Playlist of the Day

These are the Malayalam tracks that I'm listening to right now at raagaonline:

1. Chandana Cholayil from Sallapam
2. Mounasarovarom from Savidham
3. Pathiramazhayetho from Ulladakam
4. Saagarangale Paadi from Panjagni
5. Manjal Prasadavum from Nakhaksthangal
   

Empty Pages

A page a day was a dream,
Except on space-less Sundays
Which had no blank pages
In my diary with green cover.

I bought this at first sight,
When this shade of green
Brought back to my mind,
The sheen of a river green.

This river in a distant land,
Shimmers in sunlight,
Flows with a graceful ease
Unlike these words.

For words have seasons;
They've dried up with years.

Opportunities

There are days when life is swamped by opportunities and lack of them at the same time. Like there are two three people ringing you up with some project or the other that has to be completed simultaneously. Sometimes all turn out to be in vain as well. But who can explain such a phenomenon of attracting several possibilities at the same time, all glittering and bright; only to feel the pain of rejection.

novel

I like reading about authors and how they create their works. Earlier, I wanted to write a novel that contained the best possible writing that I could do. But somehow writing a novel looks like a daunting task now because of its too time consuming and I realise as years pass by that I'm turning too unimaginative for such a kind of literary effort.

This is no sob story; but that kind of visualisation or imagination is not there with me right now. But even this hue and cry about being a kind of literary failure is illogical; but that's what makes me churn out all these words right now. Reading about NaNaWriMo has spurred this outburst; mainly because there are people who try and fail; but I sadly belong to those set of people who logically analyse the probabilities of winning and never try.

Scattered thoughts from a rambling pen

I don't know when this started; but somehow life has fallen into a maze. The main thing that I notice about it is the simple inability to put things in their right places; like a disordered life, a disordered mind and a disordered room. It's like I know what's wrong but lack the energy to lift a book that has fallen from the table, to set right a calendar that runs two months late and many other lazinesses.

May be it's my health or may be just inertia. But there are things that interest me everyday like getting up in the morning and checking mail ( or reading the newspapers) first thing in the morning. Earlier as a young maiden, I was a orderliness freak that could make my classmates cry in amazement- easily readable home-made labels on bookspines, file divisions for subjects, cleanliness, lists and what-not.

Now, life is full of inertia. Add to it, the pain in my shoulders when I strain myself for a long time. Never thought of it as a serious medical problem or anything but that prevents me from doing quite a lot of things that I want to do. Still at some invisible level, there is an order to days; an invisible level of control that keeps a check on reality and divides all the chores into the urgent and unimportant.

But a few tasks like folding clothes or doing a complete cleaning session of the room and all its contents is too improbable; for they are made of tiny ignored tasks that piled up one on the other.
May be writing it out helps this inertia a little!

Words at midnight

At times, I have found out that my otherwise lazy mind works overtime at night and produces word after word in perfect order as if somebody was using my mind as a blank page to write upon. At such times, I feel that even if I record these words, I might not be able to record them all.

Last night was such a night and I couldn't sleep at all, thinking of all the unwritten words. When I finally put them to shape, they had lost their original magic. Just words on why I cannot write as I could do earlier. So if at all I write a classic that will definitely be titled "My story about why did not succeed as writer, person, teacher or a social being!" Amen!

Senile

He sits silent in his favourite armchair. No words, nothing ever comes out of him. One so famous for order and discipline, now sits crouched in a corner. His senses have discarded him.

Now and then, he poses a question about the time, place and welfare of his kids. Some pretend not to have heard him. But when a fond face steps before him, though it has grown much in age and in pain, his dispassionate face breaks into a smile and he asks: “When did you come?”

Once more an era steps before him when he danced to the whims of a fatherless little girl who watched television sitting in his lap, for whom he bought sweets that vanished in a few minutes and with whom he wandered in this new city.

All the stories that are told about his partial loss of memory, his absent-mindedness and lack of consciousness are proved wrong when I, who call him Bapu, may be the first grand-daughter who named a grandfather (with a name that he used to sign his letters) steps into his view.