Crouching Thunder, Hidden Rain

I can smell the rain, and it is hiding in the pocket of a five year old boy, jostled around by two clear, green marbles and a yellow button. And sewed into the hem of a maiden's blouse, rocking in between her bosom and following the swing of her hip, as she whistled a folksong she heard when the circus was in town. It is marching in between the lines of soldiers, in dry trenches and under withered camouflage. It flies swiftly under the wing of the albatross and dances on the edge of the sea-shore.
Did you find the rain? And while you sat in the corner of the room you shared with another, chipping away the wax that had two nights ago melted onto your table in a molten puddle, you saw rain crawl out of an old grey sock. You were quick but clumsy, and knocked over the ink pot letting the blue-black liquid run across the dark wood and drip in infuriating drops to the floor. The colour bled, wrapped itself around the rain, and the blue black mist was exhaled out of the gaps in the weave. There was panic, you had to be quick. 
You couldn't hear the movement, but you felt it travel from the small of your back to the little drops of sweat that dotted your upper lip right up till the root of your hair. You squeezed your eyes shut in the hope that you could trap the chill but then it crawled out of your pores - damp and full of destruction.
I can hear the thunder and it is far away, closer to you, and before the sky can swallow it, it burrows it's way through thick clouds and created labyrinthine patterns allowing some sunshine to stream through.
Did you hear the thunder while you chased the rain? It slipped under your bed, it is quiet and quick, but you are quicker. You caught it in a glass jar and stuck a label with his name on it. You have called him Claude. You have beautiful penmanship, and in cursive hand your L's loop in smooth, long, straight lines.
I looked for it everywhere, you know, in between pages of books and behind the curtains, in letter boxes and shoe boxes and match boxes. Did you know, it rode on the backs of whales and kissed the noses of puppy dogs and danced to the tune of traffic lights - red, amber, green, amber, and scurried along.
The thunder has disappeared and the rain long gone, but there is promise. They will come back, definitely not tomorrow. I am sure. May be next week. I am certain. But come they will, like a victorious army - storm in with pride and noise and applause.

The Way Back Home

One day, when the sun is hiding behind an ashen cloud I will find you and take you with me to the old warehouse. I have been there several times, but how did I get there? 

We have to walk down a muddy road that has no name and cannot be found on the map and it is definitely not close to anything I know, and does not belong to anybody I know. If you are not looking for the warehouse - an old building with yellowing paint that is peeling off in artistic patterns - you will miss it. There are obviously no clues or signboards but there is the hope of finding a traveller who will not have directions, but he will have stories to tell from across the seas and beyond the forest. 

It is beautiful, this warehouse, you may not think so when you see the broken door-knob and window shutters that are hanging off rusting hinges. But that is also because you see only the holes that the termites have left behind and when you touch the wall, the red brick that hides behind the paint, crumbles.

We will go by walk. It is a long walk. But we will carry notebooks and crayons, a dictionary, pens and 2-minute noodles that come with plastic forks. You can teach me rhythm and I will read to you till the evening light fades.

There are days when in the middle of the night, if you lie down in the wild grass and hold your breath, in the stillness you can hear the earth breathing and it is glorious. 

I like to imagine that this is my little secret, but I know it is not. On an old tree stump that was felled a long time ago I have carved my name, claiming ownership. And when you run your fingers along the wall you can trace all the names that have been carved in with shards of glass, sharp stones and pen knives. When I read their names, I see their faces and can tell if they were travellers, or lost or simply searching for something they lost.
Sometimes I dream that I live there with a man. Someone who will play an instrument and sing the blues. He will cook and I will clean and I will write. Poetry and lyrics and novellas and things to do, I will write them all down. We will forget the date and day and count down the days with notches we draw on the wall.
And one day when the sun is hiding behind an ashen cloud, I will find you and take you with me to the old warehouse. I have been there several times and in my dreams I have built a life there with a man who plays an instrument and sings the blues. 

Someone We Used To Know

I lay across the bed from him, his face in mine, separated by a wall of grey smoke. The herb is the healing of the nation, the healing of my lacerated heart. I sank into the navy depth, weighed down by a thousand anchors as I watched him sublimate. The curve of his back arched and he seemed to rise. His face disintegrated part by part and his eyes began to sink into their sockets and disappear into warm wisps of air that was snug and safe in the cold night. He looked celestial in that moment, disappearing from my tangible world and fading into the recesses of my dreams where he belongs. Not death, just a disappearance.
Just like he came, he will go, back to his world of making manic faces in the mirror and finger painting in pastel shades of water colours. It will all be very quiet, the departure that is. May be a tear or two which will be shed in secret, not for the hope of what could have been, and not for the hundred prayers that went unanswered, but for all the beauty that was us.
Good night friend.

