These days

There may be millions of people in this world;

The count increasing second by second daily;

Millions, I hardly know; thousands neither,

But these days, what I want to study is, you.

There may be many songs that I have heard;

Countless in number, peppy, soulful or sad;

But these days, don’t want anything except

The song you were humming all day long.

These days, when togetherness is what matters,

I want to trace your contours with my fingers

I want to feel the warm love-light in your eyes,

And make you my entire world, my soul melody.

Medicines and remedies, there may be around;

But these days, the only cure that I have is you.

Evening View

Summer shower

Come to me in a summer shower

When the clouds burst in thunder

When the earth dances with the sky

Come here, come here, come here,

With your hair wet

With your eyes tender

Come home to me.

Come to me in a summer shower

When the clouds burst in thunder

When the earth dances with joy

Come here, come here, come here,

With your heart desirous

With your fond words

Come home to me.

Calculations

For you and me, the numbers are important. We spent most of our days counting and performing the basic acts of arithmetic. Neither your joy nor your sorrows reach me except as vague waves of depression that may be carried into the next age as well.

It has happened more than a single time that the numbers showed how between the cup and the lip, a victory was lost and a dream was crushed into nothingness.

This mad heart still loves to make vague calculations that makes it easy to swallow the hurt and the pain of the past and the present that never lets it be. This dream might appear after a century or never but the days are full of expectations and the nights full of longing.

Whatever time may bring, the days are spent in tying a few words together that appear without embellishments but form a perfect crown of flowers for my king. These are seen by many as calculations meant to trap or attract but this heart knows well that they are calculations to write away a foolish love.

My River Green

The river flows, the first memory in mind,
A huge sheet of green glass; not blue hue,
Like they do in usual children’s watercolours,
A shade of muddy green with trees around. 

It’s Onam, the spring is here, day bright,
We run to the songs from the snakeboats;
We forget our food and rush to the middle
Much to the angst of our seething mother.

Again, we run to watch the fast snakeboats
Rushing to the beat of the peppy boatsong,
The sun shining against our tired eyes,
Then playing in the water for hours long.

A taste of childhood, onasadyas from home,
So long, so far, from the present lone time.

Heathcliff

My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being. So don't talk of our separation again: it is impracticable. 

When the snows fall and the cold bites hard
When the winds are rough in dark wintry nights,
He walks in the moors calling out her name,
One who loved him like the rocks underneath;

When her father brought him home one day
He was just a wild-haired gypsy child; sullen,
He loved her and rose up in life just to gain her,
While her own brother brought him up low.

He loved her more than his own dark self;
She chose not him but a wealthy gentleman;
He came back and drove her to madness
And lies buried next to her and her mate.

Many have heard them together laugh and sing
In dark wintry nights, gathering snowflakes.

Bangles

Looking at her hands, Akash asked her, “Why don’t you wear any bangles? If you want I will buy you a few. Do you like glass bangles?”

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you? The moment I said yes you have started behaving like a nut! I should have known. Why do you want to change me?”Meera said in an angry voice. 

“Oh, you look so pretty when you get angry”, he said and she laughed and walked away. As she was walking away from that favourite meeting place in the college campus, beneath the tamarind tree, she just looked at her thin arms. Why no bangles? Akash had already told her that she was a tomboy, more like man with no qualms about most things that girls would worry about. 

In the evening, Akash was again at the favourite spot beneath the tamarind tree. She thought, now he will call me a manly woman, an amazon and so on. As he came near her, he just waved his hands and she saw that he had red and green glass bangles in his hands. 

“If you are not wearing them, I am going to. A womanly man for a manly woman”. Meera laughed and tried to snatch it away from him. Finally, when she managed to snatch it out of his hands, a few of them had already broken. “Now, I will have to marry you”. Both of them laughed as it was a line from a lovestory that both of them had read together.

Better Tomorrow

Looking at her hands, Akash asked her, “Why don’t you wear any bangles? If you want I will buy you a few. Do you like glass bangles?”

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you? The moment I said yes you have started behaving like a nut! I should have known. Why do you want to change me?”Meera said in an angry voice. 

“Oh, you look so pretty when you get angry”, he said and she laughed and walked away. As she was walking away from that favourite meeting place in the college campus, beneath the tamarind tree, she just looked at her thin arms. Why no bangles? Akash had already told her that she was a tomboy, more like man with no qualms about most things that girls would worry about. Bangles? 

