Roadwards

Leaving behind the track of memories

And dry leaves blowing in the dusty road,

I step out

Head out,

Roadwards.

Penniless,

Bagless,

And soul-less.

The sweltering heat -

A sun as white as snow -

My eyes reddened

By the dust on the road;

My face, a mask of grime.

The road stretches forever.

Cutting across

Plains and palms,

Deserts and farms,

Railroads and dams,

Pains and balms,

Bhajans and psalms.

The road cuts through

Right and left,

Right and wrong,

Heaven and Earth.

The road is attempted immortality.

It never ends.

Its median lines

Never wavers.

The road is redemption.

The road was dug up

And leveled out

By eyes searching

Beyond the horizon.

And eyes, with regret,

Wanting not to look behind.

My eyes are burning

With the sweat

And heat

And a million colloidal dust particles

Peppering it

With the predictable unpredictability

Of Brownian motion.

No, they are not tears

Of sadness,

Weariness,

And worries.

No tears, no regrets

Anymore.

The cinematic silence is shuddered into the reality of dust, heat and acrid kerosene smoke as a 12-tonne truck pulls over; its brakes creaking in unison as it descends from Heaven or Hell or wherever on Earth it comes from. Its chrome grille gleams in the midday sun. Its orange face is as bright as fire.

The driver's name is Charon. He is blind. Not that it matters. The windscreen is caked with an inch of dust. All that matters is that, for a few shared cigarettes, he can drive you across to Oblivion.

Everyone makes that mistake.

Pinning spots down on maps

(Like insects to be dissected and have to be pinned down 'cause they may run away from scapels and spatulas and inquisitive human fingers.)

And pinning camp tents

And picnic baskets there

When you reach.

Jolly good holiday.

Without feeling

The dust in your eyes,

Grime on your face

And the taste of exhaust fumes

Of the thousand cars

Which never stopped.

The road is the destination.

The road is where it ends

And where it begins.

Like life itself.

There is nothing outside the road

Or beyond it.

A few threadbare memories

And dry leaves scattered by the dusty wind.

Yellow Sunshine, Blue Filigree

The sunshine on his neck was like the warmth of her breath. The sun played among the entangled locks of her hair - all gold and bronze and lustrous black,

He took her hand in his.

Tender. Fragile. A lotus stalk.

And ran his fingers over the back of her hand, tracing the pale blue filigree of veins that showed through the paleness of her skin.

Her eyes. Always half-dreamy. Lost somewhere in the dense foliage within herself. She wasn't smiling. Not surprized. Just dreamily waiting for each moment to drag itself into the past.

If only I could look into your past, he whispered. if your palm can hold hidden all the secrets of your future, it seems just logical that I could read your past here. Flowing timelessly through these blue rivers of your memories.

And the present? Her voice distant and dreamy.

The present? That's what we make every moment we live. That fragile line between two certainties. The fingertips of time. The touch of your hand. What we create that spills over the moment next to add to our past. Teardrops and icy glaciers which feed our rivers of memory.

Silent half-parted lips.

Half-dreamy eyes tracing the contours of some cloud.

A blue filigree.

And the warmth of sunshine on his neck.

As Buddha smiles, so do I...

It was definitely the blueness that called me out. Placid. Tranquil. That self-content smile of Buddha played all over the surface. And in all its serenity, the water seemed thicker than it possibly could be.

As I stepped out of the window - the wood smelt of grandma's tales - the air was so crisp, the grass cracked under the weight of my shoes. They gave in willingly, dreamily; caught inebriated in the surrealism of that winter morning. The warmth was a surprize. The sun was out and the sunshine held you warmly yet loosely. Like a lover who had known you all you life; its fingers gently exploring every edge and curve in your body. And the snow fell so lightly, it melted off your skin, leaving behind moist lips where it kissed.

