Once Upon a time at Night

Sleepless and dreaming. I dream of those who are burning the midnight oil, those who are attending calls to appease frantic queries from across the seas and shores, the souls who have to stay awake lest they miss the breaking news, the guardians of our safety and sovereignty who patrol relentlessly, the dwellers under the open sky who manage to grab sleep despite heavy vehicles zooming past their narrow pavements. That one mind which awakens to the quest of creative pursuits and pens down the last few lines of her book, the song writer who shall not rest before he fixes his broken song, those eyes behind the glasses aligning his designs to enhance his aesthetic masterpiece.

The peace of sleep caresses the ones who are her favourite; they hum tender snores, their bodies at peace and preparing for the autumn morning to follow.

I wander into the jungle, perhaps the wilderness has a different story to tell. Do the wild beasts sleep like us? I shall not know just now. But the mind spins its own fantastic tales, some of which I may use as bedtime stories for my young ones in the future (only if they would be fortunate enough to repose their faith in flights of fantasy and wonderland).

The dark velvet texture of the night sky has left me spellbound each time my dreary, sleep-deprived eyes have braved to look upwards. The night has been the reason of zillion myths, beliefs, disbeliefs, secrets, conspiracies et al. Night is laden with infamy, it is equated with all that is ominous, it is painted in forbidden hues. Night sulks.

I take an unsure step to greet my night. It looks up, it smiles and it illuminates. Unlike the golden rays of the magnanimous Sun that blanket us in white light, here are the moody shades of the dark hours. It is subtle like the coy bride, translucent like the emotion of new lovers. Night is the poem of the unsung beings.

She moves stealthily through our life each day and prefers to stay on the opposite shore. She covers our follies and gives us yet another chance to rejoin life. Night, well what more can I speak about you? When day decided to quit on me and nobody else thought it relevant to stand by my dreams, you walked up to me and gently soothed my agitated dilemma. You let me enjoy your emptiness, your silence and never judged me as I sat clueless and vague.

Life at night and that of night shall continue to intrigue me even and most often than not win the war against sleep. Today, is not her day though. Yet lovely lady, worry not. In many like me you have your steadfast lovers, your dogged companions.

.........................................................................................................

Blood screams "Enough"... Give us Peace

No more, please no more. 

The voice within screams as my eyes go through pictures of the gruesome massacre in Syria.  The blood loses its colour, the limbs are like wood. Were the people who perpetrated such an act on innocent children and women, zombies who had no heart or head? How have we, the people, come to such times? 

The anguish is unspoken and deep, as if snake venom had been smeared on the skin; as if somebody force fed me some disinfectant cleaner. The putrid vomit erupts from within, yet I am unable to spit it out. My eyes refuse to shed tears of any kind, be it pain or horror. It is marble and opaque. 

When faith is shaken, one often feels like a discarded piece of furniture, lying in a corner of the garden, rain and Sun, both tearing down the last bits of its dignity. Today, as I sit on my bed, with the four-walled enclosure I sometimes refer as "My Room", a sense of abandonment washes over me. I feel orphaned; discarded by my own fellow beings, just like they butchered their brethren mercilessly in Syria. 

We are a bunch of living oxymorons. We are cowards who run for our lives and keep numb when devastation strikes our neighbour's home. At the same time we are monsters, who devour everything including infants that may come in our way to appease our shameless greed.  

We can cry hoarse each day that we want peace, that violence shall not be tolerated. Yet, it is us, who have once again sown the seeds of violence and blood bath in the psyche of the world which stood helplessly, watching the massacre and in the lives of those who lost their kith and kin to such a diabolic act befitting Hell, if the latter exists.

It can just be a nerve rattling irony that innocent infants, children and women met such a horrific end to now rest in eternal peace.

Is this the lone, elusive chance to peace we have today? Our death? 

Think before you think... Think before you speak

At times the heart dares to think. It visualises, it objectifies, it rationalises. Someone once told me, "The heart is just an organ. It is the head that thinks or even makes us experience love". He was not incorrect. However, the area above the heart pains when something hurts us, disturbs us.

Several times, I have been at the receiving end of somebody's ill-formed ideas and opinions. That made me go back to the moot point - "Think before you speak". Rather, it should be inquire and get the facts correct before you speak, because you never know how your words may be twisting the life of the listener.

Our mind is a sensitive part of our being. No doubt, it controls the whole of us, yet it is like an oyster. Even a speck of sand can kill it and eventually a pearl may take form. The oyster goes on excreting juices to get rid of the grain that is stuck in its soft flesh. I have felt this excruciating pain when I have been subjected to such venomous words and gestures.

People have ample time to shop online for shoes and socks. Yet, when it comes to the use of their most essential and by far the most used faculty, they stutter, they falter. It is widely misused and the ill use is performed with much aplomb.