In the History of the world class, her mind drifted to a memory. It was so clear before her eyes. When she was fifteen, when she was at school, she had gone with her mother to a reputed gold shop in the city. 

It was the first time that she had been inside a gold shop. This much of gold in so many forms, it amazed her. So did the cash counting machine at the counter. Her mother showed her a beautiful pair of bangles among the display items and asked her, “Do you like them?”

 Meera was surprised that it was for her. May be something to do with the fact that she had become a woman recently. Girls were gifted so many things and fed so many things. But being away in the city with not many relatives around, nothing had happened and she had gone to school as usual. 

“Try it on”, the salesman was offering it to her. She put them on and suddenly was dazzled by the beauty of her frail hands with these pretty bangles on. 

“Those look really good on her hands. By the way do you accept credit cards?”?The salesman nodded and her mother was already at the counter signing the bill. “let them remain on her hands, okay”, she told the salesman. Meera was shocked and soon they were out of the shop walking along the busy street. 

Mother was holding Meera’s hand and told her, “Now dear, we have to go and sell this to the shop over there. I have to give some money back to your aunt. I had taken it from her some two months back when I was not well and couldn’t go for work. She has been pestering me for it because her son’s first birthday is this week and she wants to give a big party”. 

“Doesn’t she have any other money with her?”, Meera said. She knew her aunt had lots of money buying clothes every other week, travelling with her children and her house full of guests. Why did she give the money if she wanted it back so soon? 

“See dear, I have just got my salary this month and I have lots of debts to clear. I cannot ask anybody. If I do this gold business, I don’t have to ask anybody, just pay back the bank in installments. It may be a loss financially but not a loss of my self-respect”, mother said. Her whole manner was so serious as if she was talking to an adult and not to a fifteen year old kid hardly aware of anything. 

As they entered the next shop, mother told the shopkeeper quietly, “I want to sell two bangles”. The shopkeeper looked with surprise as she showed the bangles on her daughter’s hands. Glistening, new and lovely. “Are you sure, madam ? They look new and look beautiful on her fair hands”. 

Mother, always to the point and proud just said, “Meera, give them to him”. Now, he went to the gold weighing machine and weighed the bangles, rubbed them against some stone to check the purity and finally said, “Madam, you won’t get bangles like these anywhere. But I cannot give you the full price. Only four thousand rupees for both of them”. 

Meera just looked at her mother. She had seen the bill signed at six thousand and she knew that her mother would be losing a lot of money through this transaction. But her mother was quick and she kept on looking at the bangles on the counter. 

Back home, she could not forget the feel of those shiny bangles against her wrists and how fair and beautiful her wrists had looked all on a sudden. Even her tiny blue veins on her wrists had looked lovely against the shine of those bangles. 

In the evening, her aunt came with her children. Usually she is fun with the children but now she saw them in a different light. All new clothes and gold and rich manners, but no love for her mother who has just recovered from her hysterectomy. She saw her aunt take the money from her mother and she was counting it. “Oh, I was so worried about how to get money for Deepak’s birthday and Chacha was pestering me about the money I had given you”. 

 Mother went on with the talking as if nothing had happened and it irritated Meera that she did not mention how she got the money. Was it not enough that her mother was a widow who lifted the entire burden of her family on her frail shoulders and to listen to all this nonsense. She wanted to make it all right in the future. There has to be a better tomorrow when she can prove it to her aunt and everybody around her that life is not about spending money on clothes or on throwing big parties for people you hardly care about. 

 Meera heard the bell and walked out of the class. Akash was again at the favourite spot beneath the tamarind tree. She thought, now he will call me a manly woman, an amazon and so on. As he came near her, he just waved his hands and she saw that he had red and green glass bangles in his hands. 

“If you are not wearing them, I am going to. A womanly man for a manly woman”. Meera laughed and tried to snatch it away from him. Finally, when she managed to snatch it out of his hands, a few of them had already broken. “Now, I will have to marry you”. Both of them laughed as it was a line from a lovestory that both of them had read together.

Better Tomorrow

In the campus, this seat beneath the tamarind tree is usually unusually crowded. The noises were scary at first, guys singing songs to the girls who walked past them. In some quiet places, you could spot young couples talking as well. But today, being a hartal, there were not many around. She went and sat on the steps beneath the tamarind tree. From where she sat, she could see the canteen and the MA classrooms. 

