where do we go from here, my friend?

things have started losing meanings again. i probably needed this.

a short story

The sunlight streamed through the oaken door when we walked out of the mansion. I was still contemplative. What I had seen had set me brooding. My companion was in a state of seasoned shock, trying to come to terms with the kaleidoscopic events of the last one and half hours.

Life is not always like this here, this side of the equator. Still events, in black and white and in shades of mediocre grey shake the fabric of what we hold inside from time to time. This is one of them.

She was dead of course. She couldn’t have been more lifeless than that doorknob my companion turned when we came out of that place. She was peacefully dead, not one of those greasy, grotesque bloody deaths, and I was thankful for that. I loved her too much to have seen her lying in a pool of blood and sticky mess. Her death to be starkly honest did not shatter me, or even tear me to pieces. It wasn’t a huge blow either. I believe I was still numb from the shock of the entire incident, to be more accurate the momentum with which it had built up. The tension was too much to bear. The suddenness of it, I gathered, prevented me from registering the shock in my head.

It was perhaps not the same for my companion. He had loved her as he had loved himself. He was blaming himself for her death, I knew. Every responsible man does that. He was shattered. I could see that. I could see that in his eyes moist with repentance and torment alike. I could feel that in his breathing. I wanted to pat his back, stroke his hair, hug him and tell him—Boy, everything’s gonna be fine. She is okay wherever she is. But I didn’t. He was a strong man I knew. He could withstand it.

He kept on walking.

I couldn’t afford to follow him now. I needed to get back to the place from where we came out walking into the porch, into that room, where she was still lying peacefully dead. The mourners were arriving one by one, the mother, the uncle, the cousins, neighbours and even the girl she had fought with seven years ago and never spoken since.

They assembled around her body and mourned her loss as I silently watched them. And when they carried her body away, I sighed a little.

I was beautiful.

spirit ed

She is a very spirited individual—he said.

No wonder—I nodded.

Only if he knew the darker side of spirits. Far from being orbs and pearly characters, they force alcohol down your throat. As you gulp down your fear along with that glass of wine you realize the true potential of all that is incumbent upon you in your stringent endeavor to live up to your expectation and obligation to others around you.

Tag

caught a glimpse of it here at her request and had to agree. Our blogs needed this. So we marched forward and tagged ourselves.

If I were...

If I were a beginning, I would be: chaos.
If I were a month, I would be: december.
If I were a day of the week, I would be: thursday.
If I were a time of day, I would be:the twilight zone.
If I were a planet, I would be: earth.
If I were a season, I would be: autumn.
If I were a sea animal, I would be: the clown fish .
If I were a direction, I would be: the one that changes constantly.
If I were a piece of furniture, I would be: a bookshelf.
If I were a sin, I would be: lust.
If I were a liquid, I would be: wine.
If I were a fraud/scare, I would be: doubt
If I were a gem, I would be: emerald.
If I were a tree, I would be: a deciduous tree.
If I were a tool, I would be: a pen.
If I were a flower/plant, I would be: narcissus.
If I were a kind of weather, I would be: a tempest.
If I were a musical instrument, I would be: violin.
If I were an animal, I would be: man.
If I were an emotion, I would be: obsession.
If I were a vegetable, I would be: mushroom.
If I were a sound, I would be: an echo.
If I were an element, I would be: fire.
If I were a car, I would be: chitty chitty bang bang.
If I were a song, I would be: like a bridge over troubled water, i will lay me down.
If I were a food, I would be: food for thought.
If I were a place, I would be: a hilltop.
If I were a material, I would be: satin.
If I were a taste, I would be: of water.
If I were a scent, I would be: the perfect scent sought by Grenouille.
If I were a religion, I would be: life and sometimes death.
If I were a sentence, I would be: Even this shall pass.
If I were a body part, I would be: eyes.
If I were a facial expression, I would be: distant.
If I were a subject in college, I would be: poetry.
If I were a shape, I would be: a perfect circle.
If I were a quantity, I would be: seven.
If I were a colour, I would be: black.
If I were a thing, I would be: a key.
If I were a landmass, I would be: an island.
If I were a book, I would be: the little prince
If I were a monument, I would be: a pyramid .
If I were an artist, I would be: rembrandt.
If I were a collection of poems, I would be: rubaiyat of omar khayyam
If I were a landscape, I would be:Banks of the Seine at Champrosay by Renoir
If I were a watch, I would be: a swiss one. alternatively a large grandfather clock.
If I were God, I would be: Uno.
If I were a vowel, I would be: i.
If I were a consonant, I would be: n.
If I were a formula, I would be: uninvented.
If I were a Science, I would be: astronomy.
If I were a theory, I would be: the discarded one.
If I were a famous person, I would be: still the same.
If I were an electronic equipment, I would be: an old outdated computer
If I were sport, I would be: rather a game. word game?
If I were a movie, I would be: mary poppins
If I were a cartoon, I would be: calvin.
If I were an explorer, I would be: the one to go back to future.
If I were a scientist, I would be: newton.
If I were a relation, I would be: the unnamed.
If I were a river, I would be: an undercurrent, flowing unknown, unseen.
If I were intoxication, I would be: jealousy.
If I were alone, I would be: thinking.
If I were a question, then I would be: From here...where?
If I were a hobby, I would be: reading minds.
If I were a habit, I would be: forgetfulness.
If I were in an atom, I would be: still a part of the universe.
If I were an end, I would be: peaceful.

