When I walk into the Night

All good things come to an end, until they begin again. I am not sure if there would be a sequel in this lifetime. I don’t even know if the crew would come together for another shoot. The universe that plots togetherness, plans the parting too.

I knew and so did you that the time we spent together, we would never relive again. As I spent those seasons in time with you, I freeze framed the best of you. In my fear of forgetting you, I frantically keep you alive in my blogs, my poems, my passionate debates on relationships and my ever increasing play-lists of yesteryear songs.

One day, when I walk into the night, I would lean on to your memories and they will carry me through. When I meet my maker, together, we shall say hello!

That Mysterious Glow In Sunshine

When I found the sun up so close, sneaking up my windows, a mile high in the sky, I was reminded of you. I was remembered of the day sunlight was caught behind your silken hair. Rays of love would shine through you, and drenched me in its glow. And when I looked into your mriganayani eyes, I could see myself; and in your eyes, I was so beautiful to see.

I always believed that the Sun that shines, answers to you. You are the mysterious reason why it glows.

Rajesh

Lord was on my ATR Flight

On an ATR flight from Hyderabad to Cochin, I had the window seat next to the propellers. The blades seemed huge up close and when the engine fired and they started to turn. 

Blades merged with blades, and soon there was nothing. The blades in their fiery speed became one with the things around, and seem to have vanished. Only the black warhead like nose at the centre of the rotors whirred like some Bosch hammer drill, being used in the middle of a lonely night.

When the invisible rotors lifted me into the skies, I thought about my Lord. The Lords presence, like the invisible rotor blades, is mostly felt, rarely seen.

Thank you for a wonderful flight.

The Rainbow Across The Bridge

Some day my songs will sing of you no more. Someday, silences will fall over silences; there will be no words no more. And when you pass this way you will find me painting in your colors no more. I know that one day I shall wake up and I would grieve your loss no more. I agree that I will never forget you but I pray for better things to remember.

Time would send me no answers, but I trust time to bring more important questions my way, someday.

Rajesh

Onions or Living?

My office boy has a young baby girl who has just begun to take her first few baby steps. On my way out, I see her hanging on to the gates and making baby-like noises. She is an optimist; I have not seen her cry. Yesterday on my way back from the supermarket, I bought half a dozen bananas for her. The mother was surprised, it was unexpected.

At the supermarket, I remembered the choices I had as a kid. We were just about “middle-class” but we had enough food to eat. There were baskets of mangoes, litchis and five guava trees. There were biscuits which I and my sister would hog over and sweets during every festival. Today these choices are not available to 80% of Indian poor. The onion sells at INR 75/- a kilo, tomatoes at INR 72/-. Barely edible rice is over INR 30/- A doctor’s visit costs INR 250/-. Last year, over 17000 farmers chose to die rather than plod on until their next crop-loss. Many more will die. The rickshaw-wallahs, pavement dwellers, scavengers, municipality workmen, housemaids, office boys, masons, carpenters, plumbers, and the rest of the poor, will all die. They will die of hunger, or the sheer pressure to sustain life in Indian today.

The least I could do was giving the baby half a dozen bananas.

Rajesh

What Do You See In Me?

I have been put through the shredder and my entrails have stained many a heart before. I have been ground fine in time and now get tossed in beautiful looking hourglasses. I have been beaten hollow as a drum, and I am highly strung. The shrillness of my voice; you would not have heard before.

I have been battered by the blue waves and have surrendered my pride years ago; I have no rocky edges no wedges and no space for your little hands to hold on to. I sustain no life anymore. Wonder what you see in me!

Rajesh

Hand In Hand

The last time I went to a park was with you. I am always surprised by your urgency to hang on to my lanky frame in public places. It is as if you wanted the world to know that you owned me, owned a piece of my soul. 

Amidst the buzz of mosquitoes, the wild laughter of young kids and the curious envious stare of their mothers, you chattered on for hours. I do not remember your prompts; I do not remember my responses. I was lost in the glow of your warmth. It was a wonderful dress you were wearing.

When the crowds dispersed and the last of the mother’s tore themselves away from us, I could feel you let go. I could feel the distances of the heart setting in. The last act had been played out. It was time for me to go home.

You were no longer hanging on.