The water still beckoned. In its blueness. Its softness was there for all to see. The grass, despite the morning dew and the uncertain snow, was still too sharp. So were the craggy hills behind it. In the watercoloured sky, the clouds were too sharp-edged - their edges too white in the morning shine. And the wind had a bite of coldness that pushed needles till my bones. The water, by obvious contrast, looked too soft.

Marshmallows. Cherry blossoms. A leaf dropt somewhere. Floating handkerchief. Down feather. Dandelion head. Steam rising from a warm cup of tea. Too sweet.

I was neck-deep in water now. Again, the warmth surprizes me. And the ripples i leave on my wake don't move too far, nor too fast. They seem too lazy to fight the thickness. Too pacified by Buddha's unknowing smile. I walk forward. Even deeper.

The Buddha is everywhere. His presence, everything.

I do not choke as i reach underwater. The water for all its swaddling thickness, has by now wafted to ether. I can still feel its thickness around me, and its touch. It feels like I am walking in a thick breeze that hugs me, wraps its soft arms around me. I see clearly. Too clearly to be underwater. And then I pause.

I can definitely feel it happening. That irrational heart-scoffing fear when you lose something you prize the most. Feel myself losing out. Not that it was material. Not that I ever valued them when they existed. Not that I never wished them to be torn away. But the loss... The contradiction dawns. They were all I had gathered all through my life. They were my unsigned bank cheques, my unnamed appartment, my framed sepia photographs. They were my promise for the future.

As I stood at the bottom of the lake of tears, I felt it all getting thicker, all around me. The wrapped arms hugging tighter. And I felt my memories, my hopes, my dreams turning into ether. Warm. Mellow. Soft. My vision's now clearer than ever. I could see each wrinkle, scar, bemused smile, buried sorrow, as my memories float around me. Away from me. I can see each molecule. The electron cloud. I feel I am being one with them.

As the lake opened its eyes to the watercoloured sky, on it played the Buddha's self-contented smile.

The Lassitude and Longi(ng)tude of Loneliness

On retrospection, he felt certain he must have left his mind behind. The take-away counter, most probably, he thought to himself.

But, he didn't realize it then.

When he stood there, in the busy bazaar -

Shoulders bustling for space

A stream of rickshaws blaring air horns

The bickering of women and vendors

And catcalls of a few who leaned by the stalls scanning the crowd

The occasional whistle of the policeman

The ringing bells of cycles snaking their way through the crowd

The unmistakable market scent

Of incense, jaggery, sweat, salt,

Rotten cabbages, fresh fish and soiled paper -

This heady concoction of sensory perceptions we so distanced and muted, he felt he might have been overhearing someone else's thoughts. Again he didn't realize it then, 'cause his mind was elsewhere.

Resting on the clean grazed stainless steel and glass take-away counter, shuddering to the unusual chill, his mind was dreaming. And creating those exquisitely intricate dreamscapes it so often indulged in.

Her warm kiss of sunlight on his neck.

Her gentle breeze running frail fingers through his hair.

Her lazy sleepy waves whispering music to his ears.

Her scent was a valley of flowers and rain and sunshine.

Her hair, waves of an ocean in night.

As he stood in the marketplace, the summer sun turning the world a monotony of white, he was searching for secrets and truth, for reason and meaning, as he looked into the endless depths of her eyes. In those few moments of lazy transcendency, of silent mournful longing, he was the loneliest person on the planet.

Yet, he remembered vividly that he was with her the whole while.

Leftovers and Left-Behinds. Surviving a Revolution.

The table was rickety as it was, being put together from discarded bottle crates with boards nailed on top. A very certain tremor quivered over its surface when he banged his fists and pushed his chair back. The knife clanged on the ceramic plate, in tune with the distant church bells that centuries ago used to warn the villagers when the malevolent Putana prepared to spew smoke and flame and brimstone; that ominous note of dark skies, grey ash and blood red earth. A few crumbs of bread floated off and rested peacably on the table.

Peace.

The tip of the cigarette burnt bright red as he pulled in a drag.

