A Strand of You

I was on the table

When a strand of your hair came calling.

I could see you in the kitchen,

Your face at once a storm and a breeze.

I curled the single strand of loving you into imagined shapes

And spoke to it of fascinating tales.

And as it played on my fingers,

Twirling, and curling

I could hear the music from its silent songs.

I had half the heart to carry it with me home

And hide it in a book marked you.

It smelt like July Flowers.

It smelt so much of you.

First published in Indian Sahitya, Feb 2017 Issue on Contemporary Indian Poetry

To the Years that are yet to Come

In the long innings of this life, we are like the stage where the drama unravels. The Plays change, the players too come and go. The audience is like the river of time that runs through us. There are bright lights and wonderful stories and some stories that run to empty seats.

Whatever be your story this coming year, pray don't be enamoured by it, nor be bogged down. These are just stories. Stories change. But life as it is, is lived forever between the shows and the silences that follow when the curtains come down.

You are the stage. While you may have a little say in the stories that play out in your life, I hope you learn to enjoy the successful ones, and forgive, or forget, or do both, to the ones that never really took off. This is not a new year wish. It is what I wish for you, every year of your life and for the lifetimes that are yet to come.

Happy All Years.

Suddenly

It was not planned. It was a government office. A private sector bank representative was called in for some support. The person was supposed to come by 10. It was already 12. I was busy on my laptop. Three others in the room were busy in their own works. And then the door opened and she walked in. Just like that.

24 years of thinking about her, and she just walks in. It were as if there was a tear in the fabric of my universe, and she just appeared out of nowhere. We talked like two perfect strangers. If she recognized me, she gave me no indication of that. I wanted to hug her across the table. But that was not why we met.

Later, as we said goodbye and she crossed the busy road, my heart leaped at the familiarity of it all. All these years, and she still jump walked!

End of Innings

Cheruvally Appachi (The aunt from Cheruvally) is about 86. She looks just as beautiful as I remember her from the time my grandma was alive a decade ago. Yesterday, we met at the wedding of one of her grandchildren.

As I hugged her, I could feel her tears drench my bald head and creep through my shirts collar. Her tears would not stop. Nor mine.

Great Aunt of mine, I want you to know, do not grieve for the time that is no longer there, for we shall meet again. This one was as your favorite grandnephew, the next will be as your son.

Abandoned !

Once a wise grey owl perched on a large sullen tree in a garden in ruins. The butterflies hushed their wings, the snakes crawled for a while like snails and the wind that was already tired from all its windiness, screeched to a stop.

The owl would now look to the right and then look to the left. It would turn it's furry head all around without a rustle. It's bright golden eyes pierced the low light dusk falling like a shround on to an unloved body.

When the night finally drenched this forgotten garden in its mossy grey, the wise owl screeched a chilling shriek, flapped it's giant wings, and through a tear in the fabric of the universe, escaped into another dimension.

The Fear of Grey

Autumn brings in memories of muted grey and flying ash. Memories of fallen leaves gradually letting go of their greens.

Autumn paints itself on a desolate canvas.

It is that season wherein your eyes draw back your tears into itself. It is that season when your hope falters and your faith waivers like the last of the twigs holding on to some imaginary leaf.

Such is wretched misery of this waiting, it transforms your soul into a refugee. You grab on to made up memories from some imaginary springtime and trudge through your life believing that your world is this bleak canvas, and you that grey tramp ploughing your soul through limbo.

No. It is not a nightmare, for it is not night yet, just the dreary day draped in grey.

There are no dreams, for to dream, you need to get to sleep, and you rarely get to sleep on days that stretches for years and is blatantly grey.

But when the first set of silly shoots find their way through sunken craggy gnarly wood, we drench in its first shameless showers and hurry to erase memories of Autumn from our minds. Green replaces grey. Hope that springs eternal, brings back faith, brings back love. The only hint of Autumn is in the hurried glances that we keep giving our loved ones. It is in the sudden desperate hugs and fierce embraces. The fear of draught scalds your soul, singes your being. Just once is one time too many.

Picture Postcard

The necklace road was just as well lit as any other day. Its park benches occupied by lovers of all hues. The lake was full of sail boats and the Buddha as usual, held on to his smile. I remember that the rain surprised all of us. It came in waves, slightly slanting, beating down relentlessly. I would have run into the car, had you not stopped me that day.

