudden elimination of her rival called for celebration...burst of confetti? popping the corks of campaigne bottles? three loud cheers?
now, after all those tiring nights of epic warfare, why was she sitting by his side, wiping away the quivering pellets of sweat lining his forehead? the pellets he had gathered meticulously through the night...a temple-ful of evidence to bring under the glaring scrutiny of some imaginary Justice, to expose before all, the hegemony of his wife. now, she wiped them away...softly, lovingly, longingly...'destroying evidence!', he would have barked, but in that room of controlled breaths, wispering voices, mournful sighs and a general oppressive air of reverence, his voice passed through the sieve of silence...and melted away...
the war has ended. peace unfurled its pristine white flag, mockingly.
they carried him away in a glass box, leaving her with sweat on her palms...and nothing else.
the bed looked massive at night, it seemed to rise and expand before her eyes...she could attempt to swim across it, and give up midway in fatigue. ..
her throat hurt...irascible words scratched against her voice box...'let us out!', they screamed.
but the nightly rituals were done with...words and thoughts has been burnt at his funeral pyre.
now, she sat picking at her own ashes, while shooting jealous glances at the left side of the bed...

OF LIGHT....

2008-06-05T19:54:00.000-07:00

Patches of light, moonlight...

click! click! goes the knitting needles, steel striking steel.

The patches quiver painfully as they are made to twist and turn, loop their hundred-and-one tentacles over each other, stretch till they whine.

Two bony figures, one shorter than the other, crawl on all fours to reach the twelveth hour. Once there, they sigh, joyful for the brief respite...their temples dripping senility....

The Hour....has been reached.

The knitting done.

'i am safe..', she murmers, the iron claw gripping her throat, slowly loosening its hold...

' another night...will Pass..'

Wrapping herself up in the newly-made cloak, she sits at her corner.

The singular cockroach marching resolutely towards the warmth of her bunched-up frame does not stir a single muscle on her face...

She keeps sitting at her corner...the blazing cloak, clasping her, tight.

She sits...two blind spots distended mercilessly over the hollows that should have been her eyes.

She sits...

gathering wisps of courage to brave a world that she can not see....

THE GIFT....

2008-05-05T22:15:00.000-07:00

I put her to sleep with a snorkel in her mouth, held on resolutely as her pink rubbery lips tried in vain to push back the intruder from storming its portals, and having finally succeeded in my seigh, kissed the two faint eyebrows good night....and waded out.

The brown envolope lay on the shelf, i had read and re-read it, memorized the obese words spattered across the page, till they had started to do somersaults around me with surprising perfection. Now, i stood ready for my oration....
He, my singular audience, sat on the couch, dispassionate eyes tracing the trials and tribulations of a terrified treadbare duce ball as savage men hit at it mercilessly with bats and still others, chased it to the farthest ends of the arena. I could hardly see him, the world swam before my eyes, like looking through a curtain of smoke....he, knitting the curtain with a deftness that shocked me, still....
Finally, my cue...the comercials came on...
"Thank you for giving me this...", said i, and threw down the X-ray report before his eyes.
Two over-cooked brinjals with their stalks sliced off, stared back at him, glumly...
"What the hell are these?!", he exclaimed....
"My lungs", i replied.

Trudging through heaps of ash, diving through giant smoke rings in an act of mock celebration of my fate, i turned back and looked at him for the last time...
"Don't worry..i havn't told her that she has it too...not that i wouldn't have, only, it would have been a tad difficult explaining the beauty of cancer to a six year old..."

DARKNESS....

2008-05-02T21:44:00.000-07:00

The Night gathered strength, forming ominous dark puddles at the foot of my bed. Where the rheumatic street-lamp offered its last bleak services to the world, the coconut tree, reclining against its quivering net of light, rose to a menacing stature against my wall. Moonlight there was none...just wisps of greying hair gliding indifferently in a bucket of inky black. An eclipse formed over my eyes, disturbing shades of darkness waltzed around me...every single object in my room seemed draped in black...draped and sashaying about, their feet barely touching the ground, or so it seemed to my blind eyes, for not a single noise did they make. The Night walked barefeet, painting my oh-so familiar world with the shades of unfamiliarity....'What was this place?', I wondered aloud...a timeless, formless space...a space that escaped the clutches of definition. This space i knew not...this place was not Home.

Do not forsake me at the tentacles of rabid Supposition.
Love does not dress in mourning black, but, in pristine white...in shining yellow... in rippling blue.
Our childish little plastacine world i have carefully built...the walls against which, many a times i have rested my tired head and dreamt...dreamt of petty squables over the logic of hanging a Chinese fan on it's face!
When your boat hit the side of mine, the wound was mortal...my boat sank, but my heart...you saved. After years of dormancy bordering on death, my heart finally gave a little leap...a tiny, elusive jig...and the world unfurled before my eyes.
Finally, i could see where Life would travel from here...the ports it would visit, the inns it would put up in...the inconsequential feats of greatness it would perform in public reading-rooms. Finally, i could build...build and make indomitable Hope the skeletal framework of my creation...
So, having lighted up the candles along my way, do not snuff them out now.
The darkness will raze down my dreams....it will trample over the candles, make them moan in pain...our plastine world will melt into nothingness....Armies of Doubt and Fear will march in, lay seigh...
All will be lost in the hot frothing claudron of Darkness...of death before dying...and my heart will stop breathing...again.

WATER-SHOOTERS!

