MASTER CARD

You gotta stand up straight
Carry your own weight
Those tears are going nowhere
You got to
Get yourself together
You got stuck in a moment
And now you can’t get out of it
Don’t say that
Later will be better
Now you are stuck in a moment
And you can’t
Get out of it

U2

For the lack of better names, in my vocabulary at least; let’s call it a ‘jingler’. And the jingler was a kid’s toy made of plastic, pink in colour, shaped like a micro version of a cricket bat. The inside of it was hollow, with a lot of small, circular steel plates arranged in stacks so that whenever you shook it, it made a sound that may perhaps be better described a rattle, but I like to stick to jingle, since it was much sweeter than what you associate with a rattle. And so, jingler.

I must have been about ten then. My uncle had bought a plot nearby my house, and we had some tapioca planted there, and I was given the tedious job of drawing water from a nearby well and watering them. I dint bother about it much then, of course the ever lazy me was working on an alternate basis; half the plants today, other half next day. Still, in two days I used to do as much exercise as I have done in last 3 months.

My sister, molu was about 7. And apart from an assortment of dolls, the jingler was one of her toys. I don’t exactly remember which uncle gave her the jingler. She was not very interested in it at first, and it lay in some corner; forgotten and gathering dust. Then one day I found it, due to its resemblance to the cricket bat more than anything else, and I started using it to play my imaginary boundaries and sixes and my imitations of sachin. And each time I played a cover drive or pull shot in the air, there was that sound, much to my annoyance. But that must have been what caught her attention. There is a thing about little sisters - they may be least interested in something, but as soon as you pick it up and they see it in your hands, it becomes the only thing in the world they want. And of course, as all elder brothers are always fated to. I had to give it to her. I didn’t make as much fuss about it as I usually would have done; it was too small for me anyway.

From then on it became a part of her, to say the least. The doll ammu/divya/maya (same doll, but I remember the names used to change on an hourly basis and these three were the usual. After all, dolls don’t grow up, and so every day they have to be reborn as someone different. And of course, with different make ups.) was already a part of her, cuddled in her right hand wherever she went. And with the jingler, which had a convenient cricket bat handle for her little fingers to grip on, she found something finally to hold on to her left. It was always nice to watch her if she had to use her hands for something else - she would place her doll and the jingler somewhere safe with as much care as my mom would have took while putting her in the cradle. I call it a jingler, but she never was interested in making any sounds with it at all. But it was always, always there, tightly held in her little left hand.

And then, this one day when I was going to the tapioca plot, she scooted along. While I watered the plants, she played in her own world, talking to herself and showing whatever she found amusing in the world around her to ammu (?). But after sometime, she started watching me closely. She came by the well and seemed quite interested with how was I drawing water. That was when I, who has always been obsessed with impressing people, had this brain wave.

“Let me show you something”

A curious questioning look.

“I will put this thing in the well and get it back for you”

I threw a leaf into the well and then with the bucket got it back. Her beaming smile encouraged me, and the leaf was soon followed by a plastic ball I had brought, some things that were scattered around the place like coconut husk, paper bits and so on. With each item, my confidence grew and her curiosity level decreased. That was when I decided to go be a bit more daring.

“Let’s give ammu a bath in the well”

She seemed doubtful, but I stripped the doll, threw it into the water and got it back.

Next my eyes were on the jingler.

She was a bit more doubtful.

And her brother, still not fully informed of the practical aspects of principals of buoyancy, threw it confidently into the well. .

And it sank.
Slowly, after bobbing up and down for once or twice,
It S-A-N-K.

“Athenthina angottitte?”
(Why did you put it there?)

Inside a ten year old’s rib cage;
Something else sank as well.
And sinks to this day, every time I remember the jingler.
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I may be filthy rich one day.
I could buy her Gucci or Vuitton or Prada.

But until I can bring back that little pink toy from the depths of a well that no longer exists , there will always a debt left unpaid.