If I were you, I would be: forgiving

Footfalls, fair winds, echoes, blue mountains….
and within the reach of the personal heaven,
a few packets of wisdom scattered here and there.

Wisdom is a very somber expression…
heavy word bending under
the weight of years of loneliness, gush of joy intertwined with a mass of silence…

Wisdom floated in and out of my perception of years
and years to follow…
wisdom ran me dry….
licked the last drop of consciousness that I had

and before I fell I could here the throbbing of uncertainty in my veins…

and I knew

wisdom would one day,

some day

take my leave,

without my knowledge beneath my crust of consciousness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And of course it would come again another day, another time from life beyond what I could see and hear…from life beyond what I could feel in the breath of my breath…and it would linger for a while and glide away into another world….

where it was I never knew…

And we shared this love hate relationship always….the mirror held us, captivated us together, growing apart from each other, caressing distance, making love, this time to time…

Together we bonded like pieta, holding each other, bleeding, weeping, flesh and tears, blood and sweat and departure…that is how it always happened…

we knew it would be the same.. enacted in the same Shakespearian manner over and over again until the curtain fell….

and I picked up another shred of wisdom from where you left…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Darkness dripping from my eyes, lonesome walking an extra mile,

and my death again…

who would carry my corpse dear friend across an extra light year?

Will you, stranger?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Don’t wash away the stains of blood;

don’t wipe your brow with droplets of sweat

dripping down and touching my feet…

.....your last tribute? ....

I wonder…

My poems are soft green

My poems are also flaming crimson

My poems are like a wounded fawn

seeking refuge in the forest.





Guantaramera.



When everything stops, music moves. Music shall swirl and splash and stop by me. And wash me out. And poetry, poems, ballads shall come with her. This is how I shall grow old, bit by bit, breath by breath.



Puff the magic dragon shall live. Forever. In that attic of metamorphosis. That small room, four walls, nothing more save a basketful of imagination, a handful of whims and fascination that grew and grew, fabricated by story book anne and glad games played by pollyanna. They were there, of course.



Little by little, we grew up. Together at times. Amidst strawberry fields, under blood red sky, with promises of meeting again once upon a time in future amidst a world swirling like there was no tomorrow.

Glad we met again. :)

what more kid? what more could you want? apple pie, lemon tart, ice candy?crayons, water colour and pastels?

grow up. grow up now. not much difficult, is it?

the drama turns into petty commonplace reality as the winged creatures take off for something less tangible than the real world.

who knows?fate clicks dramatically well when photographic memories don't!

ah, such a pity!

not now

i shall think of oblivion when i am sixty.

Here I am seated
Amidst endless seas
Beneath the blue dome
Within the bounds
Of careless freedom.

Here I am washed
By your absent dreams
Which held promises
Long ago; not here,
Not now.