2008-04-22T00:11:00.000-07:00

The world seems weary of soggy shoes….of papery gondolas bobbling up and down in murky puddles, holding up traffic…of wet widow-seats of public buses, enticing yet unaccessible.
Something must be done….and so be it.
‘Government calls for a state of emergency! Hike in all prices…umbrellas and raincoats will come free!’
Free! Free! Free!
Sticking out defiant tongues at bundles of pregnant clouds above, military helicopters zoom across the sky, dropping carters of raincoats and umbrellas at the sneezing, coughing, shivering world below…Where they drop with a deafening thud on the soil of Iraq, men, women and dogs alike, scream in terror till their lungs expand and burst…phut!
Around the world, water-proof mushrooms blossom…like a Mexican Wave they pop-up…from west to east, south to north. Skyscrapers button themselves up in the massive raincoats, streetlamps look grumpy in their comically oversized cloaks…their gumboots like empty flower-pots, humoring the balancing act.
‘The Government is satisfied…all seems dry with the world…the battle has been won!’
But what of the clouds?
‘Will you not rain?’, I ask them. A shadow passes over their countenance, darkening them further. ‘We are not needed anymore…’, the tears they shed fall Plink! Plonk! on the stupidly grinning umbrellas below….
I grind my teeth….
Something must be done…so be it.
Bleary-eyed, slumping, swearing, the sun emerges from behind the moping clouds…A frothy toothbrush in mouth, it tightens the string of it’s night-gown….grumpily.
‘Eh! Disturbed sleep last night sir?’…My cheeky question flares him up…angry spits of burning flint coupled with specks of white froth dart out of his mouth…I hold up a woolly cloud in self-defence, and my shield deflects the raging arrows….down down they shoot….towards the earth…and phisss! Singe the leathery skin of the umbrellas….
‘A hole! A hole!’ I shout in glee…
The clouds they scream in ecstasy…do cartwheels across the sky…and then with loaded water-shooters, advance…..
Rain! Rain! Here they come…
Here they come…Again!

But I, have other jobs at hand….scaling slimy water-pipes, evading the watchful eyes of the wise, cynical world, I would have to make my way to the printing-room…
For, without me, who else would ‘Forecast’ the weather?

THE SEA?

2008-04-17T22:36:00.000-07:00

Life marches on...I drag along.
"Lift your feet and walk!"- Life commands.
The logo on my coconut-oil bottle promises a wristful of sand...
I long for the sea...for the insolent pinpricks of salt in my eyes...
Crows I wish to seize by the throat and dip in pools of white...
Look! Look! Seagulls in disguise!

The man who translates life for me...is dead.
Now, I sit on my haunches, chewing on my nails, biting my lips...tasting salt...salt? ah! the sea?
The Sea! The Sea!
I run wildly down the streets, slipping on my slippers, bumping, shoving, kicking gaping coconut shells out of my way...Coconut Shells!... ah! the sea? again!
The Sea! The Sea!
Thoughts challenge my feet...they run...neck-to-neck, eyes set resolutely on the finish-line...
Tiny drops of sweat join forces at my forehead...a murky threadbare curtain falls over my eyes, blurrs my sight...i tear it away, with all my might.
The Sea! The Sea!
'I can read life!'....Relief runs a omforting hand over my head....
I run on....
I run towards Life...
But Life...
Life scowls down at me...I, the defiant foreigner, finally brought to my knees...made to pay for scoofing at the Language of Life.
"The Sea it is not"...Life smirks this time..."The One is Blood...the other,a rotting Coconut-Shell...The Sea it is not!"
I walk back in the dark.
In an incomprehensible world, the barring cannines of the garbage-bins seem to bark at me- "It's all Greek and Hebrew to you...is it not?!" and the streetlamps blink in appreciation of the joke..."Cheers!", shout the signposts....All great scholars of a wise old world.
The tears...they came, as they had to come....
But wait...the tears...the salt! salt?...
The Sea? Yes,the Sea!
The Sea! Here I come!

YOUR JOURNEY...

2008-04-08T21:05:00.000-07:00

Shoelaces tightened in a solemn bow across your feet...

Over-stuffed mouth of your leather suitcase, stifled with a loud snap!

Halting before the mirror, your image makes you jump...a comical red bindi sits smugly on the clearing between your brows...but on a closer look...ah! the red rogue is not on your forehead..it is on the glass!

The otherwise dispassionate man-in-the-radio, chokes on his words everytime you pass by him...you hit him angrily on his head, twist his ears, make them go red. The 'roads to avoid' section of his narration becomes gibberish...a messy concoction of clogged lanes and roads holding rude sign-boards screaming 'no entry!', with the teary man-in-the-radio standing in the midst of it all, the clueless traffic police.......Sniff! Screech! Phut!.......and you pull him out of the socket. Silence...complete.

Hurried bites on the toast as the untouched cubes of butter stare at you...hurt, again...you ignore them everytime...why?

" Because i have no time", you say...

Time! Time! You remember then....strap the black ticking appendage to your wrist...wind yourself up...a human time-bomb...ticking away....

So you leave, your squeaky shoes rolling in dust like naughty children, the wind shooting arrows through your well-combed hair...arrows that burst into grains of dust and rain down on your head.

You board a bus...no place to sit....a tight fit, you are. Again and again you bring your hand down to your pocket...the bulge of your wallet assures you- 'im there!' A stranger in grey and white makes a pillow of your shoulder...you do not complain...maybe the man's formidable snores frighten you into submission.."it doesn't matter"- you console yourself...

You walk on and on...

On and on...you walk.

Through overflowing vats of concrete and sand, metal and man...you walk...

Finally,you arrive...

A tired sustained ring on the bell......

I open the door....

You smile...for the first time in the day....

' I would like to believe that this is what you prepare yourself for every morning....that this is what you travel towards...this where your journey ends...'

I close my diary...the only recipient of these loud thoughts- my red bindi sitting smugly on the face of the mirror....tomorrow, it will make you jump again...

THE LAST CUE....

2008-04-02T07:57:00.000-07:00

Raised voices, fingers and flying plates of bone-China nudged the night awake...Sleep slipped down slimpy water-pipes, heaving a sigh of relief...He swore, dramatically and with eloquence...they, the three-and-twenty ancestors framed into captivity with steadfast devotion, wished and prayed to be devoured by termites or be felicitated with cobwebby wreaths...She, wrung her heart dry...not a single drop of tear left to be spared....

And then...the Silence, counting its breath.....She, combing her hair, tapping her feet to the dull rythym of the breaths...waited for her cue.

Her cue..it came...and she walked away with appreciative pats on the back...flicking jealous glances off her shoulder, smiling at the camera...waving at the stupefied world....a world that had dragged Her by the collar and dumped Her into the reeking box of 'the sufferers'...'She would be wipped and caned, Her eyes gouged out..and yet She will stay, rising for gasps of breath from the sea of self-inflicted grief...'

