Siege

Minds protected from new thoughts by ten-foot thick walls.
Ears with the newest selective-blocking systems, ideal for not listening to what you don't want to hear.
A complete arsenal, replete with insults meant to be compliments, maximum strength.
Archers ready at the window-slits, and boiling oil poised over the archways, God forbid any possibilities for change or progress should enter.
And what armour ! Steel-plated breastplates of Certified Good Intentions, and shields of Older Therefore Wiser.
And spears of God Wills It, when nothing of the sort has been indicated by divine communication.
And most important of all, the resolve of It's Always Been Done Just So.

Impregnable.

tomorrow

oh god. tomorrow.
there will be running and jumping and screaming.
there will be hoarseness and sportsmanship, and competition in unexected capacities.
there will be laughing, and rejoicing, at pointless things.
there will be numbers on a blackboard, growing or staying the same.
these numbers will determine the ebb and flow of emotions.
there will be racing pulses, and racing people, and cups and speeches and the victory stand.
as there always is.
it will be important.
it isn't, usually.

groan.

and then, relief.
no more running around, or shouldering myself into conversations, in desperate (and rather pathetic) emulation of the Fellow of Delicacy.
no more fiercely raging redness.
no more coaxing and bantering, no more being nice to pesky littles.
no more pushing myself, relentlessly ignoring reluctance.
no viciously pointful running and throwing and jumping.
a little higher, a little faster, a little better, you can do it.

after this, peace.
and doing things suitable.
ah.

today

people are going mad.
not the nice, loopy, us-sort-of mad.
a dangerous, boiling, menacing kind of mad.
the communal violence kind.
the hateful kind.
the scary kind.
they burn buses when they're like this.
people die when they're like this.
the world slows to a crawl, and plays every horrific moment in slow motion to drive it in when they're like this.

a little girl in a red coat stands while her world is swept away.
shots cry, people fall.
a pile of lifeless forms is pushed into a giant, burning pitfull.
a little red coat is visible, just for a moment, among them.
massacre.

i was hoping we had progressed from then.
but it's the same thing.
again and again.
humans prove they're not worth their own abilities.
shiver.

Crowdy

A crowded hall.
All push and rush and impatience.
She hesitates to step in.
To elbow her way to the counter
And wriggle through bodies to the stairs.
And argue for her seat inside.
She knows nobody.
She longs for the friendly arm.
The familiar voice.
Someone.
For when she steps inside
She fears not losing them,
But losing herself.

Pujo boredom

Terribly bored. Noone is ever posting anything during Pujo. I am only sitting at home and staring at silly computer screen. Rest everyone is partying and pandal-hopping, holidaying and binge-shopping.
I am not very exciting person. I sit, I sleep, I eat (combined effect of these is my appearance) and I sometimes laugh, sometimes cry. It is not helping though, the laughing or the crying. I am still here only. No change. No great and profound turnaround in general lifestyle, as is happening in the movies- heroine sits all by herself, hero comes to save her from self, both ride away into sunset after boisterous fight scene. I do not know whether I want such a filmi climax, but am halfway there already, I am thinking. Sitting alone, check. Looking like after fight scene, check (one red eye- don't even ask why) - only lacking is hero and riding off. The way I am seeing it going, if
hero does come, I will beat him up for lateness, steal his horse and leave him to be rescued by new-age emancipated woman in high-speed motorcar. They will zoom off into sunset, I will set horse free, and sit and be lonely all over again. That should teach such officious fool of a hero.
This is inevitable end. I am like that only, so end must be like that only. Much depends on heroine's character in these new-age emancipated movies and the days of Fairer Sex, Stronger Sex. Though Fair and Lovely Menz Activ may rob them of 'fairer sex' title soon.
In imagination, all this has been happening. Atleast there I am an exciting one. But that is also now finished, and I am back to square one. Perhaps square before one even, because now the idea has become khattam kahani.

Still bored.

Free again

The damned ordeal is over.