The ash broke off and floated off with the dry desiccating breeze.

His eyes were fixed on the horizon.

She looked elsewhere, searching for an answer. Searching for a reason despite all the illogicalness that shrouded the age. Her nose twitched at the familiar tinge of cigarette smoke carried over by the wind.

Peace.

She sat at the table, brushing that lock of hair off her face. Her fingers ran through her scalp, entangled themselves in that forest of melancholy.

He was inside. Could hear the cupboards being slammed shut. Rustle of papers shoved down into a bag. The sharp click of the lighter as another cigarette was lit. The faint memory of smoke trails out of the shack again.

She did not feel sad. Just a sense of time catching up. An intense feeling of tiredness; like when you sit down halfway through a marathon you did not have the lung to finish. A knowing recognition that they could not outrun time, especially when one of them was perennially straining back and looking over his shoulder.

Peace.

And the the tale of silent evasion.

Of hiding away from time.

Trying to find

An island of recluse

From fire, and hell,

And brimstone

And the vicious anger,

Hatred, greed,

And that indefatigably alluring

Hold of ideology

And idealism.

The dream of peace.

She remembered. The tantalizingly melodious sound of the stream. Carving secrets on the pebbles and whispering them to the trees. She remembered his fingers tracing lines on the water; the same way they would draw lines down her back. And her neck.

That distant summer afternoon, long before the paradox of peace confronted them with its brutal banality, she remembered him writing their dreams in the water. She remembered how their dreams seemed to take tangible shape in the dexterousness of his fingers. And how they were washed away. Caught in that flux of time.

When he stepped out of the house, he was the very college boy she had fallen in love with in University.

His eyes were evasive;

Shy.

His face half-turned.

The unkempt hair.

That forest of melancholy.

And the overgrown stubble.

He slung his bag high

Over his shoulders.

Closed his eyes

Not to meet hers.

His footsteps downhill

An ill-tuned verse.

A fly with blue wings

And the leftovers.

When she left out her cry of anguish, he was too far to hear. Too far to turn back. Too far to meet her eyes, hold her waist and kiss her neck. Her voice was a strained violin note trying to drown the silence that engulfed her in that forested melancholy.

Allegropolis. Episode Three. The Bridge over Lethe.

The bridge stretched forever, a thread of light held taut between civilization and the blind horizon. The rain was beating down on my hat; streams of water cascading off its rim. Through the curtain of water, I saw the blackness of Lethe pummeled white by the torrential downpour.

Allegropolis, where everyone smiled. Flanked on either side by the endless blackness of Lethe. And Lethe, that seemed to stretch till forever. Lethe, so wide that its banks disappeared beyond the horizon. The raindrops added to its width, and depth.

The water cycle. Evaporation. Precipitation. Evaporation. As I stood by the siderails, water running down my chin, the black oblivion seemed to be soft velvet. Somewhere i could sink in. Where the blackness would wrap me up. Hold me swaddled (or shrouded) in its womb.

Lethe was so full of thoughts, reflections, remembrances, recollections. So saturated, the words and letters got so muddled up, they no longer made sense. The raindrops were words too. Words cast out of mind. Words on exile. For in Allegropolis, all should smile.

The lights of Lethe were upon me. A psychedelic concoction of joyousness. As I looked back through the mirror, I saw that gilden thread of light fading into the white sheet of rain, somewhere in the middle of Lethe.

For the Leprechaun's Remembrance

All events and incidents in this blog post are non-fictional. The characters in this post are based on a non-fictional insect termed Pyropyga Nigricans and a not-so-fictional Irish folklorish fairy.

Every night my lights go off post-three in the morning. All is quiet and silent. Except the steady wheezing of my fan, as it kept dizzily spinning, spinning daisies on my ceiling. And the calender leaves rustling in the wheeze. I can hear the rainy wetness outside. But thats just part of the silence.