That evening, I walked in the rain with you. Hand in hand, you holding on tight so that I don't take a shelter to save my buckaroo leather, and I taking delight in watching you dancing in the rain. That was the first time I got wet in the rain...and did not mind it all that much.

One Wave at a Time

I can hear your voice on the other side of the phone. Its like some lonesome wave spent from a long voyage crashing unto my shores. I love it when you crash into my world. I love the overwhelming sense of being drenched by you. I love the mysterious stories you tell me of magical lands. I love how you try to make it up for all the time we lost by speaking too fast, running out of breath.

I love the way you explore yourself around my loneliness from you. I love the faint sense of unease in your tone, as you try to find out if I am the same edges you rounded off from all these years of random onslaught.

I love the saltiness of my soul that you leave behind.

My Silences

Don't judge me by my silences. They don't divulge the whole story. There is a story that runs in my mind. I carry it's lines in my thoughts and live its scenes in my life. I am the Macbeth and the Othello. I am also the Romeo in my story.

You are omnipresent. It is as if the script revolves around you. You are in each scene, ever chapter every line.

And as the curtain comes down on me, you dissolve into my mind, like a dark cloud of my own making. Taking weird forms of my own perception.

Don't judge me by my silences. There was never a moment in my life, when I stopped talking to you.

That Pinch of Blue with Grey

Long flights dredges up lost memories from an otherwise sunshiny life. They come from all the corners, steadily, like coyotes, biting away small bits, from my otherwise well preserved sanity.

From my childhood, comes echoes of laughter, and playing in the sand, and jumping off trees and beautiful looking Didi's and school teachers and sir Raj, smoking charms, endlessly. The laughter bounces off my brusque facade of professional chicanery, and chips away some paint on the go. Right from under the starched white shirt front, I bleed blue, as I remember myself and my sis, playing, alone, under the guava tree. We were young once, and our life was full of each other, forever.

From my youth, my grand uncle calls out, in a voice unheard for a decade. I see myself grinding arecanut for him to chew, in return of cardamom treated raw tobacco. I see us painting the front lawn red, together, three generations apart, chewing home grown betel. Some bit of that red betel haunts me again, sparkling red splatters in my otherwise clinical, lab life.

And then there is that wide expanse of tranquil greens, amidst which my grandma sleeps in peace.

It's a long flight. I wish for this journey to end. I look forward to being home again. It's a journey well begun. Some day, I got to be home again.

Tomorrow is just another day

The train that I was on stopped at a small station on route to its destination. There was a sudden silence that fell like a velvet robe across the train. The station was absolutely empty. No guards visible, no vendors, no beggars, no dogs, no dripping of water from leaking ancient pipes... Absolutely nothing. It was almost as if the visualizer had morphed a train full of tired people into a 3d postcard.

Right then there was a shudder on the other lane. A train thundered across the rails at a speed that for me was incredible. Such was the speed that it did not allow me to count its bogies. Such was the speed that I almost forgot to breathe for about 30 seconds. Now I knew why my train was halted at this junction. We had to give way to the faster train. Our journey was about to end in an hour, this one's had only begun.

I see my little nephew raise a storm at our ancestral house even as his grandpa looks fondly at him, loving the coiled energy in the child. The young are in a perpetual hurry. The old get glued into postcards.

Some stories are like that only

I just finished this book. It left me disturbed. All the hours spent lovingly turning the pages came to a naught. There was no poetic justice. The villain was not caught, the hero did not get the heroine. It opened up so many loops that never closed. It was like a dream interrupted, a limb torn off. Stories have no right to end this way.

But some stories are like that. They are quite like our lives. Half lived. Like a dream interrupted and then lost to everyday living.

Musings

I miss many people in my life. I miss the dead but I miss some of the living a lot more. I can see them going about their daily lives, and their everyday lives look just as good without me.

I miss a lot of people in my life. Those whom I miss, rarely miss me.

Life on a Metro

The next station is New Delhi. Gates will open on the left. The constant crooning of announcements lull me into a trance.

As I consume time and distance, I don't want this ride to end. Everything is so clean. Everything so much in control. Each of us sit silently sullenly looking into some point on the roof that is really not there. Nobody catches my eye. They don't want me to remember them. Nobody wants to remember me either.

It's a ride. And it is all paid for upfront.

The Wanderings of the Soul

No. I am not in a shell.