But look!

Look how the puppet hangs by the strings from the gnarled fingers of the ceiling-fan! Look at Her!....See how she hangs....Defying the desperate pulls of the infinite strings, She hangs motionless...

A puppet that would dance to the tunes of her puppeteer no more....

BEAUTY OF BRICKS!

2008-03-25T18:19:00.000-07:00

Ah! The beauty of the bricks! Of the motar...of the sands...and of the Dreams!

Their enticing nakedness, making a thousand hopeful blueprints errupt in the mind. Bring in the potter's-wheel!

Blundering my way out of the musty womb of eternity, aided by a pair of forceps and prayer beads, the furnished world that greeted me with a toothy smile, was disappointing. I had expected disorderliness...chaos...the inexplicable charm in an upturned water jug or a Van Gough hanging carelessly by one arm on the wall. Then with my bulldozer i would have come, the blueprints receiving indelible wounds of the pencil all the while.

What about the hands that itch upon seeing a well-combed hair? What about the tiny ant of irritation that fastens its seat-belt tighter around your gullet when confronted with a creaseless milk-white shirt? It is then that we loosen our hair, kick away the sandals and run roaring towards the sea...the sea- unkempt, shabby, reeking of dead fish and skipped baths...The sea, rolling on wet sand, getting teary with laughter, pointing a frothy finger towards the world...a furnished world that had disappointed me.

Centuries of careful ironing has rendered the apparel too stiff for wearing. Now it hangs by the shoulder in the cupboard..the shoulders, too stiff to slump...too stiff! too stiff! A stoic without a choice!

This world then, has lost my attention...i will let it go, and search for alternatives here and there. Search for a place where my builder's kit and rubber boots will be of use....where my handiwork would speak for me....where i would decide after much contemplation, whether Van Gough should hit my visitors in the eye upon entering the sitting-room, or choose to sneak up on them as they sipped coffee in the dining-room!

For Ah!...The beauty of the bricks!..Of the mortar...Of the sand...and of the dreams!

THE STORMING.....

2008-03-11T19:36:00.000-07:00

Dried slices of mango, strips of green and red chillies, deliciously pregnant cubes of lemon…all stamped into submission, staring out at the foggy world from their mustard oil-filled glass prison…intermittently, choking…silently spewing oily rivulets of tears….the tears, their only letters of unconvincing assurance to the loved ones around….’I am fine! I am fine!’
Then, a dull thud! The hot summer air drew in its breath…sharply. An army of ants scaling the rusty yellow pipe of the water tank for the fifth time, stopped in their expedition, shock gleaming loud and clear on their perspiring brows. And then, a nanosecond of ominous silence, followed by a thunderous crash!....and little Raja has set them free! The glass prison has been stormed…it has fallen, limp and defeated at the hands of a single thread-bare duce ball!
The exodus of the jubilant prisoners...the dying shards of glass counting their last breath under the smirking sun…the pools of oily blood, expanding, flowing into each other…drowning all long bottled-up grief and suffering in the massive ocean of freedom…..This moment will be remembered…remembered and recorded in little Raja’s personal archive…The day the glass prison fell!

LOVELESS...ALL BUT WE...

2008-02-25T19:16:00.000-08:00

Where will you love me?

Where will i love you?

Vindictive park-benches screaming urgently, 'Wet paint! Wet paint!'....

Rude rings of the cycle-bell, Tring!Tring!, making us pull away,painfully...my lips, left the thirsty traveller..yet again.

Bleary-eyed streetlamps jolt themselves awake...cringing in disgust, repugnance...they flood the dark dreamy lane with nightmarish light...you slip your land away from across my waist..i feel the one tenacious iron railing giving way...i fall.

Malevolent blades of grass beckon to us with batting green eye-lids...we sigh in relief...finally!...Our tattered little tent we thus put up...you follow me in...'let the bud bloom just this one time'..i pray silently, my ears deaf to the hicupps of chuckle from beneath...

Slice! went the unforgiving knife...like the hungry scalpel of the surgeon, it tore through our tent...it collapsed with a defeated sigh,the smirking blades of grass denying its soul, a resting-place....

The city chased out Love ...chased it out with brutal severity, like cleansing the bowels of a lamb for purposes of its 'eternal' installation in the biology laboratory.Love,took to its heel...bewildered, hurt, tired...

I am tired too...so are you...this loveless city of rioting bricks and warring stones has closed its blood-stained portals on us too...

So tell me,Love...

Where will you love me?

Where will i love you?

THE HUNT...

2008-02-12T19:14:00.000-08:00

Large hairy hands wriggled their way out through the hairline cracks on the red brick walls that stood sentinels on either side of the narrow lane...they clawed at her,seemed to derive immense cannibalistic pleasure at the sound of the sharp scratch! of their yellow nails against her soft flesh and thus,clawed for more....the bricks salivated...licked their tongues..smack! smack!...she screamed in terror...

The flourescent colour dial of the wall clock stared back at her prespiring countenence.Through the pitch black of the night, the left edge of it's ridiculously-thin black metal lips twitched, the honest efforts at keeping a straight face in a gallant show of mock sympathy...it would be a mere five minutes before this mean parody of greek tragedy will fall through...2:50 am that would be.

It has been happening every night...the choking, salivating walls..the ear-splitting cry of terror that seemed to play only in her ears..like through a set of ear phones..then she would break through the nightmare and fall back hard on her stiff bed... a confused heap of tousled hair,ruffled beadsheets and beads of sweat adorning her neck and temple....her terror-stricken eyes staring up at the senile ceiling-fan....and the sole spectator of this play, a cynical flourescent coloured wall clock...a play that plays to an almost empty auditorium every night...and yet,it gets played.

Morning dawns....she sees the sky undress yet again, stripping off the smoky-black smock of Night and buttoning up the A-line tunic of Day...the vigorous polishing of shoes,the concentrated combing of hair,the quick gulping down of milk...and the sky is ready to take on the day!

