Deadlines and Midnights

It's midnight. Or rather midnight has passed on and the first phase of the day has already started. Its is rather funny to say day when the view outside consists of darkness and more darkness punctuated by pinpoints of flickering light; the last bastions of humanity in a world going slowly but surely insane. This is reminiscent of a scene from Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand where Galt stops the motor of the world and all that lights go out except for one constant flame that is Wyatt's torch waving in the distance. There is a curious mix of anticipation and dread that courses through me at this point in time. I have never stayed awake this late. It feels strange and not a little bit exciting; a bit like sneaking out of hostel to take a walk to Cave rock just so that you can slip past the watchman. Except here there is no one to outwit and no one to cock a snook at. That does make the entire exercise a little disappointing. Funny how the mind seems to insist on reasoning out the consequences of such adventures. I have class tomorrow...So what? It isn't as if I will be doing much there anyway. The year has come to an end and which self respecting student will want to study when you know holidays are just around the corner. I am a self respecting student and no, I don't want to go to college tomorrow i.e. today.
I also detest having to stick to deadlines as a friend of mine would cheerfully attest to. I wonder what my journalist pal has to say about this. Maybe he hates deadlines too...Who knows! Deadlines are the punctuations that liberally checker my student career and have always spelt doom for me.I have either lost my drafts or placed them somewhere so carefully that i have forgotten where exactly i kept them in the first place. Or else I just take the easy way out and not to do it at all.

Sunset-1

Another day, another sun-
-settting

Oil spilt diamonds
refracting rainbow slicks
across shallow shoals
of patchy cloud

Sisters and their wives...

My sister is a strange creature. She alternates between calling me "tublet" and pulling my cheeks to actually getting pissy when I can't spend enough time with her. (The latter I don't quite blame her for since it has been a while). She gets highly buzzed on a single sip of coffee while I invariably end up snoozing after a nice, tall, steaming cup of my Mom's filter nectar. She giggles when she uses what she calls "big" words like 'nuanced' and then goes on to critique the cut, colour and fabric of a particularly nice jacket I want to acquire in terms that even the most hardened fashion critic would be hard pressed to follow. She drives like a seasoned F1 driver when drunk and manages to keep falling off stairs when sober. Once she pulled me down with her on of these sober sojourns up her stairs and we both ended up in a tumbled heap on the floor below laughing our collective behinds off at her mom's amusedly shocked expression. She and my mother talk about my sex life when my mom doesn't even ask ME about it (imagine that!) and she has a decidedly uncanny knack of knowing when the men in my life are utter idiots.  She also has the ability to make me lose all sense of perspective which has resulted in life changing experiences such as contemplating strawberry tart and upending a half bottle of a really beautiful full bodied Chianti into pasta sauce. (The recipe said one or two tablespoons, I said, "what the hell...")

She has a wife, who calls her Wifelet.. (now I know where she gets the tublet idea from!!!) who is as different from her as she can be. My sisters wife (also my best friend by the way) doesn't wear any other colour other than indigo, shades of black, duller shades of brown and white and carries around a gorgeous deep purple hued leather bag that her wife gifted her. She survives on tea and her 2 kg (brand new!!) weights and an everpresent book ( a trait I share with her). She also has the most beautiful sense of aesthetics when it comes to poetry and a most acerbic tongue which completely disappears when she's with us, and makes quite a seminal appearance in public interaction. She and I discuss Lacan and his definitely misplaced sense of jouissance while my sister bops to Susheela Raman while cutting my hair. (My sister has a great affinity for cutting people's hair.. She's quite good at it too.. Look at me:))

Together they are the most dissonantly perfect people I have ever met, together or separately. And they make life worth living. I love them dearly even when they threaten to dump their children on me so that I can raise them with some 'discipline' *Muttersgrumblessnarls: "Discipline my ass!!muttermuttermutter* To my sister and her wife... what strange beautiful people. 

Love

life
go cage others
do not bother me

death
i’ll follow you
till eternity

An old man
at gloaming
face turned towards
the dimming sun

unabashedly weeps
-pain twisted wrinkles
play hide and seek
in rayed shadows-

speaking of love,
loss
death.

Dangling conversations...

I haven't written a prose piece in a very long time. It seems strange to be writing in full sentences instead of the truncated verse line that I prefer. But there's a completeness to the form that poetry cannot have. To live and breathe and be re-born again, poetry must be open, flowing like the desert winds that unexpectedly bring the ocean to your lips. A touch of salt moisture and its gone- dust in your eyes and flies in your mouth. Prose is simple, straight. Some would say blunt but I'm not quite sure.