I've wandered the place now, my mind free from the desk and chair and monotonous textbooks, a whole pile of them now in the corner of the desk, edgily looking at me as though they don't know what I'll do and looking all tottery.
I'm past caring. I'm also past past caring. I'm currently wondering where that is. Wandering the house barefoot, looking at things, as though I'm just passing through. Right through them and everything, over to the other side. The other side of this fence, which is just the same side of the next fence, only I don't realise it yet, because I can't see the fence. so I keep jumping, like the silly sheep that never helped anyone to sleep, because they get so damned interesting- this one a bit fuzzy, but thin inside- you can tell- and the next one that does a hoppity-skip before taking the leap. And then there's the wondering about whether you should recycle them or make some new ones. And if you decide to recycle them, you can't remember what exactly they looked like before, and so they end up somehow different anyway.They really keep you awake, those damned sheep. I'm a sheep in the Chinese horoscopes, also known as a goat I believe. And the funny thing, the thing that keeps me awake most of all, is what the sheep are thinking. They're not really so silly when you hear that. Sometimes they're thinking what I'm thinking. Then I have a conversation with each one, and I don't ask them why they jump the fence. Such a boring question. I discuss things with them- musical preferences, and parakeets(such a colourful thought...) and whether they think being singular and plural at the same time is funny and silly or not. They're really very interesting, those sleep sheep, and they always leave me wide awake.
I am wide awake. It's just that my thought processes are so random and irregular that it's like being asleep. I wonder which it is more like, waking or sleeping. Not that it matters, though. I can do what I like now. Exams are done.

He's dead.

Winning

Finally.
Joy, trickling to every corner of me.
Happiness breaking out in little thrills that run around inside me, in tiny firework-showers of delight.
Feel like jumping.
And singing.
And yelling.
And dancing.
Simply must dance.
Now.
Here.
Try a funny little jig in heavy-heely shoes.
Not nice.
Must get rid of shoes.
Ok.
Fling them.
Now.
Now dance.
No partner.
When has that ever been a problem ?
Right. Dance.
Hop, hop, wiggle.
Squiggly-wiggle, leap, laugh.
Twist and jump, and turn and grin.
At the world in general, because we've won.
We've WON !!
(ok, so we didn't win. But we kind of did. ok, we didn't. but never mind.)
Jump on Marchhare.
Mock Turtle is standing, lost, grinning in a weak, mock-turtley sort of way.
(Judges were good. Yeah, especially since they made us win...)
And the Chessy cat ? Off again. But grinning still.
And Alice is about, who brought her umbrella to the stage.
And we ?
We're off to Dinner, to feel important.
Skipping all the way.
Can't dance there.
Nope.
So I'm here.
Squiggle, twist, hop.
And of course, smile.

Hold it.

Oh no.
Wait. Wait.
You're off.
And I'm not.
I'm here.
Wait.
Hold it.
Can't go that fast.
You know I never could.
You've always made fun of just that.
But short legs- they do that to you.
Unfair.
Don't .
Please.
How am I supposed to catch you ?
You're already a matchstick with legs
And shrinking fast.
Oh God.
Can't breathe.
Yes, yes, I know that.
I'm unfit.
Laugh it up.
Very funny.
Laugh all you want.
As long as you stop to do it.
You won't, will you ?
I think I knew you wouldn't.
I knew it.
That you'd just go off.
Veering in another direction.
I'm just headed straight on.
So where are you going ?
Yor probably can't even hear me.
I don't know why I'm still yelling.
Hoping you can hear.
More wishing you could, really.
I know you can't.
Not the long-gone speck, of course not.
I'll keep looking at where you disappeared.
And I'll wonder where you went.
And why you didn't wait.
And why you didn't hear.
I'll wonder,
As I jog off my own way.
Not trying to catch up
Because I don't want to.
I never did, I think.
And I never would, even if I could.
And that's alright.

Awful.
The stunned silence
And forced clapping
Awkwardly followed each other.
Everyone else thought so too.

Cold stillness
Punctuated by that condescending grin
That I wanted to punch.
Punch really hard.
And knock out those uneven bad teeth.
And that irritating grin along with it.
Damn Doctor Daeng.
And his rural crew.
And the audience laughing on cue
At nothing.