Then,the furious banging on her door...the one feminine howl that she has come to dread....her mother at the other end,saying- 'wake up sleepy head!...the fifth family will be coming to see you today!...do not forget to oil your hair well...heard the guy appreciates long black hair...eyes parched in USA,you know?!'

And she knows...the walls will hunt her out yet again..again..and again..and again.

MY PRINCE...AND I

2008-01-30T23:43:00.000-08:00

I had no way of knowing that He was my prince…no burst of confetti at my feet, no conch shell clarions in the air , no cheeky bee buzzing past my ear saying- Watch out! It’s Him!
Life was still the same…the same old life refusing the plaintive calls of the garage mechanic for immediate servicing. Yawning, Life rubbed it’s eyes dramatically and announced- Do not bother me!....So, we were left alone...not bothered…we, Life and I...left alone to yawn and rub our eyes, dramatically…and in harmony.
Then the sudden Scritch! Scratch! at the window-pane…a traveller probably, halting for brief respite, a morsel of mouldy bread, a glass of water pushed in slight irritation through the window…profuse and comically-elaborate ‘thanks’…and we return once again to our yawning and rubbing of eyes, dramatically…and in harmony.
But oh!...This traveller wants no bread or water, and yet an outstretched palm stares back at me. I notice the soft milky pink of the palm, shockingly reassuring…an icy lump of confusion starts sliding painfully down my throat…The traveler wants no bread or water- whispered Life into my ears…words pregnant with caution, fear, apprehension….
‘What do you want?’-I ask…and He says, ‘Your heart.’….
My prince was born to me the day I handed Him my heart…I, quivering in ecstasy…He, with outstretched palm, receiving the poor patch-worked thing and cradling it in his arms….His arm around me, like the pebbled yellow beach girdling the heaving blue carpet of water… would make me dissolve into nothingness…blissfully oblivious to the world without. His dimples, two perfect holes drilled into his cheeks by the naughty fairies with their powerful drilling-machines, would smile at me...and I would wonder, what secrets are stored away in those dark dungeons?..And the dimples would whisper back at me ‘Love! Love!…and I would snuggle closer, wishing to petrify with the flourish of my magic wand, Life and its menacing alarm clock…
Now, when a single doleful tear slithering down his cheek wishes to be collected and boxed up in a case so that it may not go to waste, I crave for home…our blue cottage, eclipsed by the foliage of love from the malevolent piercing glance of the cemented world around…and our brown boat…
My prince…the one who never galloped into my life astride a milk-white stead with his shining armour on…the one who never made confetti burst at my feet, made no conch-shell clarions…nor employed a cheeky bee to whisper into my ear- Watch out! It’s Him!
Yet…I call Him my prince…for he has made me feel like a princess…..

CUPID ABOUT TOWN...

2008-01-05T20:41:00.000-08:00

Cupid walks in soft woollen socks over pebbles and rocks....A faux pas to the core,he trips over other peoples' careless shoelaces, mumbles an embarrassed 'sorry!' that is audible only to him(and to the laces ofcourse) and bumps into disapproving brick coloumns that make gleeful sparrows and winking stars do a mambo around his halo...His journey had been bad,bad enough to stuff 'it' into a non-recyclable polythene packet, throttle the gaping mouth of the packet with a silvery twine and then kick it with the fury of one whose 'love-coated' arrows and golden bow had been detained at the airport security-check for want of a licence! Then there had been the ruffians at the bus-terminus...the apparently 'busy souls' who bump into people with the Providential duty of relieving them of all wordly possessions...Bumping imto him had been disappointing for them,he had no pockets...but for him,the violiation had been complete...first of his powers, and then of the snug overcoat of immunity that he believed, protected his immaculate frame from the dangerous eddies of 'imperfect human life' manifested in the impatient honking of ghoulish metallic animals, ridiculously high electric bills and ofcourse, licences!...
Thus Cupid walks still...blistered feet,blood oozing through the tiny windows of his soft woollen socks...but the steppings are more confident now,more adapted to the merciless pebbles and rocks...he now swings a grim-looking briefcase in his left hand,with the right, takes a long contemplative drag of a cigarette...and while he walks,he smiles...a sudden secretive smile like a sudden naughty peck on the cheek...a smile brought about by the thought of that first glimpse of a tattered dictionary where under the word 'Cupid'(searched out in an initial desperate attempt to assert his position in this alien world) he had discovered a still better word...a much more interesting prospect..a word that was to become his gateway into this world...the innocuous word- 'CUPIDITY'......

HOPE....

2007-11-05T01:19:00.000-08:00

My eyes failed to see the innocuous sign-board posted on an obscure part of the road…thus I trudged on, halting at intervals to consult my weathered road map, squinting my tired eyes to locate the minimized replica of the rickety causeway on it and instantaneously, sighing in defeat. Night was fast approaching…’night’-this was an ominous word for me…it sent a spine-chilling cube of ice, sliding mercilessly down my back. As the fiery red and yellow globule dropped cunningly behind the majestic mountains, the world seemed to be plunged into a massive ink-pot, dark and dreary…The sight was a confounding one, like the wicked flash of the camera, the blinding flash, followed by a shocking darkness…But I was prepared for all adversities…hundreds of angry fireflies remained imprisoned in my glass jar, shaking furious wings at me as I carried the jar in my hand…Nature tortured into submission yet again…Thus I walked on.
Thud! What lay at my blistered feet was a stubborn old sack, lying in the middle of the road with the irritating defiance of a deaf man who has been asked to put his hearing aid on, but refuses to do so on the pretext that it deafens his ear!...Sitting on my hunches, I turned the sack upside down and the word- HOPE stared back boldly at me…In spite of its unattractive outer appearance, the bowels of the sack promised rewards of the highest order…My eyes were drawn towards it…with shaking hands I untied the silver string constricting the neck of the sack…in sank my eager hands into the gaping pit…Right! Left! Right! Left!...like a hunting dog, my hand sniffed out every nook and corner of the sack…and finally, what emerged from the alluring mine was, dull, suffocating misery….the sack was empty after all…Yet, some unintelligible force kept pushing me on…pushing me, egging me on…to Hope…Time and again, I met with crushing defeat…waited patiently by the letter-box for some tidings of reciprocated love to arrive…and kept waiting all my life…Hope, as I saw her, was wicked and vile… a sadist to the core and yet, the soft feminine jingle of her colourful glass bangles softened my heart, restored my faith and there I was again…hoping against hope once again…yet again…again and again…and again.
One fine summer morning, taking the long walk back towards the gate of Infinity, I happened to see the obscure sign-post that I had overlooked earlier….It read in bold red letterings- HOPE…BUT IN VAIN.