I was once taught that there is nothing wrong or right. It is our perception that changes the equation. My right could be someone's sin. Trying to keep my faith intact in that idea, I would still say that just because the tongue has no bones, does not mean anything that slips out is right. There has to be a check imposed by our intellectual refinement on our power of speech.

The rational part of my brain refuses to accept this argument. Tongue alone cannot be adjudged the culprit. The mind is the mastermind.

Our ideas are, till a large extent, governed by the conditioning which our mind and psyche has undergone since our inception. The biases have already been laid and that is where our education comes into play. Books, the hunger for knowledge, the desire to understand, widen our horizon. We explore and we deconstruct our notions. We need to feed our mind constantly for it to achieve a certain level of refinement and maturity.

However, the fact that disturbs me the most, leaves me disheartened, is how much we lag in intellectual improvement in today's time. We dress ourselves in the costliest and the most fancy labels, we move around in the sleekest of vehicles. Despite, the exterior undergoing radical renovation, the mind is caught in the domesticity of cumbersome lethargy. It is caught in the abominable stench of redundant, age old biases and misconceptions. Each passing day, I am shocked to see how we return to the bottomless pit of stubborn dogmatism to stick to some garbage like notions.

Till the time we do not overcome our tendency to fall for the easy and generic opinions on matters, be it social, political or even personal, we shall come across as vague individuals, who care less about themselves and the least about the social system we are a part of.

A dear friend is fond of saying, "It is all about the get up". Perhaps he also means the mental and intellectual beauty of a person. Else, we are no more than clothes horses and no less than a donkey, trudging foolishly to taste the carrot.

My dear friends, there are no carrots. There is just you and your reflection in the mirror and on the society. So tread carefully, speak sound and think like you know how to think.

“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” 
― Albert Einstein

Raindrops on my Paper

It rained the whole day. The dust was wiped away from the face of this ruthless city. Trees appear green, the earth seems appeased. Then what is the restlessness that arises within? it is like a gradually developing cyclone, sucking me into it. The lightening lit the evening sky and flashed across the memory space inside my head. Images and more images came hoarding the void, as if it was raining long forgotten excerpts from my life.

I sat in one corner collecting these random moments and compiling them in a dusty file cover. "Did I have a good life till now?" No adequate reply comes to my mind. Twists and turns and straight highways, I have been on almost all terrains. The journey shall continue, show me the days, nights and twilights of various realms. I am a traveller, I am aware of that. Yet, a stopover is sought where the heart can get a good night's sleep. Else the quest is one.

Another such evening may come when this evening would be neatly folded and preserved between the yellow, tattered pages of an old, forgotten novel and my mind.

Ice cream Sund-ae

What is it with ice-cream and human emotions? The very sight of the dessert evokes strong and often caricature-like expressions on the visage. 

The cold and sweet combination is not just a treat to the taste buds and gastronomy senses; it lights sparks of undiluted glee in the eyes of the onlooker too.

A couple of evenings back, we were lazily sauntering in the local market for a random puff. The brightly lit pull-cart displaying the icy delights smiled furtively at us, beckoning us to her fragrant coven. Chocolate layered, chocolate filled bar it was for us. 

It dripped, we licked, it vanished in our greedy mouths. The chocolate felt like satin sin, the cold balancing the richness of the brown devil. We slurped, we bit and it tantalised. Broken images from childhood days flooded our minds. Through mouthful of molten wonder, we spoke gibberish to relate our respective tales. From nicking mother's piggy bank, to sucking the ice-candy colourless, we had so much to share over a bar of ice-cream. 

The cream was now gone, the lone, white softwood stick bereft of its prized awesomeness. Yet we licked on at it, hoping the last ounce of sweetness would not be wasted. At that moment, she sped past. A sedan. A head popped up. The eyes sparked a brilliant shade of chocolate brown. The were like a pair of shooting stars, flashing across the sky in search of immediate emancipation.

The joy was evident, the desire stronger felt. Had the car been at a slower pace, she would have lapped up a few pieces of the sweet fantasy and gulped them down.  The car did not stop.

We looked at each other, the sundae remains at the corner of our mouths, yet their hues brilliantly etched in our eyes. She was a 40-year old who stopped short of drowning herself in the carefree splendour of a harmless, calorie-laden ice cream. We smiled into each others eyes, promising ourselves to stay in touch with the child within and outside. 

Sunshine and rainbows, at times, dress our night sky too. We dreamt satisfaction that night. 

Text message wala love :)

I do not attempt to find out how I feel about you. It floats in the universe, it makes and it breaks. We are crossing all the distances without even speaking a single word. The Gods look down at us and smile; two bruised have sung the song which no exquisite instrument managed to strum.

This just gives me all hope to share this journey, which I had turned away from a few years back. And you stood there at that juncture and sent a prayer heavenwards for me. It just took me a while to come, immerse myself in the boundless joy of your love.