And When We Talk

He said to me...

Mrs. Crookshanks says hi to you. She is my imaginary cat. I lie on her lap as I type this. She cut her paw nails last night for me. She is worried that I may forget her some day. Deeply. She is not married, she just likes the prefix after reading about Mrs. Dalloway somewhere.

She is asking me to pause everything, buy a small flat or even a terrace-room, become financially independent, get a huge, comfortable olive green couch and lie on it and watch movies and tv all day with her. She wouldn't like a flat screen. She wants the big box to be there so that the tv feels real like her. She wants an old school telephone that goes tring tring and an answering machine.

We would do all this when I go to sleep now and perhaps on some windy winter day three years later. Sophia and you are welcome anytime. She'll prepare fish curry for you and I'll make you some coffee and give it it to you in an aana pictured mug that we bought you last night after reading all you wrote.

And I replied...

I love it! I see it in my head. There will be a thick rug, the colour of sunset, in a corner. And three, large, mismatched cushions with hippy patterns. One of them have a large coffee stain from the last time you had me over and I broke the pot. It's still there.
The cactus sits on the sill, alone. You've been meaning to get Eleanor a partner. But can't decide between a fern or another cactus. The only time she gets company is when you go to the window with your morning coffee. But the view below distracts you, and you watch the World come to life from your corner. And you smile, like you know a dirty secret.
I'm not quite the cat person, though Mrs. Crookshanks is lovely. She is a wonderful cook, and makes sure she uses generous doses of tabasco. Just the way I like it.
I'm on the bus back home, and I have the window seat. It rained all day, yesterday and today, and tomorrow. And the water drops on the pane have made a pattern. And when the light shines through it does a kaleidoscopic dance. I wish I could bottle it up to show you.
Isn't Sophia lovely. Send me your postal address.

Changing Pavements

Eternity. That's how long it has rained and drizzled and sprayed and sprinkled. It is a grey day but it also is a happy day. From the warmth of where I'm sitting the world is poetry. But of course, from the warmth of where I'm sitting, it's easy to be poetic.
The rain has become a drizzle. The windows are freckled with a gazillion drops. And when I try to look out, my view is distorted by the hundreds of tiny fish eye illusions they create.
I try to count them, but they outnumber my fingers and toes. So I refresh and start afresh, but my fingers and toes are still outnumbered.
Trees have lost leaves, and wholes have lost halves . If you ask me it is the season. Autumn brings with it a need to shed the old and grow the new. Play-lists will change, new wallpaper and curtains, long locks will become short crops, even your bathing soap changes - classic menthol remains classic menthol.
Somethings never change. And some, will take a part of you with it while on its way out. You revel in that space it leaves behind. It's the warm afterglow of closure. It's like the poetry around me right now.
And when you're home and watching the rain from under the warmth of a patchwork quilt, you realise - the void has been filled by the plain Jane wonders of your distorted world.

A Little Dream

Last night I dreamt I climbed up a jungle gym, hooked my legs on the bars and hung upside down. I saw the world upside down and it was beautiful.
There were cracks in the earth, and they spelled your name. My eyes widened, as the blood rushed to my head. I trembled with delight, and in that moment of perfection I knew such happiness.
I distinctly remember a light summer breeze, I also remember thinking it was strange because it is monsoon, you know. The air smelled strongly of peppermint and slightly of warm sweat, and I swung to the marching tune of a brass band. My fingers tried to clutch at something intangible and I struggled so hard to find it even after the dream was over. And now that the dream is over I feel rather hollow, like I left something behind. 

The Window Seat

There are things that make me happy, and some more that make me sad. But if I had a seat by the window everything would be happy, sunny mornings, even on melancholic, rainy evenings.
If I had a seat by the window I would write an ode and dedicate it to every bird that came to rest on my sill. And if I had a seat by the window I would keep count of the leaves on the trees and name every single one of them, so that they were never lost.
By the window I would sing for weary passers, and watch the rain pour down as it does right now. Everyday would be Versace and Armani even if it was only gunny and old paper bags. From my window I would dance for the marching band and follow the flight of the bumble bee. All for that seat by the window.
And when life would be a kidney stone I would slide through the crack in my window. And walk barefoot on the roof. And when life would truly be pustular I would simply sit on the sill and let the sunshine carry me home.