MUSIC...

2007-09-23T08:58:00.000-07:00

A soft suggestive tune drifted through the air, halted for a while in serious contemplation, teasing the strained ears, and then, with the sudden agility of a preying panther, pounced upon the eardrums….A warm chill slithered down the spine, poking each rib, strumming the heart-strings, making the feet tingle, the mouth smile…helplessly….
Music always intoxicated her…It popped open within her being, a gigantic bottle of wine….and as the creamy white froth spilled over the gaping mouth of the bottle, the dreamy smile crept stealthily into her face and forced open her parched lips, stretching it like a rubber-band….
That was all she could ask for when asked with sadistic indifference- “any last wish?”…With hands tied tightly, painfully behind her, she tiptoed towards the menacing gallows…one step at a time….and there she stood right below the lip-smacking coiled serpent…down came the black cape over her mesmerisingly beautiful eyes….and the last that the fiercely ‘lawful’ world saw of her was that hauntingly angelic smile…..The smile that tamed Death itself …tamed it with the soft tempting whip of that one musical note….

ANGELS...

2007-09-19T19:02:00.000-07:00

"Sale is on! Sale is on!", screamed the over-enthusiastic man outside the majestic portals of the garment store..."Can i get an Angel?", She asked with large hopeful eyes...The man shook his head in mock distress and announced, "we don't sell them anymore"...A thick murky rivulet meandered down her eye...distressed and frustrated, she sat on the jagged edge of an upturned rickety wooden carton on the pavement and waited...waited for her Angel to come...
Across the street from her, on the opposite pavement, big burly men with dirty ropelike tassles hanging from their grimy skulls, sold fresh human flesh...a long chain of early morning buyers stood outside the store, with an air of nonchalence shamelessly hanging about their faces, very much like the dirty ropelike tassles crowning the grimy skulls of the flesh-sellers...
A blue and white bus came charging down the high street like a raging bull and crushed yet another soul under its killer wheels...it honked in victorious delight...a revolting concoction of malicious pleasure, sadistic joy and unadulterated malignant glee burst forth from its exhaust-pipe and blinded the eye...the poor soul lay shrouded in a bloody drape...cold and dead...
Somewhere in the distance, the ear-piercing screams of agony of a housewife could be heard as tongues of fire slithered up her frame in euphoria...The brick and mortar walls stood dutibound senitels and looked on unfeelingly as her milk-white flesh slowly withered and burnt...In the spacious hall, an ageing couple prepared the endless list of invitees for their daughter-in-law's funeral with deep concentration...
Admist this strange celebration of life, She sat on her throne..still...waiting for her Angel to appear...The world smoked and reeked of death and destruction...houses and men burnt like a mere scrap of paper...and yet she waited for her Angel to appear....
She waited and waited...waited for eternity for her Angel to come,not realising all the while that strong white wings had sprouted on her shoulders a long time back...We are all Angels in disguise...sigh! if only we would realise....

CHILDREN OF GOD....

2007-09-15T01:33:00.000-07:00

A solitary wooden swing, swinging in distress…
The majestic sand-castle echoing its lonliness.
Paper boats, marbles and kites strewn across the floor…
Unstrung, uncared for…not needed anymore.
Peter Pan lies captivated beneath moth-eaten books in cream….
The magical path to NeverLand now seems a distant dream.
Boxes of scrabble…the stiffled voices of joy…. jungle-gyms stand empty…
A cruel cruel ploy!
And as glasses of untouched ice-cream shed creamy tears in brown…
God let go of the reins with a warning frown…..

( THE PIED PIPER OF HAMLIN CAME ON GOD'S URGENT CALL...HE IS STILL THERE, POLISHING HIS MAJESTIC PIPE AS LITTLE PARTHO SCRUBS AWAY THE PROUD BLACK BOOTS OF MR.SEN...PARTHO WON'T BE DOING THAT FOR TOO LONG NOW...HE WON'T...)

PEACE..AT LAST....

2007-09-14T09:06:00.000-07:00

Spiders, cockroaches and unidentified winged insects have infested the locker-rooms of my heart...there were no bloody skirmishes, no tedious wars...i submitted without a fight...simply held open the gates and in they trooped, fifty thousand blotchy scrawly creatures, beating triumphant drums of victory, majestically, trooped into my kingdom...my heart...
I was a weak queen, who could not hold on to the reins of her chariot...A weak queen who gazed at the world through translucent pink shades and smiled in delight...a queen who juggled tiny earthern 'bhars' on the shamelessly-balding stretches of the Maidan, blissfully complacent....and a queen, who intentionally kept her doors and windows unbolted and thrown open at night....
My poor patchworked heart!...It had been operated upon too often... A mercilessly-menacing pair of silver scissors, barring its saliva-dripping canines, ripped through the soft red flesh a million times...excruciating pain blinded my eyes with silent, forceful tears...then came the sadistically winking needle...thus continued the hellish task...the gory unfinished jigsaw puzzle, hoping against hope to be spared the slow-poisioning...and yet the needle took the sharp dives, swam on underwater through soft quivering flesh and emerged on the surface again in euphoric delight...and oh!..the pain of it all...my poor patchworked heart that bore it...My poor poor patchworked heart!
The secret would go to the grave with me...the fact that i had sealed a deal with the present occupants of my heart...My heart had been ravaged, plundered, it's blood spilt again and again and again...ravaged by thoses very beings to whom it opened wide the doors and windows of its castle...in they came and broke down yet another carefully constructed wall...The souls i trusted with my bounteous heart...left me maimed, mutilated for life....
Hence i resign...retire...let go of the reins and sigh.....
The spiders, cockroaches and unidentified winged creatures would do better justice to my poor patchworked heart....they would....yes, they would....