We looked on, numb,
As They lost
And they won.
And it went all wrong.

Better for us-
We felt better-
But the World went all wrong.
And my faith in It's been gone
Ever since.

A Picture in watercolour by Tennyson.

The fire had come and gone.
The gold sparkled, among the serene greens and pinks and forgotten yellows of the countryside.
Waterlilies glistened pale, white and yellow and forgetful, on the banks.
The willows bent right over and wept their long, slow tears into their rippling selves below.
Their long, gentle drooping branches formed an arch beneath whish she walked to the shore.
There, gently bobbing on stray ripples in the fold of a willow-root, was a little gray boat.
It gleamed faintly, she stepped in, and then it made a foray into mid-current.
She looked up, for a second, looking quietly around, like a blind man who does realise he is blind.
She lay down, her motion barely disturbing the boat, which drifted, as in a dream, slowly downstream.
And then she sang.
A haunting tune, a simple tune, continuous somehow with the autumn and the dusk.
The pale, fading evening was her song, that fades into night without a break.
It sounded in the ears of the methodical reapers, and it seemed to them to go on, even after night had fallen upon them, and the sound had gone from the fields and the sky.
The boat floated on, the deep grey currents and eddies carried it on.
The gray houses rose out of the imminent darkness.
The song was in the air, and in the water, and in her white face and streaming hair.
The paleness of her cheek was silence.
Dark grey shapes of men gathered by the riverside to watch her pass.
The murmured darkly and their hands formed crosses in the half-light.
She did not hear.
It seemed, as she passed, the dancing candles were snuffed out.
The city, poised in celebration, took up her silence.
Grey mist entered the air, and the faces, and the thoughts, of all but one.
He looked with thoughtful face upon the lost beauty drifting past.
He whispered a blessing;
A cloud was over the sun.

Moon tonight.

The clouds were all round the moon tonight.
They spiralled around her, pale in reflected glow, and formed a tunnel to the moon.
And I felt that if I just kept walking, the pull of that soft white glow would lift me up, past the garden wall and the maroo house opposite, past the far-away palm tree and etceteras, right into that tunnel. And I'd get to discover it all.
But I was too scared. I didn't walk, for fear I'd hit the wall. For fear, the tunnel would give way beneath my feet, and I'd fall, with the etceteras and maroo house watching, down to the hard reality of the pavement and tarred roads. They've even lopped off the branches of the neighbours' spreading tree, so there'll be nothing to catch me.
Who ? Those corporation fellows, of course. The ones officious enough to chop off the branches, but awful enough to leave them in the street. And I showed what I thought of them, righrt out there on my face. Everyone else nearly died of mortification.
So, I just looked, then lowered my eyes and locked the garden gate. The grilles barred it all right out of reach. I felt awful. And the lady serene in the sky looked at me with her wise eyes, and she smiled, and then it hurt all the more that I couldn't face the garden wall. I couldn't. I can't yet. And she's already forgiven me all of it, that's the worst. It's like she knows all the crime I'm going to commit. And I've hung my head.

Tired.

I'm tired now.
Not anything else, not angry or depressed or impatient.
Just tired.
My body doesn't cry out for rest,
But it's a deep heaviness in every bone and muscle.
My mind is not throwing in the towel temporarily,
And deserting me for sleep,
But it processes things slowly,
Taking the longest time over the thought of its own tiredness.
A long, light, greyish feeling is spread all over my brain.
Like old cotton padding, slowing everything down.
All the feelings of the day have gone.
That part of me is empty, but it doesn't feel like a gaping hole.
I just feel lighter.
I've left even the day behind.
A long slow weariness.
An enfolding by rest and the comfortable position.
Yawn.
There I go.