Men Like Them

I started blogging in 2004 on rediff. I exited because by 2006 or so there were more of aphrodisiac promos than serious blogs on rediff. Lately, they have revamped the looks, but the content remains just as cluttered and stupid. I am pasting below one of my very first blogs in as is where is condition. Much has changed in the years that have passed, my job, the place I live and most of my life; but Sebastine remains my favorite :)

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[16/06/2004 07:42:14] | [rajeshkmr7@rediffmail.com ]


Men like them


This is my first week into the blog world. Three days since I first posted my poems of love and longing, I have now decided to put up some characters I come across in my life and who are radically different from others .


I am a plantation executive and thus unlike others of my ilk, my lot is piled with the bluest or the blue collared workmen. Six estates and six years down the line this job and the interent has together finished off all poetry in me. Consistent onslaught from a highly unionized workforce who knows their rights and conveniently forgets their duties have thoroughly grated into the softness that lies within a poet. Plantations has turned me into a prickly, sharp edged, irritated bugger. I hope to blog my way back into spiritual health. Let us see. 


The people you will meet in here are all true to life and most of them are still very much alive and kicking or being kicked at. Let me start with my kaliyar days.




Supervisor Sebastian


Think about a 6 feet 3 inches giant with no paunch and a extremely tall gait. And then think of him as 38 years old and extremely cunning. This is a story about how Sebastian whom my manager considered as the worst Supervisor on the estate turned out to be the best. This is the story of Sebastian who stopped hiding behind field boundary walls at the sound of a Royal Enfield bike and started to do some real work and continues to do so. This is a true story.

Searching for Sebastian

Sebastian endeea’ I would ask. “Ariyatilla saare” pat came the reply. “Sebaaasteeeaaaannn” I would scream, but as usual no Sebastian would ever appear. The first few weeks at the estate were like nothing I could ever imagine. Sebastian was the supervisor in charge of Field N69 and N70. Field N69 and N70 of the Number two division were a mountaineers delight. And if all is well at the estate I have decided that by the end of the millenium year, I would start practicing bungee jumping in one of its quite corners. But before that I decided to find out Sebastian. 


‘Sheela , Supervisor Sebastian Endeeye”, (Sheela,where is supervisor Sebastian.) ‘”Ippol ivide ondarunnallo saaarree, thande angottu poyee”( He was right here a moment ago sir, he has gone that way). The first two weeks I swallowed this bait hook , line and sinker. And I went all through the field, round and round every block , asking every tapper-but as usual no Sebastian would appear and they will all conveniently direct me to the next steep of the hill.


Tired and worn out and sweating like those ugly looking meaty things, I would reach the weighment shed by the weighment time, and there sitting like a lord on his cement bench will be the and the only -Supervisor Sebastian! “Sebastian, for gods sake where were you!”-no answer, only an old Prem Chopra smile. I repeated the question, and still that smile. And a moment before my brown face would turn some impossible combinations in pastel, Sebastian squeaked:” Saare (almost sounding like saale!) sahipinde bhasha ariyattillallo!”(Sir, I do not follow the white man’s tongue.) I let go at that for I knew that he knew what I knew- that he was having a go at me! Next day I waited for Sebastian at the entrance of the field for I wanted to see how he could slip away this time. Every one came but no Sebastian came, and finally when he did come, he muttered what sounded like a good morning saarre and gave a salute that could have passed for a slap had I been closer.
“ Sebastian, come show me around the field and introduce me to the tappers” I said in the vernacular. And then I realized that I had landed at one of the most dangerous places on earth. I had my doubts on the very first day when a senior 
introduced me to a few shady looking characters who were referred to as ‘supervisors’, and now all the doubts were coming true. “ This is T.K.Joseph sir, we call him charayam Saju, he has murdered three people and is charged for at least 18 cases of murder and violence.” But Sebastian, he looks so meek.. almost like a lamb- I reiterated. “ Eeiiialla saaarree, his looks are deceptive, only yesterday he chopped the hands off Vannaparam Basheer.” I let it go at  that, I thought that maybe Raju had a special affinity towards chopping hands and heads. The next tapper I was introduced to was Kaduvakandam Suresh. “ Sir, he is the best tapper in this section, he can tap 500 trees at one go. Wonderful Sebastian, I said, give this chap a hundred rupees if he brings more than 35 kilos today.” At the sound of a hundred I could suddenly see Sebastian’s eyes go watery and bright, he gave a slurp-y licking to his lips and promptly pocketed the hundred. Nobody was needed to tell me where or to whom that hundred went.