A BREATH...

2007-09-10T08:25:00.000-07:00

The sky was not the right shade of purple…it desperately needed another coat of paint to convince itself that it was more than just a filmsy backdrop to a melodramatic world of damsels in shining armour and knights in distress over the sudden loss of their gallantry. At the high street, melancholy stray dogs stood in a tight circle and took in turns to bark aloud the sad tales of their wretched lives spent on four wretched legs. A lethargic halogen lamp, precariously hanging from the summit of a wobbly lamp-post, winked intermittently, rather shamelessly, at the moon. Occasionally, neighbouring trees exchanged formal pleasantries after a hard day’s work…the rustling leaves adding soft melody to the silent din of the night, an insipid occurrence in an irritatingly-insipid night ...and yet, nothing felt right, the sky still seemed too bright for the night…was there not enough paint left in the gigantic tin-can?...’Maybe there is!’, smirked back the moon at me..’Maybe I just hid it in some discreet corner of the attic-room where no one would find it for a while…and then, for that little while, I would drape myself in colours bright…for once, I would throw back my head and laugh…intoxicated with sublime happiness, I would do away with those suffocating iron shoes and gavotte on the roof-tops of this sombre world…for there comes a time in every existing being’s life, when that being, in a sudden burst of joyful realization, remembers to breathe…to live…to smile…’

WINGS....

2007-09-06T19:25:00.000-07:00

There was a time...many a thousand light years ago, there was a time when i used to have wings...brick-red wings of recycled newspaper that my Maker had put together with tedious concentration and unflinching dedication....by the time this Herculean task had been completed, Heaven reeked repulsively of Dendrite, wet paper and divine sweat...but nonetheless, there stood my wings...brick-red wings of recycled paper...!...Thus, off i flew into the night air....dodging the ash-coloured bales of cotton suspended in the limitless sky, i flew on...and on..and on...The wind whistled softly, flirtatiously in my ear...i blushed a little...and then sailed on...and on..and on..and on....
Suddenly, a papery hand ticked the nape of my neck...my head turned impulsively...a flash of brick-red caught my eye...my Maker had been careless afterall...i clicked my tongue in disapproval..and yet my eyes refused to budge from the loose strip of coloured newspaper that held on tenaciously to dear life...my eyes refused to budge, attracted all of a sudden to the curious scribblings on the surface of the paper...a hand reached out and tore the strip from its root....the eyes travelled over the printed word...a light-bulb lighted up somewhere deep in the crevices of my being...i smiled a knowing smile...shook my head in witty contemplation and thus,let go of my papery appendages....the wings were of no use to me anymore...the airy sea had been conquered..there it lay tamed and purring contentedly in the palm of my hand, captured in bold black letterings...the wings were of no use to me anymore....
Or so i thought, as i shut and bolted my doors and windows, complacently ignoring my Maker's defeated sigh from above.....

ALONE...SO ALONE....

2007-08-31T21:33:00.000-07:00

The last time I felt this marooned was when i sat huddled up in my oversized maroon tunic and white blouse in a roomful of screaming, shierking, screeching beings with my leathery sheild containing alphabet-books and skeptically-pointed pencils held my defencively before my perplexed countenance...a mere child of five and a half years of age....And now as I sat at my french poetry-scribbled weather-beaten desk,the same menacing feeling of isolation crept back again...slowly, stealthily it slithered into my being..i looked around at the colourful sea of humans around me...humans who thumped each other on the back, smiled and winked... and humans who all seemed blissfully oblivious to my existence...A few faces i recognised..faces of friends who had just the other day rubbed happy shoulders with me...but now i was no more than thoses fiery words of poetry scribbled in a bout of poetic frenzy on the weather-beaten desk...nothing but an endless,meaningless plank of wood that would eventually fall prey to the merciless hands of Time...

SHADES OF LOVE....

2007-08-16T19:38:00.000-07:00

The stubborn hands of his watch refused to budge an inch more...there they stood their ground, on no-man's land, STUCK somewhere between the tenth and eleventh hour, while eddies of worldly dust and black exhaust fumes hovered over him, enervating him...testing his very patience...
Sophisticated animals in iron and steel honked away in blissful oblivion...burping contentedly now and then after satiating their thirst with a good many litres of petrol, they now strolled down the concrete unmoving sea with the air of one who has been well-fed....
I watched him from my position on top of the crumbling brick wall...i have been watching him for about five consecutive days now...his innate impatience with this lethargic life interested me..i fancied seeing him all of a sudden,riding pillion on a majestic white horse, holding on tight to rash little Life...dodging the slowly-moving mass of humanity and flying off into some exotic world....
However,what stirred my interest the most was his drastic change of facial expression the moment bus number 45 lurched to a stop before him...At once, the cresses adorning his perspiring forehead would disappear,his desperate attempts at entertaining a menacing scowl on his visage would attenuate...and an ever-so-tiny smile would take its place...
For there she would be...sitting by the gaping window on the fifth seat from the left...there she would be...and there she was today as well...with her shoulder-length jet-black sheet of glossy hair,she sat a perfect mannequin,her piercing eyes, glistening like two alluring marbles...her lucious pink lips sat pursed in concentration..not daring to pout open...the milky white skin seemed dipped in a blood-red concoction...probably, rose petals that had somehow been shredded,plummaged mercilessly in a mortar and then mixed vigorously with pure heavenly milk...
I climbed in behind him...The claustrophobic existence did nothing to kindle his anger or irritation....he just stood transfixed before her...holding on to the rusty iron-bar overhead,he swayed and stumbled occasionally to the hackneyed rhythm of the crawling bus...blissfully unaware of the rest of the grimy reeking world around him...The eyes just refused to budge...very much like the immobile hands of his watch....Time, as i chose to interpret it, had indeed stopped in its track...This sudden thudding of a pristine little heart among a junkyard of convoluted, manupulating, wicked minds shocked it...freezed it in its steps....and thus, the errily magical moment that passed in a blink, as she gave a fleeting glance to him and as he, softly but sharply drew in his breath...stood captivated in the silvery, translucent web of Time...Time will remember to scribble down the beauty of this sudden moment in its memory-book....i gave a little smile...
Today was 'the day', his eyes seemed to say...will he or will he not, win?...The long long wait...the heat,the grime..the dust,the smoke...fighting it all just to be on the same bus with her...he has to win....my heart swelled with sudden undefined pride as i found myself cheering him on silently...