Here I hold sway over
My estate on rubbles
Of million dispersed 'I's
My fragmented self
scattered like quanta.

Here the leaves gather
and salute aged Nature
Around my dusty feet
Finding comfort and peace
In autumnal austere strength.

Here I pick up rags
Of silhouettes and shadows
And string them with dusk
And evening skies
Of nomadic freedom

Here we separate, branch out
And then bond like one
Amidst green foliages
Of shady cypress and
Tall Eucalyptus trees.


Here we isolate and mourn
The death of rootlessness
And slowly, unwatched
Away from scrutiny and eyes
The gypsy heart grows.

scrap

Written in delhi in some bitter cold december evening. A scrap of paper folded neatly and tucked inside a diary. Scribbled names and nothings and limericks at the back. Every drop of ink carried memories of the cold night with the cold wind.

Tamarind sunsets and multilayered evenings and streetwalks and cardigans and fog. Misty taste of frost and shadows and figures strutting along the streets. The verandah was cold and switching over in contrast my cold fingers held the hot mug of capuccino. Beyond the veiled glass, inside the womb of the room, I could see pooja drying her hair. Hot water..mmmm…I draw in the scent of the warmth of a hot bath. Then I opened my eyes to find her hurrying me to finish off my cup of brewing comfort and join her in the symposium preparation for tomorrow. I gulped down fifteen minutes of leisure and siphoned in 84 mm long smoke generator. Sigh!

One day I shall be that mist, that frosty cold, that december evening.

I shall make you numb.:)

countless

How many streams must I cross

Before you learn to swim across

El Nino of turbulent times

How many roads must be walked

How many of them should intersect

And lie love locked till you hear them

Calling you from the depths of my eyes?

How many flowers should be born

‘to blush unseen’ and how many of them

should garland you when your sensitivity dies?

How many times should I rock your cradle

So that you sleep peacefully amongst rubbles

Of creepy lonesome nights?

How many rain clouds shall it take

To bring in monsoon for you?

How many times will the church bells chime

Before they cry ‘hallelujah’ and kiss

Your footprints compassing the new journey

That you embarked now.

How many love songs shall it take

To wake you up?

How many lullabies to hush you to sleep?

How many deaths shall I die

To live your life again?

"Srabono gogono gheere, ghono megh ghure phire,
Sunyo nodeer teere rohinu pori---
Jaha chhilo niye gelo shonaar toree."

the nightscape erodes
as minutes tiptoe in hourly silence.
time begets time.
the rugged pile of consciousness
is at its brightest and wakeful best
at the phantom hours.

this is not my world.
this is not my reality.
this is far far away
beyond silent waters of blue seas
and dusky evening sky
away from sweetness of love's symphony,
miles away from agony,
away from angst, pain, hopelessness.

this is where i am elevated.
feel not heart, fear not mind;
think not, see not, hear not, speak not.
this is where everything stops.
your wheel ceases rotating
my cliched existence
amongst piles of mundane everyday.

here you are not my lord.
you cease to be my fate.
i, finally, take up the reigns,
i am your destiny henceforth.

i know i have realized this before
i have spoken this ten thousand times.
uttered them in solitary pristine glory,
alone, many times.
in childlike wonder, in blind resentment to you!
this is also unique like the ones before.

Tell me now stranger, if I serve myself

In delicious ambiguity on your platter

Would you taste me bit by bit?

Would you gulp down my consciousness

Of eternity in seconds to come

Ticked in time by magenta sunsets?

Tell me now, tell me a little of your forefathers

And how you metamorphosed into the strangeness

That I see today, that I see now.

Tell me how you lived and how you laughed

And how you loved--

Tell me all of them scratch by scratch

While I measure myself.

Tell me tales of the seagulls

And how they flew overhead

When you embarked on your journey

Of ten thousand miles across light years

And seven seas’ ugly lonesome nights.

Tell me about the northern lights and the winds

That blew my slumber away in dreams to come.

Tell me now, for I long to hear them

From your lips, from your eyes.

Your voice creeps into my ruggedness

And wakes me up; stirs me down

Like a cup of freshly brewed coffee

That is how you taught me to measure myself.