The Wind

She rose early. Very early, when the first streaks of light were coming into the sky. The sight was magical across the expanse of sky and plain that she called home. She stood in the middle of an open place, and felt faint dawn breezes playing with her hair, and making her want to dance. She did, and so did the pale gold boy far out on the plain, who was laughing at her. And they were both laughing at everyone else. The plain rolled empty away in every direction, and the first streaks of sunlight laughed at the plain and the sky, and the world was full of joy.
She laughed inside all day, the brown boy that stood silently some way away as she worked the fields in the hot sunshine saw it, but noone else did. He smiled, and a cool breeze stole away the cruelty from the air, and some of the colour in her cheek.
The sun did not die magnificently, he slowly faded, a lingering passing, and she watched in mute understanding. The wind pulled her away, the insistent touch on her body called her to follow the path it ran across the sky. She smiled and looked at him- he ran lightly, his body beautiful with joy. She stood still and watched, though the joy she had held within her streamed away to join him on the backdrop of infinite skies, and coloured in all the hues, coincidentally, of the sunset.
That night, the storm tore around the house, she watched the violent movements that assaulted the darkness and made the house the intolerable evil. They did not notice when she left the house, the sounds outside blocked everything out. She saw, walking out onto the plain, the dark man waiting for her silently, like a magnet drawing her into the heart of the storm. His black eyes danced now, the gale blew until her clothes flapped like a pennant on the crest of a hill. The lighting flashed once, threatening to split the sky wide open. It didn't.
The next morning, looking at her, they noticed she had been out into the night. Her appearance was as usual, but she never would come back. The winds had claimed her soul.

Indecision

The world whirled around her
Dizzying heights and disappointing lows
The winds blew her to a place she knew
Perhaps from a dream, or maybe not.
Deja-vu or Presque-vu or something else entirely.
It made no difference.
She watched with a blank face
While her mind rose up and danced away.
She put her foot out,
And stepped up to the height,
Of the expectations,
And then the world she knew settled into simple dimensions
Not whirls and streaks, like Impressionist blurs.
Just lines and outlines, and colour in between,
And she knew she was back
Somewhere she understood.
She tried, she fought
Herself and everything else,
She didn't understand why she had to.
But she did.
And do you know what ?
She won.

It's a happy ending.
Maybe.
For when one part of you wins and another loses,
Can you consider it a victory for yourself ?
She couldn't decide.
Stalemate.
Again.

Stage

A little girl looked at the stage
A big, lighted up place
A lot of people on it
Talking very loudly-
she could hear them all the way over here.
They looked small
No bigger than a little bit of her little finger.
But they seemed very big
And she wondered why.
She wanted to be up there too.

She stood on the big, wide stage
That stretched away on either side
And though she strained her eyes,
She couldn't see the end.
She couldn't turn her face.
She looked at the heads down, near the floor-
A lot of little black heads, with little pale faces,
Whiter in the white lights,
All looking at her.
The black, round microphone.
She went near it
Put her hands behind her back
And started to make all the sounds
She'd practised so long.
When she finished, she looked at them again.
They were smiling now, all the little faces.
She couldn't make out their mouths or eyes
But she knew they were smiling at her.
And she felt a proud glow.
She turned away then,
Walking on and on till she came to the end
That she couldn't see.
And when she came down,
She promised herself she would go back again.
She was big there,
Even when she was little.
It was wonderful there-
A little scary and endless,
But wonderful.
She would go back.

Walk down a street in Delhi
-It depends which street-
And either there's no one for miles
Except for some swanky car swooshing past,
Or every passer, in his hurry, shoves you.
I wonder whether I will have to learn
This push around or leave alone
Philosophy to live here,
Or whether it will come naturally.

There is a restaurant without a back. It had a back, it really did, only it doesn't have one anymore. It's like this- There used to be a back wall to this shop, only that back was part of a larger structure, an old building that got broken down to make a big new building. For some time they left the back wall there out of consideration for the shop, but in the end they had to tear it down. They left the front of the shop and the sides intact, because it was an outside wall, and they never tore down outside walls unless the definition of what was to be inside changed.

The shop was on an old street, with very fixed ideas. This street knew for absolutely certain that a shop, even a flower shop, had to have, in addition to flowers or the respective item of produce, a shop-window, two side walls, a roof, and a back wall. They could even omit the side walls and the window, as for the makeshift establishments with plastic sheets over them that solf food on the footpath, but never the roof and never the back wall. The flower shop had committed an error, a greivous error, that like most greivous errors was practically impossible to put right.