Oh!...Why hadn't she ever spared more then just a fleeting glance at him?....and oh!...why hadn't she ever trailed her mesmerising eyes from his handsome face down to his hands?...then she would have seen the tiny glittering knife grasped resolutely in those masculine hands...the knife that he used stealthily as she edged her way towards the door..the knife that seemed to take on a life of its own and made a grand gaping hole in the soft leather of her hand-bag...in went an expert hand and out came an assortment of worldly possessions...a sleek cell phone...a beaded little purse...a gold chain and a hair-brush...the hair-brush went back in...and she alighted from the bus, feeling strangely carefree and 'light'.....

WELL WELL..LETS NOT BE CYNICAL YET..THIS WAS JUST ANOTHER SHADE OF LOVE.......

DEATH....

2007-08-16T19:26:00.000-07:00

An old fellow had once complained about his dead friends…”I do not find these disappearing acts of theirs’ at all amusing!”…Pardon me if my words sound unpleasantly pregnant with cynicism but I do find Death pretty amusing…in an age when Man has victoriously answered to Nature’s call on the brazen face of the Moon and entrapped the world in a constricting web of red, green and brown wires, Death still rejoices in the deep dark vortex of the Unknown…Bewildered, astounded, stupefied Man continues to drill through but victory is elusive…it sprints gleefully about…chuckles at street corners….scoffs at them all as they, bearing the halogen lamp, march onwards…and thus, the quest continues…..
Death is indeed cynically, sadistically amusing….very few living souls can digest this bit of grim humor without a strong dose of isabgol….and yet we all have to gulp it down one fine insipid, uneventful morning…gulp it down like an unsuspicious cup of black tea…and eureka! Our hackneyed journey on earth is done!
I wonder on my idle vagabond days, who invites Death? A flamboyant purple parchment embellished with sparkling gold vines and creepers, encasing verbose, formal words of invitation….is that how Death creeps in through life’s wide-open gates?….I have never been able to bring my imagination to believe that Death just might be a hunchback beggar in tattered rags…extending out its gnarled wrists, shaking a disfigured aluminium bowl, begging for life itself…and Man is too much attached to this brick and mortal world to give it away in charity. So Death just bulldozes through the carefully constructed walls…spreads its hooked tentacles and sweeps its victim off…off…far far away into the diabolic world of clandestine existence….
So be it…Death is a Chameleon, agreed !…but it is amusing all the same…it amuses me…it amuses my pupils that, having been accustomed to the presence of a living soul around its line of vision suddenly finds that soul living no more! There lies my friend, a smug little smile plastered on her face that will only be wiped away by the unmerciful hellish flames of the electric chullah …there she lies in a state of irritating complacency, not twitching an eyebrow, not scratching her slightly perspiring temple with her long nails…there she lies, yet another tenant of Death....

I AM FREE!

2007-08-14T21:58:00.000-07:00

"I am free!",cried he...and dramatically spat on the street...Equally patriotic souls joined in and soon the helpless cemented street lay a pitiable sight...a gruesome battlefield strewn with contentedly-empty beer bottles and smirking cigarette-butts...Freedom has been won...and justified....
"I am free!",proclaimed she...and curling a resolute palm around the yellowing wrist of the five thousand year old skeleton in the desolate museum,crack! broke it in half!...the amputated appendage slipped into her backpack...it would fetch her definite acccolades from fellow revolutioneries...mighty pats on the back and cheers of "bravo!" from all...she smiled in satisfaction...Freedom has been won...and justified....
"We are free!",exclaimed they...and went on a fiery rampage,pulling down brick and mortar...spilling eerily-familiar blood...committing arson..spreading terror and fear....and all because, 'smoking has been strictly prohibited on campus'....They did not stop...did not take a breath...not until fifty odd cigarettes blazed defiantly in fifty odd fingers again...rings of tobacco smoke rose in the night air like victorious soldiers rising from the valley of death with Death itself caged in thick iron cages...Freedom has been won...and justified...again..and again..and again...
Thus, a very happy independence day to all folks there...Freedom has been won..and WILL BE justified indeed!

RAINDROPS...

2007-08-13T09:02:00.000-07:00

Sprays of water hit my face like a million tantalizing pin-pricks...rain-sodden curtains lent their master touches to this mischievious artwork by gently carressing my countenance whenever the billowing monsoon winds buoyed them up and i lay sprawled in blissful submission to Nature's silken brush-strokes. A solitary crow was ambling slowly, resentfully towards the safety of my window-ledge from its precarious positon on the rusty garder hugging the drain-pipe of my brick and mortar existence...Honking, belching beasts in iron and steel passed below...the monotonous yet alien swish! slosh! indicated that the beasts were wading through tea-coloured water..there will be the careless yet violently religious offerings made to this holy waterbody..an interesting potpourri of empty coconut shells,torn slippers,half-eaten-and- the-rest-forsaken cucumbers,tomatoes and loafs of bread,yellowing pages of daily locals dating back to 2001 and the occasional stray dogs,impersonating wild ducks...Now and then, the overcast sky in its menacing black and threatening grey burped in contentment...a sudden blinding flash followed by a resouding crack! and there we were, caught unaware...framed for eternity in our most candid expressions!...Towering coconut trees flapped their green wings in a desperate attempt to fly...they wriggled and swayed...dropped a few pregnant coconuts in distress and yet stayed rooted to the soil...crows, sparrows and the rest of the winged creatures smirked at this futile act of desperation...and then,spreading their own feathery appendages, floated away in the dark tumultous sea above....Men continued their tedious journey below....wading through all watery barriers,hoisting up colourful apparels,clutching canopies over their heads...cursing....growling....and intermittently,missing a step and slipping....Yet,admist all the cacaphony..the hustle, the bustle and the plaintive whistle of the shuddering traffic-police...some naughty little Fellow Above kept clicking away His camera at leisure!

