Monday, January 23, 2012

Return

I've been devouring novels for a while,
Drinking in the richness at their core-
Where pictures and passions
Make their homes, rule with grace.

I was content,
No, effervescent
When moments back,
My eyes fell upon a tiny gem.

And nothing remained as before.

Its sharpness pierced,
Its power moved,
Its current sparked,
Its wisdom glowed
Within that little space.
And all at once I knew
What I had lost and found,
What unforeseen, was there
And meant to be-
The revival, the return of poetry.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Love what I love. That is all I ask of you. No, I don't mean you're wrong if you can't. Or that you should. But if only you did! Can't you see, there is nothing I love more than to laugh with you, cry with you, even though tears embarrass me. Because that is how it's been for so long. I loved what you loved, sang your songs. You taught me everything, it was the only way we could be. But things are different now. I'm growing older, I'm learning new things, and you don't know them all. I'm learning who I am all by myself. My thoughts mean more to me than ever before. They give me more relief, more pain, more doubt and more peace. I'm often wrong, but I'm not weary yet and I have sworn to fight against weariness all my life. I don't want you to predict my mistakes, you are not my mirror, my mould any more. If I grow into you, it was meant to be but do not believe you were solely responsible. You are still the wise one, you are still my teacher. But perhaps I can teach you some things as well. Yes, many times I have felt more awake than you are, more indignant at the right moment, more ready to exorcise my evils. But never, never better. Perhaps I have found out truths that escaped you. Perhaps I've discovered a love you always looked past. I do not believe they are beyond you. Beyond us. That is why I keep trying- angry, angry, but full of love, needing you most at the moment you seem most distant. What we were, what we are, allows more than you let me give. All I ask of you is to take a little.

Friday, November 11, 2011

Summersong

Well, we got through the summer,
Just like every year.

We sweated and stank
And complained to the absent wind.
We prickled and fretted if people touched us
Though only when it was ‘unnecessary’;
Young couples continued holding hands
That squeezed out salty droplets,
Using the rougher edges of their clothes
As handkerchiefs.

We sighed at the sight of dogs
With their pink tongues lolling painfully
As if their life-cord was being
Wrenched out by some invisible force.
We winced at the lizards that darted past
Hurriedly and left our eyes fright-glazed
At the corners;
Though a few of us found their littleness
Loveable.

We couldn’t make up our minds
Whether to take the window seats on the bus-
Wind and sun or shade minus wind?
But that was only when we had a choice.
Besides, it hardly mattered.
We simmered when we sat still
And oozed when we moved,
And every moment we tried to forget the sun
By telling each other how we hated it.
Oh how we hated it,
We wished we could compress it
With a pinch
Into a speck of smoking black,
And spit its final, feeble fumes
Out of existence.
In hopeless revenge
We rarely paused to give a coin
To a beggar.

But at night, when all we saw was the moon’s
Melancholy glow,
Such hatred seemed futile.

What compassion then,
For those in less luxury,
What abrupt loathing for the self
And abstract world,
For geography and humanity.
What suspension of time,
What ache for words that lay bubbling,
Inarticulate in some volcanic pit.

But we got over it.
Just like every year.

Monday, April 11, 2011

The Butcher and the Washerwoman

There was a butcher

And he was married to a washerwoman.

Often he would come home from work

With bloodstained clothes.

And his wife would wash off the blood,

Spending many minutes soaking and scrubbing,

Completely free of charge.

They loved each other

And this is how they lived

Till both were too old to work anymore.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

The Ugly Duckling

There was once a little duck
And it wasn’t in his luck
To ever in the future
Turn into a lovely swan-
This ugly bird was fated
To be unappreciated
All his god-forsaken days,
Through night and noon and morn.

His mother tried to love him
But placed the rest above him-
His brothers and his sisters-
Could she help it, do you think?
They were swifter they were stronger,
They would live to help her longer,
They would be a bigger comfort
When her life was on its brink.

Sill, a mother…
Oh don’t bother.

The other relatives were worse
One might suppose they would rehearse
Abuses choices and novel
To hurl at his helpless failing.
For his very sight would fuel
Them into a state so cruel,
It would shock him into silence
Though his heart was full of wailing.