It did try. It thought of putting a plastic sheet across the back, but people remarked it would look like a photo studio, and the flowers as though they were posing for a one- minute passport-size, and so that idea was quashed. Then it thought that if you put a lot of flowers on stools across the back, people wouldn't notice the construction site that much, and so they tried it.

Something about the picture of those flowers against the background of a dust-covered, cement-coloured construction site appealed to the shop, and it left it that way, though everyone still noticed the site. These things are impossible to hide anyway, it thought.

The flowers against such a contrasting background looked either brave, in all their glory of colour, defying everything beyond, or pathetic, with a dust-layer beginning to settle on them at any point of time, only flowers against the idea of the great things that were to come up beyond. Both ideas occurred to the flowershop, and that was the reason why it left itself that way, even though the street looked gently disapproving all the time.

Then one day, someone remarked while buying an assortment bouquet, that it looked like a flower-stall rather than a flower shop if you asked her, which nobody had, but she ventured it anyway. The street was sympathetic and slightly triumphant, looking like as many told-you-so's as it might ever have wished to say.
The shop thought it should feel hurt, for a moment it was, but then the sight of the red roses and yellow chrysanthemums and blue-dyed orchids and pink plastic ribbon in the bouquet made it forget, and chuckle. Then the street shook it's head in disapproval and a bit of disappointment, and things forgot all about it and went on.

A feeling

She was soaring.
Every movement looked like a dance,
But a dance controlled, held down.
If it hadn't been held down,
It would have flown away.
And she with it.
Everything was fast, precise.

The power that flowed through her hands as she worked was
A smooth energy with no source
Coming from nowhere
Ending in her,
Collecting in her body
As a wellspring of light.
She could have believed that she was glowing with it.
It couldn't be hidden.

She flew.
Across rooms,
And the people who saw her walk
Thought there was some unreality about it.
It wasn't walking.
Her feet were pressed to the ground,
They moved through space, as everyone's did,
But this could not be walking.
It meant too much.

The pain in her body was real.
But it failed to touch her-
She was gone, and it fell behind.
It didn't matter.

She couldn't understand it,
But she felt it all through her.
She didn't try to explain it.
But, for that day,
She had courage, strength, and a chance.
And joy that gave her hope.

Cyclone

Cyclone.
Whipping wind
Careers around the mango tree,
Whips up the skirts
Of an unsuspecting bamboo
And laughs wildly at the sky.

It is dark.
The clouds are heavy,
Dark, menacing.
Hush.
Whispers
And choruses of whispers
A parliament of leaves protests.
Many fall
Beneath the guillotine
Casualties by the dozen.
Brown and green and yellow.
All over the ground
Sad
Lifeless.
All over the ground.

Windows crash.
A man is hit
By a mango grenade-
Another casualty.

Now there are ripples
Across the face of the tree
And suddenly
An onslaught-
Disturbed seas
-It rears up in dismay
And wails curses
At the passive sky.

The rain is spray
A sheet
And another
Meet,
A fountain is born
In mid-sky.
Light, cold fairy- fingers
Touching warm skin
Leaving goosebumps.

The wind,
Ecstatic,
Whoops and rushes
Through this tree,
Then that;
And at last,
Tired of this,
It is gone.

The bamboo hangs limp,
Weary.
The rain
Falls straight down.
It's tired too.

An ominous silence
And then thunder,
Too late,
Rumbles low
Beneath lightning
That cracks open the sky.
A glimpse of the world beyond.

Now the rain is heavier.
Drops make leaves dance
Beneath fairy footsteps.
White house,
Pale as a ghost
In the grey,
Peeps between
Tree- silhouettes.

A lone bird
Sings in defiance
Then sinks in silence.

Creeping cold
Blankets everything.
City sounds are hushed
As though
Behind a screen.
A telephone
Shatters the moment
And the persistent patter
Fades away.

Back to before...