Now the heaven is happy and the world has found all its missing colors. Even the black and white share your vision. That, my dear, is your love.

They...

Tara looked out of the window. Her fingers wandered aimlessly through the long, listless strands of her hair, that caressed her hips. The husband had set sail for new profitable shores. She would not set sight on him for the next six weeks. The hollow hunger was already on its way up in her belly.

Surya thought he saw the curtain flip and a shadow dissolve behind the darkness. It was probable it was she. The merchant had left at the crack of dawn. He had paid Surya's step father a hefty fees to take one of his giant boats and ten of his best sailors. It could only be termed a divine intervention that the wound on his back disqualified him from joining the group. 

The brass door knob felt ominous. Tara halted for a moment. Another step and she would smell the freshly cut grass, the air and soil. "No this is far too dangerous." She looked away from her moment of emancipation and curled down near the door. She has forgotten how it felt to step out. She just lay there, feeling the rude intrusion of cold marble on her face. The woman within her had died several deaths each time the trader husband chose to look the other way, copulated with her sans passion; bought her sarees and bangles but never cared to touch the drops of water on her shoulder remnant from her baths. Now she was accustomed to crispy crackle of currency notes taking over the melody of her languishing heart.

"Biwi Ji, I got you a water lily." Jolted from her reverie, Tara sprung to her feet. She had heard this voice before. She recognized the shudder it sent through her body and into her soul. This was him. What was he doing at her door step at such an hour? Did he not sail with the rest of them? Did it allow her to be anxious?

Surya was there waiting for the door to open and those tiny feet to appear. And soon enough they did. He could not look at the face, the dainty little pink feet preoccupied his gaze. He was besotted since he first saw them walk up the cobbled steps of the bathing ghat one morning. Now it was a daily ritual.He would be there humming some meaningless song, cleaning his boat each morning, waiting for the duo to appear and disappear slowly in the water. That was his opium, he survived each day and skipped through his dreams each night to be there at the ghat as the Sun nodded to the million salutation.

The silver bells looked bigger today. Yes their music was familiar, yet hesitant. How he craved for a touch of those feet, that he he knew would destroy the last thread of salvation. He wanted to reach out and lay his hands on the alabaster  like creation. But the awareness of another's sight stinging him was too strong too ignore. His heels dug further into the soil.

"What is your name?" Tara quietly asked. "Surya". The young man continued to look towards the earth. Her eyes panned the broad expanses of his shoulders. She knew where she had heard his voice. It was at the ghat  each morning in the rendition of lonesome sailor songs. There he was, eyes shy, sun beaten skin. The ebony chest lay bare like an empty sheet to be a witness of a tale of the unknown. The legs that revealed themselves from underneath the crumpled dhoti had witnessed many a severe storm, frantic sprint through the dusty lanes, submerged secrets of the river that flowed out of their village. He was blocking her sight and his shadow engulfed her. The eyelashes were like palm leaves. They fell like a cover over the promises his eyes held. The jaw was taut and almost perfect, save the dip in his chin. Why did she want to run her finger across the jawline, circle the dimple and move all the way up? Dark and quiet, he loomed large like a sculptor's rustic creation. Rough around the edges, smooth like slate all the way, she saw the muscles of his torso clench under her shameless gaze. 

He lay the flower on the red verandah. Her feet were brushing against one another. He let out a sigh. The warm breath bathed her feet in sensations she had tucked away in the crevices of her broken memory. The lehenga revealed nothing beyond her ankles. The mirrors on the skirt could not distract him from following the length of her legs. "She has a tiny clinched waist," he marveled as his eyes lingered on the gold chain that spun lazily around her. The hands that rowed the boat and set the tattered sail each day, agonized at the thought of tip-toeing through the doll like figurine that stood there twisting an unknown desire inside him. Only if she could be reached out to.

Tara noticed the jagged an bruised hands. The palms were like a map of the journeys he had made and the mementos the wind and water gave back. She ached to be under their touch, to be imprinted by the roughness of them. What patterns would they draw on her back? Would they release her hair from the usual braid? Could they cover the contour of her heart shaped face and resuscitate the forgotten couplets? She wanted to know, she wanted to hold, she wanted to proffer. He had washed up at her shore. She wanted to celebrate in gay abandon. "It would be short lived, but this shall last me a lifetime." Tara knew it was the end.

He retraced his steps on the red soil. He knew the flower now lay in her hand. He need not look back for a promise. There were none. The eyes followed him as far as they could see. She knew the doors would soon shield him from her, once again.

A distant melody breezed in on that autumn afternoon. Tara knew Surya's song, she did not read his eyes.

The lotus feet reappeared from beneath the water. They slipped past him yet again. Surya did not see the river mirror Tara's face. 

They did not need to know. They were aware.

"A dream has power to poison sleep." - P.B Shelley