As a rule i hate LEDs in the dark. Part of my obsessive compulsiveness. They seem too bright. And they catch my eyes and refuse to let go. Too bright i tell you. But i have gotten used to the LED indicator of my UPS, blinking steadily to show its charging up for tomorrow. In a way its kinda reassuring, and i never am sure in what way.

And then the last few days, i noticed something else. After i turned off the lights, i could see a yellow-green light blinking timidly on the floor. Searching and yearning. Yet. too tired to fly and float up towards the yellow-green LED on the table. Too scared to be disheartened and disillusioned. The firefly would always be there, under my chair right next to the computer table. And every night i ll switch on the light, get outta my covers to check on it, to hold its warmthless light within my hands. To share its longing and find its belonging. But once, the light came on, the magic disappeared. Evanescence of light, and that wickedly humourous sense of euphoria that only pure magic can create. The firefly turned into the soft-bodied leathery beetle that Wikipedia says it is.

The Leprechaun had left that speck of gold when he crept into my room at night. The rain was lashing outside and he wanted to be remembered.

Remebrances of a conversation that floated away with the wind

I remember the stone steps that led up the cliff.

I remember the drone of the sea.

I remember the sun drowning itself and spilling its vermilion blood all over the sea.

I remember the sky trying to be too many colours and moods at once.

I remember the grey-pink waves turning into white froth as they crashed head-first onto the rocks below.

I remember the wind carrying whispered secrets from the waves to the hills.

I remember the wisps of smoke trailing from my lit cigarette.

I remember the wind eating up the smoke, and blowing her hair onto her face.

Her hair... I remember the sun turning her black strands of hair gold by magic alchemy.

I remember how her delicate fingers tucked her locks behind her ears.

I remember that her ears looked transparently pink, and reminded me of a conch in cross-section.

I remember how the sun glistened on her lips as each word floated gently with the wind.

I remember that the wind took the words away from me.

Words strewn in the wind.

I was too engrossed watching as the words dissected themselves.

I saw the syllables float off alone, the lone letter suspended in animation, twirling and soaring up and beyond.

I remember smiling.

The voice of disinterest.

Mundane talk.

Talking because the silence is too unnerving.

Because we think the silence is unknowing.

Scattering words, hoping it will fill the couple of metres of space between us.

Nevertheless, it was silent; except for the drone of the sea, as the waves whispered secrets to the hills.

Gundrop silence.

The wooden stock was gleaned smooth. Smoothened out by the many sweaty arms against which it had leaned while its sight zoned in on its target. It was worn out. But AK's never get too worn out. The wooden stock. The cold steel muzzle. Its weight so delicately balanced by the bulk of the magazine. It felt right.

He could feel blood surging up his temples. Hear it foot-tap to the rhythm of his heart. And he remembered her face. Her delicately arched eyebrows. And her eyes which held that ocean of truth.

He could hear them come. The footsteps crunching in the gravel. The courtyard. The sun blared in through the window with a vicious violence. Sharp shadows. Sharper footfalls. He held the rifle. The magazine clicked into place. It felt right.

He could hear his deep breaths. Feel his chest heaving. And yet so silent. The gravel crunching in the courtyard. And he remembered her face. Her peach skin so soft beneath his fingers. Her cheeks turning cherry pink with his touch.

He clicked off the safety. Leaned out of the window. Arms resting on the rough grainy windowsill. The weight of the gun. The sunlight streaking, turning his eyebrows gold as he trained his eyes down the sight. Pulled trigger. TISSHHK. A puff of smoke. And a body fell limb in the courtyard. Pulled back the safety. Eyes trained again. It felt right.

Sweat trickling down his brow. Legs cramped. He sees the flare as a gunshot is fired. A volley of bullets. The windowsill splinters. The windowpane bursts into sharp bits of sunshine.

Her face... Her lips curled into that half-amused smile.

No more heartbeats. No deep breaths. No sweat down his brow.

Gundrop silence.