In My Matchbox

In my matchbox we eat wax crayons and cut our clothes out of the ad mags. There is a beautiful beagle up for adoption covering my left breast, and an as good as new automobile, barely been used, price negotiable, on my sleeve. In my matchbox everyone knows the words to La Vie En Rose and nobody goes to work on a rainy morning.
All words are poetry and all toes curl inside the warmth of striped socks. Sometimes we stay awake so the moon won't be alone and sometimes we stay awake because we can.
In my matchbox pop is not a culture, or a song, or an art, or the way the weasel went. In my matchbox don't always have to kick a football, and girls are not waiting to be swept off their feet by Prince Charming.
In my matchbox, the rotten apples eat gunpowder and all seven seas are comfortable. We have vegetable patches to grow gourd and berries and peonies and in our spare time we swing on fairy lights. Shopping lists are written on postcards and epics on post it's. We paint with our fingers and wrap gifts in Turkish carpets.
In my matchbox I am happy, in my matchbox I am also alone.
Come home to my matchbox.

Endless Cups Of Late Night Coffee

You are a victim of desire and determination, so you lie awake revising and accommodating. Drinking endless cups of late night coffee.
You watch the right films, and pretend to watch the right films. You read the right books, and pretend to read some more.
You are shocked at how easily you will allow the contours of your being to be moulded by an outsider. Perpetuating an idea is key. An idea that incestuous, niche groups accept. An idea that air kissing social madames thrill about, and want to bed. There is simply a single rule - never a moment of doubt, never a moment of acceptance of the truth.
Women are dispensable, and men by the dozen. You swirl bitter in your glass and smirk in condescension. You share carnal pleasures with a communist-fire breathing bearded man or a woman with thickly lined eyes and heavy silver jewellery. Promiscuity is the unaffected and undisputed norm. And in the afterglow of air doused in the last dregs of cigarette smoke and sultry panting, you read Beat Literature and discuss politics.
You have fused with the story you created, like a parasitic zygote that attaches itself to the crimson womb.
You write using words like effacing and phrases like sycophantic distortion. You repeat the last word of a well-crafted sentence for a supposedly pointed effect. You cash on being Indian, and hence make more than seldom references to the Casuarina and Jacaranda.
You watch the right films, and are pretty sure you enjoy them now. You read the right books and are almost certain you concur. You have become the regular with a table by the window. You sit with a dog-eared Sartre, handwritten notes in the margin, by your side, and make Kafka-esque observations about sugar sachets.
You are now one of them. You drink expensive whiskey and share partners. Smoke outside theatres and find infinite entertainment in Post-Modernist discussions. And yet sometimes when you are drinking that last cup of late night coffee, you cannot help but admit it to yourself. And although you tell yourself in secret, and you have listened in secret, the world knows. But you stupid, stupid intellectual, the world always knew.
They watch the right films, and pretend to watch the right films. They read the right books, and pretend to read some more. And in secret, over that last cup of late night coffee, they admit it to you.

My Orchard Of Orange

Today I peeled a baby orange. Strange in the middle of June.
I rested the fruit in the palm of my hand and let the citrus goodness permeate through me. I felt it sting the root of my canine and I winced in sour delight.
I sat back and rocked it between my fingers till I found the dent on it's leathery back. Premature. We were in the middle of June.
I dug my nail into the bottle green peel. I carved the letters of my name into the bottle green sheath. The spray stung my eye. It was too early. It was the middle of June.
I hooked my finger beneath the bottle green layer, and slit it open. More spray stung my eye. It was war.
I tore. I tugged. I warred. I won. Time had not moved. Still the middle of June.
The fruit lay inside. Defeated and raw. I glared at the white, pathetic excuse, willing it to be ripe. Change colour I begged, my recent victory forgotten. I had forgotten. I told you - it was the middle of June.

Lemony Snippets: A Series of Fictitious Events - An Introduction

This will be a whole series of short stories, meant to get me started on a dream project. In this series i will pick up a random line from anywhere and try and spin a story around it.This is only because i am too lazy to come up with themes on my own and too shallow to write anything thought provoking and too stupid to write anything intelligent. So, now i shall go scout for a lead, until then...