He thought that he deserved it,
No one told him otherwise.
But it didn’t stop him hating,
No, it didn’t stop him hating
Those preaching, preening, prating,
Those gross, infuriating,
Malicious motherfuckers.

Does this come as a surprise?

Time crept by with not much new
But all along the duckling grew;
And in his soul he sensed emotions
He had never known.
Now and then, a random day
He would decide to slip away
And swim to some deserted creek
Where he’d be left alone.

There he could pass his hours
Among the reeds and rocks and flowers
Thinking to himself,
Making music in his head.
The sound of silence cooled him
Only sky and water ruled him
He felt strangely liberated
From misery or dread.

The bit we’re now approaching
Is one I shrink from broaching.
But let us carry on
Since we thought it right to start.
Let us travel to the morning
When our young one went a-journeying
Further than he’d ever gone.
Driven by a pounding heart.

From the minute he’d awoken,
He heard messages unspoken
That stirred him to his depth
And gave fire to his feet.
He swam in the expectation
Of a glorious revelation.
With assurance he dismissed the scope
Of caution or retreat.

When suddenly he stopped
At a vision heaven-droppped,

A host of swans arrayed in white,
Glistening in the morning light.
Luminously white!
Skimming water, feather-light.
Skimming water, not a noise,
Breathing purity and poise.
One spread its wings out wide-
A moment regal, and immense,
Yet full of primal innocence.
And our hero softly sighed
For its enveloping embrace
In which he’d sink without a trace
To a blissful death, he thought.

Then half-ecstatic, half-distraught,
(One at his find, one for his past)
He ventured forward at last
And swam into the flock,
Uttering gentle cries of love.
No holy message from above
Could have prepared him for the shock
That would soon turn him to rock.

At first the swans stood deathly still;
Their silence now much darker.
A gloom was cast on everything
The very land looked starker.
Their heads rose up in outrage,
Feathers furiously bristled.
Their lovely eyes grew hard with spite
Like marble cold and chiselled.
Their bodies shuddered violently
In horror and disgust.
They flapped their wings
They squawked in hate,
They were the demons of his fate,
With voices harsh and hoarse and coarse
They battered down his trust.
They struck him with their wings and beaks
And crushed his hope in dust.

All at once the rejected visitor
Felt the weight of his ugliness
And saw the poetry of life floating by, a mangled corpse.
It was not one quick blow
Whose wound would heal with time;
No, his ugliness had gripped him hard
Like a vice.
He felt its weight upon his wings, his neck, his head, his tail.
It made his feet slow and heavy
As he dragged himself along.
It welled up near his throat
In a tight concentrated ball
That choked him.

Readers, it was my aim to describe
This lost soul’s misery at great length,
Because no compassion on your part
Could match the pain he lived.
But I confess I do not have
The courage to do it,
Or the strength to bear it.
Therefore in brief-
The duck lived for five days longer.
Starvation is a slow process
And he proved surprisingly strong.
But with his will to live quite gone,
He found he could stay away
From food with ease.
So he died without much difficulty.
And without the least bit of fuss.

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Another crazy cat lady post. The most meaningful one yet.

People get gifts for Birthdays. Christmas. But a New Years' gift I wasn't expecting. Who would've thought that it would occur in a form no less than the Prodigal Daughter's return? In my flurry to feed the cats- of ever-increasing number, diverse ages and now conflicting temperaments- I was frozen in my tracks by a long-lost sight. Recognition time: 0 earth seconds (never used smaller units so this will have to do.) A little extra uncertainty in her always-soulful eyes. A little extra timidity in the way she sat on her haunches. Or was I just adding sentimental conclusions to almost half-a-year's departure? Because otherwise, she wasn't a jot different. Unnaturally clean for a white cat who spent most of her time on the road. Eyes so enchantingly, emotionally green they would remind you of witchcraft and jade and fresh grass all at once. No thinner, no bigger. There she was, crouching among a positive menagerie of mewing creatures- most of them unfamiliar to her- trying to get her bearings straight.