ROSE BUDS....

2007-08-12T22:55:00.000-07:00

He was there all the while...like the inconsequential lone light-bulb, ungraciously gracing the white-washed wall in every single scene of the sixty minutes motion picture...he was there all the while....but my eyes saw him not.They were too busy satiating their visual hunger for greater things..things that shone and sparkled in the sun..things that left one shocked,stupified,stupended..things that danced cunningly before my vulnerable eyes like alluring little fireflies...and then,as i reached out my hand,off they flew into oblivion leaving behind an erotic trail of chuckles and smirks.
He left behind a shy little rose bud in my lizard-infested letter-box everyday...a rose-bud for me...like pursed lips they sat silent in my flower-vase only incurring my irritation at their passivity....by and by,they all met the same dishonourable fate...rubbing delicate shoulders with eggshells, rotten tomatoes and intricate fish-bones, they slowly lapsed into non-exsistence...Thus, without realisation, i kept plundering his heart...almost a sadist,i derived joy in making him cry...and yet,the silent lovers kept appearing in my lizard-infested letter-box.
He tried erecting the strongest of earthly walls around me to keep me protected...standing senitel at the great iron doors,he spent infinite sleepless nights.Armed with a menacing sword, he paraded the grounds, ready to cut, slash and burn...singular beads of sweat united in a deluge of perspiration and drenched his being, ugly black rings circled his deep-river eyes...and yet he stood his ground.I saw it all from my window above...silently cursing him all the while.
His laments tore through the night air making hyneas recoil in fear...the cries of anguish...of loss, shattered window-panes,snuffed out glowing candles,made scavenging rodents scurry back to their burrows,aghast....I had cheated him...broke through his protective bars and escaped into the seemingly free world...my mendacity shocked him..but as the tears slithered down his grimy face,i hooted and jeered..oh! how i despised his mawkish nature!....and thus i left him...a defeated man....
It had been three days..just three days in the free world...and i had been sucked of all life...there i lay in the dust,crushed, beaten...choked and throttled...all that my eyes encountered were brisk footfalls and all that my ears heard were nasty catcalls...the heavens rained no mercy on me...the earth remained parched....shockingly dry.
It was then that my pregnant lizard-infested letter-box burst open with a mighty crack!..and out spilled blood-red roses..pouting and bright...the lips had finally opened,they were pursed no more.....and as i took them up in my writhered arms,they seemed to snuggle closer...warmth spread through my cold shuddering frame,shot through my heart and spilled out in silent retribution through the corner of my eyes...i realised,i was finally alive again.....
'I love you' was easy to utter...shamelessly,remorselessly i let the words spring forth from my mouth...But he shook his head and said.'let it stay the way it was before...'
Thus,he continues to be there...the lone insipid little light-bulb ungraciously gracing the white-washed wall in every scene of the sixty minutes motion picture.....and the silent rose-buds keep arriving in my newly erected lizard-free letter-box..but the only inconsequential abberation here is that...now,i wait for hours on end to hear the rose-buds speak...speak those very words that earlier i had not the ear to hear....

FREEDOM....

2007-08-12T09:20:00.000-07:00

A narrow rivulet of translucent sweat meandered down my temple...paused a while in silent contemplation at the bridge of my nose, only to steer right, and then took the mighty plunge into the deep dark heaving crevice below hidden ever so cunningly by my faded green dupatta and i gave a tired sigh....
The seemingly tamed serpent in iron and steel slithered along its metallic tracks...a whirlwind of 'Heavenly smoke' from an idle smoker's middle-aged cigarette-butt and grains of earthly dust nudged the lethargic blades of the rusty ceiling-fans above,giving but momentary respite to the passengers below....and the ailing serpent crawled on through the concrete jungle....
The resolute little ant slipped the thirteenth time....sliding down the glass-pane, it hit the dirt-clogged sill below with a silent thud! However, regaining composure with the air of a ruffled hero,it continued its up-hill climb...
A blurred kaleidoscope of red, blue, green and grey,symbolic of terraced hills,harnessed rivers and cultivated plains swam by...ocassionally,the gnarled ribs of trees caught my eye...i shuddered at the sight of its petrified leaves...it seemed almost dead...dead and embalmed...The sun hooted...its cynical laughter echoed in my ears...i could hear the earth writhing in pain and distress...the earth was being tossed over and over in the hot saucepan..it was being roasted alive...the terrible nauseatic stench of burning flesh attacked my nostrils again....i gave another tired sigh....
The minutes ticked away menacingly,the serpent echoed this warning in the mundanely rhythmic chugging of its wheels...the heat bore down on me,oppressing my spirit, making my patchworked heart grimace in excruciating pain and all the while, the rivulet of sweat continued its journey into the dark vortex of oblivion....
I could take it no more...red-hot anger burst through my veins,the unseen shackles held on to my being like a constricting python..tighter..tighter...my breath came in short uncertain puffs...Earth turned a nasty brown like overcooked onions....and i wrenched open my clumsily sequined cloth coffer,delved a greedy hand into its pregnant interiors and in a final act of difiance,threw all my wordly possessions out of the window...my coffer gaped at me in derision...i smiled back at its chagrined countenance!
"Ticket!", "ticket!"...the conductor stretched out his shamelessly greedy palm..a self-styled beggar,demanding to be fed...i smiled ...the same peaceful smile...he did not smile back...his bushy brows started crawling slowly,threateningly towards each other....i had sinned..there was no redemption....it would come...my freedom would come....the minutes held their breath in suspence...and then, as i had expected 'the civilised Man' to behave, i got pulled up from my seat and then, a push...a mighty push...a push....and that is all i remember....
They do not sell newspapers in the Other World...but they do carry tidings from the breathing world to this one now and then...i heard that i had landed on a pavement..my blood had created quite a gory masterpiece there...people had gathered,bewildered,excited...the Press had taken pictures of me...and in all of them,i had this peaceful, angelic smile on my face....