And I measured this stark consciousness

Dressed in satin and silk from the Far East

Elegant as the regal attire, delicate as the dew drop tiara

And I measured myself and grasped the meaning

Of the wondrous look in your eyes

That I am priceless!

lost

"Pero como el amor
los saeteros
estan ciegos."

unlike the archer, we, as a rule, with a few exceptions scattered here and there and everywhere, are half blind.

but i, do see. i can see in my thousand kaleidoscopic visions.needless to say i love them. each one brighter than the one before. like each string i have left behind, weaker and thinner. each one grows dimmer while walking backwards.


I have lost myself in those colours.

Many times....

i wish to be lost again.

Like now, under a blood red sky, when the thin film of red tries with success, to blind an already obtuse vision, I sit and mesh with the colour.Or I try to.

Now when my palms are red, a brilliant, gory, magenta red, I sit..I sit on those muddy banks as the water washes away those tiny specks of sand-blurred knowledge across the panorama.
Now when I look at it, the setting sun, the branches, the twigs of the imposing structure of the Eucalyptus, the sylvan beauty of it,now when they make a complete framed impressionist's painting, I wonder if I am a part of it, or if I ever could be one.

I sigh, I wonder as I look into the sepia tinted mirror on the sky.Floating moments and a contour of aberrant times from the days of Achilles' journey stare back at me. The red gets redder.
Queer and warm, it hugs me tight.

And only when I woke up on the streets to the sounds of the distant drums beating in my morphed and marshalled psyche, that I was cold again.

The shortest distance between two points could also be a shuttle cork.

The feathered ones though.

there is an illicit charm of being lifeless.like this.there is a flaming red fire just across that Savannah where my feet dragged me. and did i say i was drugged?or i felt like it.
the salty tangy taste crawls and creeps in..and into the mouth straight it goes.

and then there were days.days when she used to be in frocks and the enid blytons nicely tucked inside the maths hard bound copy.this girl will never learn.no boi mela this year for you.i tell you.yet there were book fairs.the quintessential short term human memory.there were benfish and deb sahityo kutir books which always smelled so good. so irresistibly good.and she carried that smell forward even when she graduated from her sepia tinted days.

pujo was more fun,the goddess came on a lion.she loathed them at the alipore zoo however.but she liked it, this particular one here, in pandals.flowers, so many of them, a dash of vermilion and dhoop, dhuno always made it easier for her to like it here.and last week only she had watched joy baba felunath on chhuti chhuti. and then there were also packets of tiny screechy warm heart aches.

melancholy afternoons. she was cycling on the roof and she fell. it hurt. but not as much as it hurts now.

does it hurt?where does it hurt?give her some painkiller boudi.

it does.it also hurts now.right here.and painkillers?one lost forever.and a few more scattered here and there.she wished she wasn't blind.or worse--blindfolded.it always made her feel awkward and clumsy.

i walked past that rain forest once.breathing and inhaling the scent of this stupor was synonymous to walking to the nucleus of the forest. the more you walk, the more difficult it is to find the way out.and oh!no sunshine and no breeze.

she somehow preferred the sea.always.it gave back everything it took.

take away your crimson dusks.take them away.pack them nicely and gift them to the twilight zones.this is so calm.i could sleep and forget all about 'em.

can they see where it hurts?now?she wanted it nicely bandaged.she had the sedative once.she was drowsy.and she let herself go with the breeze..into the rain forest, amidst the deciduous trees.

Nourished

This is how I distribute the shadows into an ongoing eternity. Hundred years have made me younger by the seconds. Now when I look back at the picturesque years growing along the past borders of evolution and metamorphosis, I smile a lot, the only concrete palpable feeling which I allow myself to express.

Down the crisscrossing lanes, there were books, to be read and gulped and a few to be digested and assimilated, music in colourful varying entrants, paint brushes, watercolours, acrylic and fevicol, which could fix almost everything except broken hearts and manhandled pride, a fairy tale castle of house with a garden which reminded one of camps and caravan and famous five and treasure hunt. The only treasure worth finding was a handful of memories tucked safely in the bushes and the neem tree. The rest was nourishment.

The reason why I am still breathing.