SWEETER THAN A DREAM

Once,
An early morning dream
A sweet, delightful one,
Became cross with me...
He woke me up,
In the middle of a dream
Hoping,
I would miss him
And close my eyes
And beg him to complete
And so he left me
In the middle of somewhere beautiful
And kept on watching
Eager to see my plight

But to his dismay,
He was defeated, surprised..
As he saw me happier
Than he could ever make me
More content
Than he had ever seen me

And when he looked why
That was when he saw
You in my arms
In my embrace

Green with envy
He realized
That I had woken up
Only to feel you within my arms
And for me, having you by my side
Having your head on my chest
Was more precious
More delightful
Than anything he had become
To anyone…

SOUNDS OF SILENCE

SILENCE


Roaring

Screaming

Ripping

Weeping

Groaning

Moaning

Thumping


SILENCE

WAKE ME UP

The weakness inside me
Makes me flee
From anyone I love
And when I do that
I am left with no choice

I am bound to waste my love
On people I am supposed to hate
Would I go to heaven for that?

Wake me up, my love
From my indifferent slumber
I had rather burn to death in love
Than die a boring death in my sleep.

BE WITH ME

I want your shadow
Beside mine
When I walk the sands
This orange sunset

I want you to live
In my dreams and my hopes
Sharing the truths and the lies
The light and the dark

I want you to be
My tune and my rhyme
My tenor and timbre
When my voice crack
Singing the songs of my life

And when I die
And end up in some corner of the sky
I will wait
For you to be
Beside me
And as always,
Outshine me.

morning sickness

I hate it when I wake up wide awake in some early mornings.
Because they bring with them a fear, sadness, that I dread the most........................................
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Some days I wake up early,
Suddenly
Without the shrieks of the alarm
Unasked for
At 4.
And the silence
Makes me remember
All that I have lost.
All that never can I regain.
Everything
That I missed out on.

The floodgates open
Those doors of my mind
that I have closed
and sealed
and plastered
as much as I can
are pushed wide apart.

It reminds me
all that I wanted to be
and never could be
or has been yet.

It fills me with a certainty
That the worst
Is still waiting
To hitchhike on your life.

There is a queer feeling in the chest.
I sweat.
I weep.
I bang my fist into the pillow.
I kneel,
And I pray,
O god please let me fall back asleep.

DRENCHED MUSINGS

The night rain is hiding
Behind a dark veil
But I can
Hear the dancing feet
Smell the fragrance
Of fulfilled love
Feel the cold kisses
Across a blanket of sweat
And see the colourless collages
Made on the window pane.

* * * * * * * *

When it rains
In the narrow spaces between the walls
Through the fume filled suffocation
Of the city streets
Among myriads of men and women
When the rain squeezes through
Between my outstretched fingers
Between the dense leaves of the tree in the courtyard
I can’t help wondering
What if
The rain was claustrophobic?
* * * * * * * *

I love the rain
When his tempo wanes
When his fury has begun to recede
When I can hear
His deep laboured breaths
His gasps of exhaustion
After having made frantic love
With his mate, lady earth
After having sown his seeds
In her sacred, infinite, womb.

SHADOWS

SHADOWS

Shadows
My shadows
My shadows in the darkness
Long and short, they pace along
Pausing
Just for a moment everyday
To watch each other

My shadows in the darkness.

They sprout from my feet
And look back upon me
With an indifferent gaze;
Sometimes
It has a smirk on its face
A nasty, arrogant grin
Of someone who knows
I want to, but never will
Get rid of him.

Shadows.
My shadows in the darkness.

I get drenched
In stormy downpours
But they always remain
Dry and warm.
I sweat and swear
In scalding heat
But they always manage
To remain calm.
I tried counting them,
And got bored with numbers.

Then I decided
May be should learn
To live with,
To fall in love with
My unforgiving shadows.
And so I bent down
To kiss them
To hug them
And this time
They were no longer there.
They vanished into thin air.

Still,
The defeat was solely mine.