A drop of rain, and then sheets and sheets.
They were whipped away before they fell,
The wind stole them
To take away to another place.
But it wasn't strong enough.
It isn't, you know.
I told it so, the other day, outside.
It laughed at me,
Imp of a girl, giving it advice.
But under the scornful howl of storms I heard
A miniscule sigh
Barely audible,
But I heard it.
And then, upset with me
For hearing what he hadn't meant to say,
He fled.
The clouds stayed behind.
He forgot to take them along.
They hung about, dejected and pale grey,
All the rest of the afternoon.

What's in a name

Who am I ? I asked wildly of them.

They told me my name.

I understand now.
Then, I thought...such things of them.
Now, I understand.

I am known as many things,
Most of which I did not choose
I call myself one thing.
My name.
I did not choose that either.
But I grew to fit it.
Or did it grow to fit me ?

It was there before I was anything.
It assumed my character,
Came to mean what I was.
A mixture of all it was before me,
and me.

It is mine
More than anything else will ever be.

I came into this life
Instead of the expectation of a baby
There was the expectation
Of someone of my name.
I filled that place.

I did not choose it,
But it will be used
To remember me.
Sacred to the Memory-
Of my name.
Of what I gave it.


They say the things people do give their names a character of their own. Noone wants their child to be called Hitler, and few even venture an Adolf on their child. That is how powerful it can be. First, names help mould what we are, then they represent what we are, and then they stand for what we were or have been. This is the reality of names.

And I doubt one would even venture a sniff at a rose named, say, Rafflesia.

The Big Stuff

I don't understand a lot of things. In fact, I don't get almost everything in that Santa's sack labelled 'Life's Important Things'. Some you can talk about, some you can't, some Life's Great Truths, some where you're supposed to accept it, no questions asked, and some others that are generally irritating.
Great Truths are usually unfounded, Taboo things are usually the most interesting and worth discussing (by default, not bullheadedness), and generally irritating things are usually the ones that are most unquestionable and infallible. It's extremely perverse and,unfortunately, not funny at all, because it actually applies to you.
Elders are not always worth respecting, Ignorance isn't bliss a good bit of the time (for example, in an inter-school quiz) and whether Love is the greatest thing in Life is highly debatable. I really don't think it is. It doesn't make any sense.
It's tiring thinking about them. You think you get somewhere, but they're all conceptions, and so it's practically impossible to come to an absolute conclusion about it. And even if you do, you have to be utterly impervious to everything regarding that topic afterwards, or you are likely to change your mind. It's even intriguing, in a way, because you're never done thinking about them.
Inconclusive and intriguing and disputed, this is what keeps them in that sack, I guess.Or that they excite strong emotions in people- sometimes hope, sometimes rebellion, and lots of other things as well. Joy and irritation and personal strength and a lot more. So I can't give up thinking about them, because I'm hooked. So philosophers ? They aren't especially intelligent, or deep. They're just gullible, and addicted. And they started out with far too much time on their hands.