Let it flow. Let it flow in streams, in rippling waves, in electrifying currents…let it flow. Let it flow in tempestuous, fiery swirling whirlpools, the electric storms of the moment. Let it be passed on and carried forward. Let the wind carry it to Mediterranean islands where it shall proclaim the arrival of spring. Let it burn and fade into the Milky Way like a million others before it. Let it speak before it extinguishes. Let its voice be heard and heard again. Let its music be lent to rhapsody of songbirds. You have heard its melody? Come here and like the elves I shall render the tunes in golden mesmerizing echo in woods. Have you seen fear? I shall show you fear then, in a handful of earth.


And we shall always overcome. We shall win. Together.

Finally, when the battle is over and all are dead, stone cold and blue, we shall meet, face to face. We shall sit on the mound and with the necropolis against our silhouette, we shall begin our war.

Checkmate!

a summer to go
a may to hop
a winter though
may halt and stop!

never cared much
for summer rains
and lived the touch
of harvest grains

spread the news
oh far and wide
that spring's hues
i carry in stride.

every day is somewhat new. the day unfolds before her eyes. she takes a curious look and then with a toss of her thick straw coloured plaits, decides, there was nothing new in the day or the way it had unfolded before her eyes...her mossy green eyes. then she is bored. and life moves on in diurnal motion.

there were green valleys and a flaming red sun, many many days ago. she was thirsty like a nomad in the kalahari. it was then that she had made up her mind to own a fountain once she grew up. and eventually when she did, she was the owner of a few springs. and sadly, there was no winter.

fulfilled and satisfied, she approached the oasis. a lush green and a sparkling crystal clean water; water everywhere but where it should have been. the eyes were dry. her lips quivered. the mirage raped a few sunshine moments. she thought about it. and then her reflection evaporated from her crystal clear mind like the mirage.

she never felt. she never thought. she never spoke. she just carelessly travelled through thoughts and words. that was what was and that was what was to be.


little girls can be that stupid.

Only this and nothing more

SCENE-I

~~"Ek haate law bojha, shunyo kore dao onyo haate"~~

These days, nothing moves, nothing speaks, nothing breathes. These days I have come to realize that everything translates to silence. The church bells don't chime anymore. The wind doesn't whisper tales of northern lights. The last leaf doesn't move. The shadow beneath the candle pregnant with the crimson does not flicker.

Take away your long winding roads.The bends don't excite me. The ends don't thrill me. Take them away from time's lovelorn corridors, string them in timeless chains of many journeys.

The heartbeats however woke up to the new day. Time was chained to its sighs....the solitary prisoner of silent dusks.


SCENE-II

It hurts. It always does. The first gush of pain--wild, searing and warm....she sits with the broken pieces of glass as the pain started spreading. First, the blood trickling with the mere knowledge, that there, somewhere in the deepest of veins, there is an aching need to feel and breathe. Then the pain receded and resurfaced again.More, she cried. With each pulsating second, the pain conquered parts unknown. She was thrilled.

Now that I sit here, lifeless and pale, staring at particularly nowhere, and the pain seeps in gradually, slowly, I realize once again, that I could give you even more--my colour.

For what am I without you?

SCENE-III

Then there are moments in life. Moments, like tiny packets of energy. Life comes to a standstill when they start breathing. The child lives through the moment. The woman lives, too. And then, as if nothing had happened all the while, they see each other. She recognizes the girl with a slight nod and with a gentle pat on her broken shoulder, both approach the pyre.

The urn moves with flowing tides and reaches the ocean. The last clouds fare across the twilight zone. They promise to amalgamate with her burnt out existence and spread the colour of union across the sky. Birth of yet another twilight zone.

And they remained divorced from each others orbit.

SCENE-IV

Life is peaceful.So very peaceful.For one starved of it, this is a moment. A breathtakingly beautiful one.

A gigantic serpent curled around her, almost eager and hungry. She inched closer. Consume me, she cried.

SCENE-V

She was a denveresque sad song. Take away your sunset evenings. Just take them away. Take away the rain forests too. The more she tries to make her way to the nucleus, the more difficult it is to move. And when she looked at her palms, she found them moist and blood stained. It was as lovely as an Impressionists painting.