For the past month I have been working with poetry in endless iterations.First it was incomprehensible Sindhi, then slightly (a word or two) more comprehensible, intelligible Hindi, followed by (to me) completely unintelligible English and it just goes on. I thought the English would be easy. Its the language I think,write and speak in. Hell i even dream in it. But that turned out to be the most difficult language of all. The translations were messy, incomplete, lacking any semblance of rhythm and read like a 2 year old putting together a sentence for the first time.

I was appalled. I thought I had completely lost touch with my writing but then I discovered something fascinating.I discovered that, I was thinking and writing far more comfortably in Hindi than in English. Which is nothing short of a miracle considering the fact that my grammar was equivalent to a firang's interpretation of Hindi all through school to 2 years of Hindi during my BA, and that all I was taught during said 2 years was how to write "tippaniyan" or notes. Not just any notes mind you, but notes in strict adherence to governmental standards of Hindi note making. I have nightmares still about that book and those lists of Hindi words for banking terms, aforementioned, above, aforesaid and nautical terms. (Nautical terms!!! Why on earth... ?) That aside, it got me thinking as to how much we take our language skills for granted. Leaving them rusting in some forgotten doorways of our mind, not even bothering to check for rats, mice and other sundry forms of life that tend to chew great big holes in our memories. And I also realised that if not for this particular assignment, I would never have bothered to check these alleyways out and never to discover how much one had actually learnt all those seemingly futile lessons ago.

That being said, the conversation with Bhitai is still happening. It doesn't seem like it's going to end anytime soon.. So thanks Latif for our very own dangling conversation...

Reminders

He wasn't you.

No.
Definitely not.

Flashes though,
a turn of phrase,
an expression,
that half admiring half quizzical
not quite sure glance.

He wasn't you.

No. Absolutely not.

Burn

Watch the fire
burn through the rain
turn to smoke
concentrate
pool and dip
cover my ankles
swathe me in wool
Block the flames
I burn.

Leave Taking

There is
Nothing left to say
Do, die for.

Tears have been
Shed, dried, and stored
For future use.

The commiseration,
Smiles not quite sure
Of where they belong
Hanging fire, and then some.

Its all done.
Over with

Whats left is
Curiously inconspicuously
Lurking
Alleycat that doesn’t yet
Want to come and play
Catch.

Homecoming

Home
I am home again,
Rainwashed, purpled
Strung jewelled squirts
Whitepinkfuschiaorangerustturmeric
And green- the emerald vividness of
Bevelled facets, the moss of velvet teasingly spread
Spikes and fronds and umbrellas and curtains
Pot paths disappearing into pools of cloudsky
And thousand hands, tugging me in
Home.

Jogi

There's something in his eyes,
A wandering, a path not taken
Looked upon, pondered.

The moment is now.
Will he?

There's a waiting on his lips,
"Piya..."

I strain to hear the faint...

Wind whispers
tanpura whirls away.
Desert settle
The little sandwhirl

Never had a chance.

Poetry

Its been waiting
shadow puppet strings,
its been waiting a long time
Eon flexing space,
gathering stardust
Oldest to young,

till space is no more a time,
no more a past,


only perfective..

written.

Tell me something my love,
Did you see the dew today?

lasted all morning in the leaves
of the bottle brush,

Nah, thought you wouldn't have.
You don't look
at all.

Did you see me smile at the dog,
the one outside your window,
white with splotched eyes
rabid, diseased?

no you wouldn't have.
You don't seem mad.
not one bit.

Today

The sun rose today,
and it set.

The wind whispered today
of rain and warmth, your warmth
and it died on me.

The sand shifted today,
slip tide rise of sorrow
and it sucked the world in.

Courage came calling
succour saviour sleep time muse,


It hasn't left
yet.

Breaking

The darkness creeps in
mist-silent, light-sharp.

Doors groan under its
unrelenting weight
bar bent iron
drumming slow tattoos of sorrow.

The jungle rushes in
Crushed velvet swathes
glinting in the black-bluing heaviness
Silent tide
rip
tide

over.

Dawn

It stops suddenly. All around you activity ceases. No sound of breathing, no whirr of some neighbour's creaky table fan. No recalcitrant child throwing tantrums outside your window. Even the computer has decided to show mercy on you and not gasp and moan as it prints out your documents for tomorrow's assignment.

The music swells slowly, sweetly. In your head at first, then gathering courage and painting sun patterns on the wall. Poorvikalyani soaring out to greet the dawn, shaking the sun out of its slumber. Stopping my heart with its haunting memories.

In gold and crimson tones the sun strides into my room and stops for those infinite minutes to listen. Just..listen.

The notes fade out as the raaagam decides to move on to someone else. Leaving me alone in a vacuum. Filled suddenly by the resumption of the whirr of the cranky fan, the screams of a colicky child and a groaning world embarking on an another day-chivvying me along.