Third day at college. Already she has made friends with half the class, with the canteen manager and with the co-operative society guy. At hostel, she knew the names of almost all the girls on her floor. She opted for a single room as she wanted to read as much as possible in order to be the writer of her dreams. Having another girl in the same room might lead only to those interminable conversations as she used to have during her eleventh and twelfth classes. 

Her friend from school Anusha was in the same class as hers. Both had opted for BA in English as they both loved reading. But Anusha was quite unlike her. Happy, cheerful and fun. Meera always opted for the hostel as she hated home. Her parents quarrelled from, morning till night and it was very difficult for her to concentrate on studies. She empathised with people all over the world who lived in war zones. They never knew anyday what was going to befall them. 

These were her thoughts as she was sitting in the class when RJK was narrating a particularly interesting question. “For example, you take a lot of things for granted. Like home. Does anybody doubt that when you get back home it won’t be there any longer?” There was a pause as it was a rhetorical question. “No, right?”. Meera suddenly was distracted and she was not able to concentrate for the rest of the time. 

“It was a horror, going back home on weekends, she told Anusha. “It’s like I’m going to face a death sentence or something. When I reach the gate, it’s like I’m dragging myself into it. Monday comes and again the sun shines”. 

Just in front of the hostel, they saw Aparna, the college beauty talking to a tall guy dressed in black. As he turned, Meera was surprised. She had seen him in front of the MA class on the last three days. He smiled. She thought for a second and smiled. “Oh, you have already made friends?” Anusha teased. Then to her surprise, this guy walked towards her and said, “ Did you study at Trinity?”. Even before she could answer, he said, “ I’m Pradeep. I was your brother’s classmate. Now you remember?” Now it became clear to her why this guy had looked familiar. But Pradeep, her brother’s classmate was a geek not the stunner that this guy was.

As she walked away from Anusha, she was thinking. At times the heart is so crazy. During her school days, she was feeling lonely and sad. A stranger in a strange land, she had felt amidst the crowd when she joined her eleventh class at the new school. After the first term, a miracle came in the form of Anusha, whose mother had a transfer and had joined the new school. It was like she was dropped from the sky to be Meera’s companion. 

As she took out her books for reading, she felt a strange feeling. It was the metaphysical question of home that made her upset. When she gets married, she will not fight like this, she made a firm resolution in her mind.

Moving on

All the verbs have gone away
Cook, love, like, forget, forgive-
The million contradictions
To believe or not to believe
To love or not to love
To hate or not to hate
To smile or not to smile
To talk or not to talk

To move on out of this rut
We need a brand new day
Without barriers imposed:
To give birth to fantasies
That relieve even pain
All the million contradictions
Answered by wisdom
And not by rules of others

May be it would have been
Made so simple if instead
Of silence I had asked,
What you wanted from me?
The days have fled fast
Without my verbs to do
And another contradiction
That needs moving on

A Lady of Humour

She is a presence, this lady of honour and humour.

She winks at me and tells me of a prize she offered

To you, who loved me more than anything else.

But you despaired and refused in your naivete,

And tormented yourself with many imaginings

While what we needed was a sacred space.

The world has put wagers on you and me;

But she tells me of a clue in her future tense

And I cackle with laughter over what is lost. 

An era of silence

The candle had burnt for two long years

The prayers countless that passed these lips;

So many scoldings that the ears pained to,

So many thrashings that this body bore.

All without a word of encouragement

A word of love or a word of consolation,

In those days when I was playing with fire

Much against my reason or my own will.

Afterwards the days turned into darkness

The lips stopped moving for miracles

For no molehills forget a mountain,

God was buried in those four walls.

You took away with you God and song

But now it’s all water under the bridge. 

Free Bird

A free bird flies in our blue grey skies

Seeking attention from the denizens;

All ears for tales of laughter and tears

Passing around free observations

He doesn’t sit on any branch too long

For fear that his heart may sing along

The many songs that he listens to

From the maidens whom he does woo

His friend is a bluebird of the skies

Who looks out for his loving jay

Though any day he can fly away

And make his nest in happy boughs.

The blue grey skies are made worth

One of pure devotion; one of mirth.