SCENE-VI

~~"Tobuo pothik, thamo kichhukkhon"~~

Deep, deep, deep blue sea.Her body floated in opheliasque motion to the tunes of the rippling waves and the songbirds' rhapsody in her house far, far away.. Far away, in the island, the woods canopy her soul under the greenwood tree. The leaves rustle and call out her name.The birds drop twigs on her epitaph--'Here she sleeps'...the grass grows greener...all the while she floats by trying to trace her invisible footprints on the sea to the distant shore...her eyes closed and her body pale and stunningly yellow, ugly almost...and her eyes blue like death.The urn also floats with her. The pole star overhead tries to steer her by.

Suddenly she opened her eyes. There were a billion stars overhead forming a stairway!

Sometimes I wonder, ‘Is this the only way?’ The only way, the only route to vent? Packed up, bottled up and then all cracked up. No pun intended. Only naked truth.

And what be the truth if I am not me and you are not what I thought you to be? Dadaism goes well with me, I have come to realize. I don’t crib. I don’t whine. I just ignore the seemingly apparent and the important.

Poetry doesn’t come to me. Nor did it ever come. What came was lunacy dancing and frolicking in saber toothed edges. They cut me. I bled. Without you watching of course. Oh I do have a pride!

I left home, left love, left peace and the necessary byproducts. I came back in circles. I came back in waves. I washed you out when it rained. I gave you nourishment. I gave you peace, comfort and insanity. And all the time you pointed your fingers at me. You held me responsible. I held you in my gaze. I watched as I had watched alone many times before you.

I wish to annihilate you, wipe out your traces and siphon you out from my system. I can live. Thank you very much. And I can live alone.

Goodbye morbid. I am even tired of you.

assimilated

i am happily intoxicated.quietly, when you inhale, or just breathe in the magic of the moment, you feel thus.happily intoxicated.

i was pondering, contemplating and occasionally shivering at the sheer realization.and i was holding the beauty of it in my palm.it converged and made a lovely impressionist's painting.dash of colour and a potpourri of queer waves.that moment came in a wave.it wasn't still for once.then gradually, very slowly it started to set in. it seeped in almost.and it passed through my veins.

sigh!

no more goodbyes.no more.there are only middles, remember?morbidity makes interesting reads.drawing nourishment from melancholy is insane.love is sweet.romance sweeter.and what exists within the concentric circles is even better.and when you start looking beyond the panorama, everything, every bit of moment, every scrap of memory looks so brilliant. oh i am redoing it again.all over again.i am falling in love.yet again.

where was i when you were so beautiful?you are so breathtakingly beautiful.my fingers tremble lest they break the magic of it.no more insipidity when i consume you.

you are delicious!

bonding with sepia

i will give you my little diary. i will let you write there, too.write nice things, august afternoons and cold december nights.write stuff about how you spent your days in mussoori and days of the british raj.and tell me about the room on the roof and the cherry tree and how rakesh planted it and watered it and felt like God.we planted it ourselves.that's why it is special.

i shall also listen to silent nights near the clock tower.i shall trace your footprints and walk down the mall road and stop near hampton court school. and please do bring rusty along.oh please? we shall waltz with our bohemian nostalgia.weren't you surprised to find me a little like sita?

i still crave for sepia.i do.and did you know that you, almost always,help me find my way through shamli.time stops there, you said.i will tell you my secret.shall i,now?time also hugs me.tight and close.she smells a lot like ponds,dhoop, rannaghor,boimela and bhaiphnota.

so now,ruskin, i am giving you my diary.encapsulate more sepia.and feed them to me.delhi is not far.we shall meet again...we shall meet again.....down the way from the mall road, when the sky shall be a brilliant azure, when the zephyr stirs sinking memory, i shall walk past postman chacha, i shall cross the dew drenched ivy cottage, and just where the cherry tree lived, we shall meet again...we shall meet again.

but i can't even flee, you see?schoolboys are almost always caught.they run away.and they are caught.they get as far as the railway station in dehra.there is a beam of sunshine hope for me though.

ain't i like sita?i shall sail through.