As I grew older, I grew myself layers upon layers of skin. Each time I found a vulnerable corner, I covered it with a cloak of invincibility. As a child, I was lighter, I could fly. Now, I barely hover. Growing up, I used to plunge into every stream and sea. I was not afraid of the sea, its darkness and it's depths, for I believed that they would not sink me. I am not sure of that anymore. My being grows heavier, and I am afraid of the sea, afraid that now,  it might drown me.

The road that I have taken, was only mine to take. The paths, good or bad, were mine to tread. This journey is mine and I cannot loan it to you to cover these distances for me. If your path crosses mine, and it feels right, you can travel some distance with me. This is your choice, your freedom, my side is free.

The slight droop and the drag that you see is from the heaviness of my being. Is from the seeming continuity of this never ending journey.

Some day my friend, I will rest this tired soul on a pavement and leave behind my bag of fears. Someday, I will run back to meet my sea and face my eternity.

What We Don't Speak About

The silences between us stretch longer than these desolate island shores. The slow tide of time is eating away into the very ground under our feets, yours and mine.

I loved you once, and I keep telling that to myself over and over again, even as I feel myself standing on shaky grounds, with the sand beneath me hurriedly caving into the sea.

We won't talk about it. We will look into each others eyes and discuss the weather, even as the sea around us turn choppy and the waves slowly run inshore.

We will not build one more bridge and cross over. We will not take one more piece of white paper, and write off our sins. We will not sing one last song together, nor have one more drink to get drunk and fall asleep into each others arms. You won't shreik and holler and chase me in feigned anger. You won't tell me, that you will kill me. You won't swing your wet hair and spray my white work shirt. You won't bathe me with your dove or spray your Charlie on me anymore.

There will be no tsunami, we will sink and die, slowly, looking into each others' eyes.

Hope that Springs Eternal

From the dead barks of our yesterday's, hardened with hurt and regret, scrawny with so much of scrounging, and flaky with all this neglect, we can still will for hope to bloom, faith to survive.

And then sometimes, like a miracle, from the this stoic heart full of deadened despair, a new shoot will grow, you will never know.

Smoke gets into the eyes

There was a betel wine that fondly and fiercely cuddled on to a yellow flower tree in my courtyard. They lived together, with each other, intertwined, for as long as I remember.

I will pluck the tender betel leaves for chewing pan, and my grandma will gently sweep the fallen yellow flowers from the courtyard everyday at dawn. The dying flowers huddled together in their final journey to the recycling pit. 

One fine day, grandma did not wake up, and in a month, we had lost her. 

One rainy day, not long after i saw last of my grandma, the yellow flower tree got uprooted. It died too, with the sweet betel vine.

A Train Journey to Hyderabad

As the sleeper class coach hurtled on iron rails, I found myself gazing out of the window, the wind catching what remains on my balding head.

It was the Carriage's willingness to be lead by the engine that surprised me. It kept pace and hurried behind the big boss, trusting that HE will lead the way. The landscapes changed from urban grime to barren wasteland to paddy fields awaiting harvest. Soon, the dusk fell upon us, and there was more light inside than outside.

By the time I could make sense of the journey, sleep had invaded me. I woke up at 4.00 in the morning and found a cab home.

The train was neither sad not happy that I was no longer a traveler. It's a journey it has to make, and that's about all it ever needed to know.

As the car entered my residence, I could hear a Siren honk somewhere in the distance.

Long Train Journeys

Long train journeys make me sad. The gentle lyre that plays some sad Chinese melody in the background of our everyday lives, suddenly comes afore. The notes from their pathos drown me. As in a trance, I find myself staring at concrete sleepers and iron tracks, my eyes brimming with ancient tears.

I have often wondered why this happens. Maybe because long train journeys remind me of my childhood. Reminds me of a life full of beautiful loving people. Some have traveled to the edges of these railroads and faded out of sight, some have merged with these tracks and what remains of them are the sounds from these clanging wheels of an ageing memory and iron dust.

This rattling reminds me of a journey that all of us have to undertake. This long untiring unending relentless journey on iron wheels, hooting, halting, changing lanes, always running. I bid goodbyes to those who have arrived. As I hurtle towards my own destination, I take a quick look at those who i travel with. When my time comes, I hope I have earned a decent farewell. I hope I have some to wave me a warm goodbye.