Calcutta buses

Calcutta is a wonderful city. I'm not sure whether dusters with dust-covered dust- covers, for example, are sold at intersections in every Indian city, but it is definitely done here.
So- all sorts of things can be found to be special about it, but one thing somewhat less noticed is the Calcuttan bus.
Public transport in Calcutta is not the most efficient or ecologically sound of systems- in fact, trams are our only saving grace in the latter quarter. but something that can be said about it is that it is certainly unique. Buses illustrate this point perfectly.
One would begin by saying that these busdrivers must needs be the most patriotic of people. Every bus that you lay eyes on has, somewhere upon its battered frame, an 'India Is Great', or a 'Mera Bharat Mahaan', or something to that effect on it.
Most everything is aware that it must look good from all sides. Consequently, the backs of buses are usually well-decorated. Sometimes one will find Advertisements- 'Meri Chai' is a common one, or used to be- or public interest messages, such as ' Register All Births And Deaths', by the Births and Deaths Registration Dept., or 'Vehicles that run on gas are dangerous' (which blissfully omits the fact that, where the environment is concerned, vehicles that don't are even more so.) Therefore, buses are definitely vehicles of public awareness.
Also, all buses are quite educational- many of the drivers here seem to learn all they know about driving rules from what they read while stuck behind a bus in one of the city's countless traffic jams. As for the fact that it's usually 'Horn Deen' or 'Awaz Karo', well, one can say that they follow the advice pretty strictly, too. And of course, who is not going to follow the dictum 'Keep Safe Distance' when it's on a huge, snorting, polluting machine three times the size of your own ? So, buses can be considered to always get the message across quite clearly.
But the messages are not the only things you will find on the backs of buses, oh dear me, no. You will very often find large numbers of grimy, plastic-lined baskets tied onto the rear grill, along with other vague objects. Also, buses reflect local superstition- Aankh mat Lagao- as you will find a large quantity of shoes, lost, dirty, streetside, or otherwise, tied on at the back. Sometimes, for variety, there are Masks with demon faces painted on, complete with red eyes, moustache, fangs dripping with blood, et al. The irony, as it turns out, is that these seem quite to draw the passer-by's eye rather than repel it..... Other forms of expressed belief are the limes and chillis dangling in front of the buses, the pictures of gods and goddesses beside the steering wheel and so on. None of which you will find elsewhere.
Next, each bus necessarily has a name or inscription on the side. Now, this is somewhat obvious, everything in the world has a name, so why not public transport ? One would certainly think so, but you will also have noticed that nowhere else- not even in other cities in India- would one find such a lot of buses with names painted flamboyantly on their sides, or, in fact, even such an array of names ! The normal ones, like Monideepa and Reeya and Beeyu, we suppose are named after the family. But world- famous objects have their due place- Mona Lisa, and sometimes, Monalisa, being quite a popular name. Religions are given pride of place- 'Jai Sri Babosa' or 'Jai Ma Tara' are often found, painted in the yellow stripe that runs along the bus, so as to be extra prominent. But, now and again, one sees truly unique and profound messages on these, such as Love Is Sweet Poison, or All Religions Are One. These certainly seem to make all the Beeyus and Papithas worth the while.

Bow

I like bows. Of violins, I mean. Violins themselves are deliciously graceful, but bows. A horsehair bow at a certain angle is absolutely a work of art. And while they're playing.... quivering, imperious, up and down and slanting ever so slightly- long mournful sounds.... or when, as during a blithe jig, they seem to be both evoking the music as well as dancing to it...
I suppose the musician is really to be given the credit, but you really don't feel like it, not after you've watched the bow, run a hand along those strings and heard the music it commands...
I fell in love with a bow once... a ceremony in an air- conditioned hall, dignitaries and choirs all, but I watched it, entranced, all through. A long, dark one, with wood dark and shining like mahogany, and parchment- coloured bowstrings. The violin itself was hidden behind an anonymous white shoulder, but the bow wove its spell powerfully, up and down, in and out, inclining with a refined gentlemanlike motion...

Class Photograph.

I got the class photograph today. I look like a fool, as uual. Nothing new to report. But I look myself in that picture. Laughing along with Nid at some joke she cracked. The joke has passed on into infinity, but its mark remains- a memory of it stamped across our faces for the length of a human existence. Not, perhaps, as long as it would have liked, but it's something. and there we were, all together, grins on almost every cheek, giving of our best for memory's sake. So we look back and smile at our own smiles. And at our tears.
We were all feeling good standing there, the sun not quite on our faces, but making its presence felt nevertheless, after having heaped our blazers on to Ma'am Puxty's car that was parked nearby. Laughing. Clambering on to the benches, each one standing and shoving and making a little space for themselves in the universal space of the camera lens. I must be a part of that. And, naturally, noone is left out.
It would not have been the same, if we had taken photos of one person at a time ( besides being vastly impractical) and it would have been lonely there, in front of that lens with noone at my side, no familiar voice telling me to move up in decidedly indelicate terms.I would have felt small in that huge frame all by myself. Because when we stand there, we're not just people standing side by side. Not just people who share the same classroom or the same classteachers or similar schedules of living. We're comrades and allies as we pass through a particular phase of life all together, competing and discovering and understanding and laughing and being together. We see each other every day, each affecting the lives of the others in some quiet, unacknowledged way, each changing the lives of these about her in a way that is uniquely her own. We are Us. Being Us is a great deal better than being just Me or just You. I may not know much about the person next to me in that picture, but I will always know that she is in some minute capacity, a part of who I am and who I will be. And she most definitely is a part of Us.