Rain in a desert

I talked to him today. A random call; out of the blue. Very unexpected like a shower in the middle of the desert. Refreshing too, to be honest with someone. Is it easier being honest with someone you don't know all that well? I think I know him a bit better now. He's fascinating, strong, and reserved.

He keeps a lot bottled up. That is not a good thing. It can't be for someone who is so passionate about his life. Or maybe i'm just being presumptuous. I hope not. It's not nice to be presumptuous. It means one is impinging on someone else's integrity. THAT is not a nice thing to do.

I think integrity means a lot to him. It structures his life. I am not so sure about that myself. Yes I have to be true to who I am and what I do, but who am I and what am I supposed to do? if those questions remain fundamentally unanswerable where does integrity step in? Strange logic if I may say so myself.

He needs to be held. Close and compassionately. He feels compassion is a sign of weakness. I cannot think so. It means being vulnerable yes, but, it also means a certain strength of mind and heart that allow one to give unconditionally. Don't fight it when someone gives you the space in which to break down and cry. It gives you strength.

Don't fight the sharing someone offers you. It clears your mind, takes the weight off your chest. Don't be afraid to feel. It IS hard but it's worth it in the end. You atually see the world in technicolour..I can vouch for that. And to behold colour in this world is marvellous, a gift. Don't deny that gift. It comes with love.

Loving is not easy for you and me. It takes courage and the humility to take great pain and grief. But it's a kaleidoscope for us when we love and THAT makes all the difference in the world. No I will not be a single parent because of you. Because I have seen others like you, and I will not allow my children to suffer. Because I want to reach out and heal you.

Wounded man, at a cross road in life. Succour awaits.

The "Knot"ty Question of Marriage.

My mother was here, talking about marriage. For the first time in a long time, she seemed very insistent that I really think about marriage and getting married. It started me thinking( not something I have done for a long long time.)

What does it mean to get married? In a world of feviquik solutions, where divorce and estrangement are pretty much the norm, what has marriage come to mean? Who will I choose to spend the rest of my life with? and...why would I want to do something like that?

Is it to have children? To experience motherhood in all its glory and its frustrations? Is it to share a life with some one you trust? Is it because one is afraid of growing old alone, or growing apart from your partner? Is it because one wants a lifetime supply of free sex(no guarantee it's going to be good anyway)?

I can have children without getting married? Adopting a child is not such an issue anymore. Plus I don't think I would mind being a single mother! harrying yes, but still...I trust my parents and I have a lot of good friends who understand me and love me for who I am. Why then do I need to get married? I will not grow old alone because I know for a fact ( given the examples of my predecessors) that I will never lack for companionship. I like people too much. In anycase it is far more agreeable to me to have lots of people in my life rather than having to centre it around just one person.
Free sex? Yup can do. Not a problem.

Then why marriage? I have never been one to follow social convention blindly and I will not do so only to create havoc in my life.

I suppose I have too many expectations.

I can live with that.

Star

To touch a falling star, shrieking havoc
As it plunges through a fragile atmosphere
-keening, blazing, incandescently running amok,
Until, rending protesting oxygen, it falls clear-
Is suicide. Madness! Creates one helluva shock
It screams up your arm, your brain, fear
Fully yelling,"Duck you idiot! Duck!"

You dont, of course. It would be sheer
Stupidity on my part to think of you as wise
Woman you never care to look out
for yourself. It's become a game
Charades. Russian roulette cannot exercise
As much attraction as this, there's no doubt.
It's become your one way ticket to fame.

Blank

Where does it all end? The pain, the sorrow, the bleak notion of tomorrow...where does it all end?

What causes it all to explode finally, in a rainbow of flesh and gristle, raining down on blind men who can only smell the fear but not see it reflected in those blank eyes? What gives this rabid fear birth in an expulsion of life-breath? What causes it all?

Where does it gain momentum? In the heart, in the scurrying mind or in the jumpy nerve endings behind the knees and eyes that cause the body to spin and fall in nervous anxiety?
Where does it come alive?

Mnemosyne

"Aasai mugham maranda poche idhai
Yaaridam sholvenadi thozhi"

I cannot remember your face. I cannot remember your face! It's...lost, blurred, undefined now.After all these years of carrying you with me-my very own taveez-you've relinquished your hold on me. Your death grip has loosened and I can breathe again.

But I cannot remember your face anymore. Your laughter haunts my ears, resounding waves in a conch, the soft sussurations of foam on the sand, but your face eludes me. Your silences are a part of my breath, structuring its beat, controlling my life but your face...is gone.

Your touch remains embossed on my skin, against my shoulder, a finger caressed in passing; that fire has not died down yet. Your face, though, is now submerged under a tide of forgetfulness, sweeping shores clean of broken shells luminescent in the dawn light-heartlight.

Love's driftwood, becomes stone in the end.