Walking through the blocks Sebastian taught me tons of new things about the rubber tree. At the end of the week I knew that there was something very very important called “Thunder Pressure” which is most strong during early mornings. As also there are things like “Plucking Index”, “Tapping Density” and a terrible condition called “ Brown Blast.” 


Those were my first days at the estate. It was an altogether different experience. For the thousand four hundred or so people who lived upon the estate, life moved at a different pace. Here I was among people to whom life was full of small and important things. When their manager  sported a beard, it was the topic for the week, and when he shaved his beard it was enough news for another week. For them the powers and the weaknesses of Harrisons was manifested in a few ordinary men with extraordinary powers. Supervisor Sebastian was only one of them. And there was a ritual upon the estate, an unsaid, unwritten code of evaluation. Sebastian’s eccentricities and his seeming stubbornness was his way of evaluating the new Assistant Manager.


However, all this seems to have happened so long ago, With the passage in time, things seemed to get corrected by itself. I found in Sebastian one of the most hard working, diplomatic and trustworthy supervisors I was to meet. He is with me as a trusted lieutenant is. And we share a common aspiration on work. We together work for a time when:


Our fields are clean, and free of weeds;
Our trees are healthy, free of wounds;
There is bark to go when the year is done;
And it crops and crops like never before

Waiting In The Wings

I have stood here at the wings, watching you play those myriad roles.  You have been in love with the lights, the crowd that cheers have lent you wings; and from these wings, I have seen you fly. 

The songs that you sing are from stories that were ours, the smile that you flash is the one you practiced with me for hours; and the moves that you make are the ones you rehearsed with me over the years. 

You make a wonderful act.

I wish I were a part of the crowd, I wish I were out there cheering with the crowds. I could have moved on when the play was done, I would not have had to wait all this long. Waiting in the wings is lonely. There is so much more to see out there. 

Up here, I only have you. And it is a very long way back home.

Rajesh

The Sunlight On The Garden

For the winds that will never blow

For want of Autumn leaves

For Spring that would never come

For want of Summer showers

For dreams I would never dream

For want of simple sleep

For places I would never be

For want of alternate destinies

For a life I will never live

For want of alternate choices

For memories I have forgotten

And memories I could not erase

For reasons I would not agree to

And for those I could do without

For songs I sing and those I don’t

For friends I have and those I lost

For all the time that was mine

And for a time when there will be none.

For those who wait for me

And for those who miss me from beyond

For all that I know

And for all that is unknown

Rajesh

Addiction by Rajesh Kumar

Addiction by Rajesh Kumar

Colors Of The Sun

Colors Of The Sun by Rajesh Kumar

The Long Walk Home

The trail to my Home passes through a garden stretch. I see the Constant Gardener always at work. He would nip a bud here, there; allow a wild flower to bloom. He would plant a hedge here, drive a wedge there, water some beds here, and leave some beds in gloom.

In places, I see patches of dandelions in bloom and areas where the dead flowers have left behind their persistent thorns. There are miles and miles left fallow, for when the time is right, he will make new flowers grow. 

It has been years since I started, will be some more until I reach Home. And as the decade turns the corner, I look forward... for there is nothing I see when I look behind. And as I plod on amidst thorns and flowers, with me my world plods on.

Rajesh

I Would Walk On Water

Floated into 2011 with Lifehouse. Nothing else but "Storm" could come close to explaining my thoughts on you to myself. Shared here with lyrics for readers to enjoy the power of this number:

Storm

how long have I
been in this storm

so overwhelmed by the ocean's shapeless form

water's getting harder to tread

with these waves crashing over my head

if I could just see you

everything will be alright

if I'd see you

the storminess will turn to light

and I will walk on water

and you will catch me if I fall

and I will get lost into your eyes

and everything will be alright

and everything will be alright

I know you didn't

bring me out here to drown

so why am I 10 feet under and upside down

barely surviving has become my purpose

cause I'm so used to living underneath the surface

if I could just see you

everything will be alright

if I see you

the storminess will turn to light

and I will walk on water

and you will catch me if I fall

and I will get lost into your eyes

and everything will be alright

and I will walk on water

you will catch me if I fall

and I will get lost into your eyes

and everything will be alright

I know everything is alright

everything's alright