Of Pin Cushions and Hearts

My breathing is constricted and my heart is cold. I have known all along, so why is my breathing constricted and my heart cold? It is late afternoon and the hunger that had been building inside me since 10 in the morning has now demised tragically. I rejected a momo lunch, a rash decision influenced by emotional unstability which i will regret later, but the point is, that's how upset I am.
Oh crap! I'm tearing up now.

The chill has spread to the pit of my stomach and filled the void in there, and my fingers have turned a strange hue of blue. The same blue that tints the face of the dead. The screen is blurring before me, and lines are merging into the other. I have been disturbed by the obvious, a silent truth we knew. But the truth is made of stuff so potent, the effect of which is catalysed when voiced and then life is white. A red stain seeps onto the pristine canvas, as a thousand pins puncture my heart.


Three days later.


My fingers have regained their colour and the pit of my stomach is warm and replete. My heart now feels like a frozen hunk of lamb with puncture marks that ache every time I sigh and a slight yellowing that comes with every aging bruise. I have now touched a comfortable numbness and it's good. Well, it is not a place i would voluntarily want to be in, but it's good.

The feeling is almost baptismal, not in the religious admission of Jesus Christ as God kind of way, but in a metaphorical sense. Relinquishment of the old life I knew and acceptance of a new life I have to know. So after a few too many angsty songs and regaining conrol over my lachrymal tendencies I can say with confidence, "I'm all over it now, I can't say how glad I am about that."

Blackjack

21 years old, educated, gainfully employed, fully recovered from one failed relationship and dabbling in several others. I am not gloating, but I have to say, I love my life!

Musings of my Manic Mind - Part I

I laughed as I stabbed you in the back
I watched as you lay bleeding black
My hands now coloured, my lips blue
I fall on my knees and say a prayer for you
Eternal rest grant unto him o Lord
And let perpetual light shine upon him
I look to the heavens searching for an answer
Dejected I turn and in silence embrace her.

A bitch, a liar, a tramp, a whore,
An angel, his sweetheart, his lover and more,
I stabbed I watched him die, my hands are stained,
All the waters of Neptune cannot wash it away.

I laughed as I stabbed you in the back,
I watched as you lay bleeding black
I turned to go I close the door
My step it faltered as I shed a tear
Turning to my Lady I called out to her
Crying, sobbing and wailing I swore
Smiling I slipped my hand in my pocket
Gleaming blood and glistening steel my knife was secure.

Haagen Dazs can buy Happiness

The cookies and cream softness merged with my tongue and did the tango with my buds, my palette smeared with the creamy colours of off-white speckled with deep brown bits of cookie. Was it an Oreo? Or Nestle? Or maybe it was the chocolatey goodness of some very exotic Belgian cocoa. Eyes closed, my lips were pursed to lock in the warmth of the frozen milk that flooded my mouth. The steel glinted viciously as it dug into the tub a second time creating a second crater and the spoon found its way back into my mouth carrying a majestic little blob of heaven.
My weapon of cream destruction found another victim, this time a virgin tub filled with the goodness of strawberries and cream. 'ATTACK' signaled my brain, and my hand moved forth in a swift, streamlined motion that cleaved the thick air that seemed to protect the untouched tub.
Scoop. Savour. Swallow.
My tongue sang praises in my honour, and my brain froze in sweet, sweet orgasmic delight. The ever so slightly sour tang of the fruit blended with whole milk assailed my senses and showed me ecstasy in close quarters.
"Hagen Dazs....." whispered my senses with a little sigh; my shoulders slouched easing my edgy nerves who until now were under the strain of deadlines and unwritten copies.
"Six hundred and fifty rupees!" the shriek sounded groggy to my intoxicated ears. "Six hundred and fifty rupees!" another shriek reiterated, this time I heard it, loud and shrieky. My eyes awake, my brain followed suit. "Six hundred and fifty rupees!" I heard myself shriek. For less than half litre of heaven frozen and sold in little tubs, a tub that carried a sin more delicious and potent than the forbidden apple there was a price, an obscene one.
The package was delivered to the office by two PR agents, who were shamelessly whoring this Mata Hari in an effort to get rave reviews in the weeks' Saturday supplement. My senses which were still reeling in the bliss I fed myself quickly found their bearings and the edginess that was temporarily lifted found its rightful place again, in my neck and nerves.
The happiness I knew fifteen seconds back still lingered like a forgotten lover, and I smiled. The reality of the price tag soured the smile. The old fool who said money can't buy happiness was definitely poor. Today in decadence I found happiness, in the expensive taste of indulgence I was content. Money brought for me happiness, a happiness I cannot afford.