She was always the crazy one, the beautiful one. Paranoid, with a bitter distaste for all other members of the feline species. Was she jealous or did she just hate cats? The very sight of another would turn her into this beast- snarling, hissing, fidgety, crotchety; darting under a small stool for refuge, casting accusatory glances at anyone and anything around her. The only cat to scratch us with complete abadon, bordering on zest, when disgruntled. But if the house was clear of other cats, she was a positive puddle of tenderness and affection, melting into your lap with the fragile grace of a wilting flower, looking up at you with those brilliant-green eyes, shadowing you so closely you couldn't take a step without stumbling on her majesty's snowy whiteness.

She was graceful in a way that defeats logic. Even the completely asymmetrical black streak on her forehead couldn't disrupt the perfection she radiated. From those slim shoulder blades to the dark-ringed tail-tip, every fibre of her body seemed designed for a pure, innocent elegance. But what a huntress she was!
Constantly grooming herself, washing her face. Positively cherubic in her sleep. If she were human, she'd probably be one of those frustrating females- stinking rich, maddeningly beautiful, selfish, vain, stupid, and for a grand item to round off the list- neurotic, just for kicks.

But she was my favourite, my absolute, outright favourite. I had no idea where she'd been all this while, and why she was away. It crossed my mind, and her glowing health reinforced this thought, that she might have been lapping up the attentions of another infatuated family while I died at the thought of her injured and alone.
It had happened once, an injury. A near-fatal one too. She, missing throughout 3 whole days, for the first time in her (and my) life. Me bawling shamelessly at her stark, doleful disappearance. And suddenly at the end of 3 days, she comes stumbling up the stairs, her underside a wreck of clotted blood and matted fur and hanging skin, her face small and shrunken; and with the last vestige of strength, surrendering everything to us, she crawls onto the landing and flops down on the floor, breathing heavily. I could have died of sheer relief and distress on behalf of that little thing, who had enough sense to get to the one place that would definitely take care of her.

Well, she got through it with heroic patience and strength. And with her, we all recovered, a little changed for the experience. And when she was gone again, I just couldn't take the thought of another injury, possibly untended. I hoped and prayed that she was somewhere else, betraying us merrily and thoughtlessly as only a cat can.

But she's back, my baby's back! As high-strung, as loving and bewitching as ever. She returned on the first day of 2011 and she's been here today as well. And I hope she won't give me another cardiac arrest EVER.

P.S.- Now I think I realise why parents get hysterical. I think I'll be nicer to my mum from now onwards.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

How does it feel when you know too little to disagree? But you really, REALLY want to. Not too great. I've been there.

What's even worse though, is when your arguments are effective enough to convince opposing groups but not yourself. And you're stuck in the middle. That's not the same as sitting on the fence. The latter is quite a pleasurable stance. Even an important one, at times. To be stuck however, is to be... stuck.

Which reminds me. I've tried asking myself this- if from now onwards, my life had to be one relatively brief set of moments, playing repeatedly in a loop, or extending for an eternity, what would I pick? Listening to a special song? Reading lines of my favourite poetry? A kiss, a hot shower in winter, running down the beach to jump into the sea? Say it wouldn't affect my body but I'd be conscious of the fact that I've done it before. In that case- whatever I picture, dramatic or homely, euphoric or serene, it's SO creepy. And somehow, the loop is creepier than the endless extension.

But if I could actually take that without going insane, I would have been Enlightened in the true sense. The same way I've always felt that living through prison is a tremendous test of character. (One I'd never wish on a person I loved.)

I suppose all this stems from being uncertain about almost everything. I wish, I really wish that there were some abstract ideals of real magnitude I could hold on to as absolutely inviolable. I have people like that, which I'm grateful for. I wish though, that occasionally I could say the same for opinions. Is Literature always the answer, even though nothing else ever feels as right?

But what's strange is, if you asked me right now whether I'm happy, I'd say yes without a pause. Alright, so the lack of a pause makes you skeptical. If I have to pause and think about it, the answer is still a yes. I genuinely believe that it's better not to be born than to live in this world. Since you can't really choose how capable you would be of dealing with it. But I also believe that once you're born, you owe it to yourself to be happy. And that you can be happy, without being a cringing coward or a blatant liar. Dissatisfied with a lot of things maybe, even cynical, even affected by genuine bursts of melancholy. But on the whole, happy. I don't think happiness should be looked down upon, the same way depression shouldn't be looked down upon.