Feeling my way through clouds

I am apprehensive. Scared of taking the next step. Scared of even moving. Not because i can't see. Not 'cause of what lies ahead of me. Rather 'cause of all i had left behind. They stare behind my back. Stare right to that dark uneasy corner of my mind that we all call the conscience. I wish it was like an appendix... disposable.

The sunshine is dampended. Soaked and suffocated. Apprehensive.

The thoughts pop up once in a while. They silently whisper. So low that only i can hear. More memories. Contemplations of memories. Wonder why i let things go. Wonder why they seem so far. Another life apart. Did i live through them? Or am i just watching a dull video taken in grainy grayscale?

Fragmented moments in time. Faded photographs. Pictures stained an antique sepia from all the coffee spilt on them. Coffee that kept me awake through all the nights when all i wanted to do was close my eyes and sleep. Tell the rest of the world to go to hell and be damned. I staeyed awake then. Groping my way down the stairway railings.

That ephemeral illusion of love. Muted converations between friends. The uneasy silence which creeps in and shouts so hard, your ears go numb.

There are clouds at my feet. Clouds all around me. I am afraid to turn back and look. I might make phantoms appear from the clouds, when there are none.

I am not guilty. I do not regret. Apprehension.

I might dissolve and disappear someday like a wisp of smoke from a dying candle.

I ask for forgiveness. The supernova has to happen.

Shite... It aint coming out right....

Nooooo... I aint constipated if thats what you think. But gauging by the verbal diarrhea on display all over my page, i guess constipated won't be too bad a term. Anyway this post is not about constipation, or laxatives or about shite. (aaah... does come somewhere nearby tho!!) This post is a dedication to someone who is a self-confessed eater of cow-shit. Not too uncommon 'cause some people feel cows do serve a higher purpose than provide divinely ordained beef. Lets not be so controversial now. Peace. And happiness. And a pinch of madness. Thats what the world needs at the moment. And lemme give it some by introducing y'all to my demented little twin. Aaah!! Y'all know her. And if you don't, well read on. You might find out a bit about her.
So my demented little twin. Call her my psycho-twin for no small reason. ' Cause she is a lot that i am, and a lot that i aint. But psychological twins we are all the same.
She is the Festival Express, that runs on, tearing apart the rails, music streaming out through the windows, and leaving parties in her wake.
She is Slycho, aka the Conniving C***, 'cause a conniver she certainly can be; for the best of reasons and the brightest of seasons.
She is the Sandal Slayer, 'cause she is jealous of my awesome slip-ons and moreover she has a general aversion towards footwear (and hygiene too... yeah, she eats cow-shit, in case you have forgotten. and no, she doesn't floss or brush. hahaha!!).
She is the Iron Maiden 'cause she does make metallic music when her mood turns sour (or she just has to try singing). And she can be quite irony before she does open up. Kinda ironic. Yeah, thats why the name goes. And yeah of course, she truly was the Iron Maiden when her life did take a disastrous turn. You are forbidden to say you respect your twin, so lemme not break that solemn oath.
She is of course Pagol Godha, and i guess that doesn't need much of an explanation. You just have to watch her for like 10 minutes. Won't disappoint you. And hell, she thinks she is well-mannered like a Queen. The Queen of England, y'know. The old lady who still looks young in those stamps!!
Yeah, And of course, she is Tabs. 'Cause i believe she was born in Mozilla's lab or some shite... Anyway fact is, she has to be connected to the net for at least 8 hours each day. Thats where she downloads corny music and muchy movies to her brain. And plays them over in repeat. Yeah yeah... she might act all grim and irony, but she is all mushy as a marshmallow inside... No, a snot-soaked handkerchief would serve as a better metaphor. And ohh!! the other story about her birth is that she was an alien and her mothership crashed near Mt. Everest. Yeah, sad story...
And to me, she is Shaddaps!! 'Cause thats what we tell each other most. And yeah... now i cant take this any more.
Winding up. But you're still the best.
And btw now you owe me 16722+999=Rs.17721... only...