Lolita, Lost and Found

When I was 16 years old I was prompted to think by a 32 year old stranger, and out of my tender, yet unspoiled mind came ideas and thoughts that surprised me and intrigued him. I was listening, learning, responding intelligently and asking all the correct questions. This I know with a certainty that is so absolute, because I got his attention. The interest he showed in me became the confidence that was missing in my life until then and all the pimply pre-pubescent boys with their barely there facial hair, caught in between adolescence and puberty that my peers showed interest in failed to spark anything in me. I was already burning with opinions that mattered and emotions that was beyond any of them.
I reveled in the interest he clothed me with and I reciprocated. We talked about the weather and religion and books and politics. I sponged in every word he said and he became my Bible. When this respect became attraction I don’t know. But I was undeniably attracted to this stranger, this stranger who taught me to seek, and taught me to question, this stranger who I had never seen. I found in me an intelligence I never knew I was capable of, and in between all this I discovered a power that could ruin a life.
That intellectual affair never ended, it became a dormant part of my secret past. A surreptitious flicker and gone again. In the time he went my growth stagnated, and my mind ceased to explore. I had forgotten the beauty of words strung together in a dance so seductive, I never remembered the pleasure I found in the banter of a counter culturalist, and I had hidden from me what had become my essence.
He is getting married.
Five years later I found my missing whole in an instant message and it was reduced to rust in another. When we talk my mind flashes back and I am 16 again. But a 16 year old whose voice is laced with languor and words supported by a confidence she mastered over the years. He reads the change in my tone and my choice of words. I concur. The evolution is apparent, but it will never be sufficient. “You’re still too young for me,” and just like that it was broken.
Five years back I fell in love, a premature love beyond my years, one that a 16 year old grown up understood

Goddamn Vodafone and their stupid pug perfect campaigns

When I left home to come to Delhi never did I fathom the tragedy that was about to alter the very fundamentals of my life.

Life as I knew it had died. Suffocated by the carpeted floors and summoning bells of the bureaucracy. I would wait listlessly for the time I could leave the house. The heat would sear my skin but the freedom to run, shout or even talk above 5 decibels thrilled me and allowed me to continue the life I had left off, waiting but not forgotten, at the entrance of No.3, The President’s Estate.

As I turn the circle that hails the edifice, the hands go for my pipes and an avalanche of a million tiny pebbles of fear automatically land-slide in the pit of my stomach. I can feel every constriction in my throat in between the futile attempts I make to desperately find the air that eludes me.

I enter the antechamber, and the folded hand greeting of a man, two score older than me ensure that the supply of blood has been cut off to the capillaries in my chest. I make my way into the house, and the carpeted floor muffles any sound that might have helped shatter the silence that seems to have permanently damaged my auditory organs. Over-stuffed furniture, upholstered in bitchy beige silk welcome me with a smugness that made me want to set her on fire.

The only being in that house that seems to share the same joi de vivre and enthusiasm for life as me, or in the entire household shows any excitement of my being there is Ruby, the pet pug, who I highly suspect feeds on Gatorade and Snicker bars (if this is true, her affections for me don’t count). If you thought the Energiser bunnies were annoying, she is a thousand of them encased in pug’s clothing, and she loves me. She follows me around, jumps into my bed, licks my face when I’m sleeping, and nibbles at my toes under the dinner table.

I hate her! I hate the feeling her teeth leave when she gnaws at my shins, I hate the wetness of her nose, I hate the sound of her perpetual panting, and the pinkness of her tongue that can’t find any place inside her mouth. I hate the warmth of her body, and her excitement when she runs around in circles trying to snap off her tail.

I envy her! I envy the fact that she pants louder than the decibel level maintained for speech inside the house, I envy that a twig can entertain her for at least four hours, I envy that she can run around the house not giving a damn that someone might think of her as uncouth, and most of all I envy the fact that she doesn’t need to feel judged when she picks up the wrong fork to eat dessert.

Everything about her sends me into an almost post partum-esque tizzy. She means well, she does, and it’s not her fault. “It’s not you Rube, it’s me.”