This is my favourite picture.

In the beautifullestest place on earth, Kalimpong.

think

Everything can be explained. The Universe, and what came before, and what comes after. Science can explain everything- Black Holes and lightning and tears and melting polar icecaps and twinkling stars and so much else. But its latest, greatest project is the big one- people. The why and wherefore of the human mind and what goes on in there. Psychologists try- but they only get so far. If everyone just looked into their own heads and asked it questions, we'd have answers. We'd be getting somewhere. But there'd be so many answers- we'd be flooded out. Each mind is different- the way it functions is unique. So, by one person's logic, one cannot hope to judge what another is thinking or feeling at a time. You can only know for sure what you are thinking- even that, not all the time- and, if we dig deep enough, why we are thinking it. Though, as I have found out, if you spend too much time probing inside your own head, you tend to get paranoid. What you are thinking at any instant may be quite contrary to what you stand for, because you haven't really thought about it properly yet, and you wouldn't think you could have, and you're surprised by it, and you wonder about the whys of whys, and the whys of those, until your head is like one infinite Rubiks cube, and you twist and turn, but it only get worse, further and further from where you should be going, because the path gets longer because of all the detours of side questions, and a step is less than a step, because it isn't worth as much. You get wiser, your vistas expand, but you don't really get anywhere- you don't seal the business deals, or complete the assignments, but nobody asks, because they're too busy thinking too, and all of it ceases to matter, and everywhere, in homes, around tables, on rocks, in the desert, in offices and under the stars, everywhere there is conversation about what people have thought, and realised, what they have discovered, and what they never knew they knew. And the world becomes as the early philosophers were, walking about, inspired, unaffected by disease and death and the low in man and the earth about him, because the bad parts of everything aren''t so important anymore, only that there is greatness in man's mind and soul, and in what he is and can do, and there will be nothing disgusting in men, because once you love yourself, you don't need people- either to exalt them or to degrade them and feel good thereby- you and your completeness are all-encompassing, and you cease to need other people at the basic level within you, where you are and noone else should ever be. And the world is good, and there is joy in everything, and every action- every breath and movement is joy, because life is joy, and the world is great, and we stop looking to places beyond this life for our joy- we find it here itself- and the world is at peace with itself and everything that exists.
If only people stopped to think.

Ugh.

This is irritating me. Just putting me off. Don't like it. Fume, fume, fume. Ugh. They make technology. Then the glitches sort of make themselves. And then they peacefully coexist under coercion, because those who made the technology didn't make the glitches, and so don't know how to fix them. Ineptitude. And Murphy's Law. And all the other forces in the world, born at the void while God was wondering. How to create irritants. He didn't have to. They came by themselves. Sauntered right in, and diffused into everything. Of course, human stupidity had to wait for Adam to come along. But everything got right into it, and they're still on the case.So it was with homosapiens, so it was with Cleopatra, with Saint Peter (if he'd only been a bit more thorough, we wouldn't have to put up with all these 'ground-breaking' conspiracy theories), with Napoleon, Hitler, the British colonial Empire, and with George W. Bush.And so Osama thrives, and conspiracy theories thrive, and corrupt governments thrive, and so does the dream of the Supercomputer. The dream of the machine without glitches. Or errors. Or mistakes. or 'Page Not Found's. Or any such thing to cause a tamasha and leave you with a grinning technician with tight pants and a bright pink slip with 'To be Paid by the 14th' on it.
Damn.
Ugh.
Life.

Religion.. or rather, Belief.

There is something about God and religion and that whole deal that people have never understood, and explanations have drifted about for ages and ages. I want to take a shot at it now, because I have been asked why I believe in God, if I do. I think I do, though that's the next step, first I have to know what that is. A lot of people skip straight to that step, but I don't usually take short cuts unless it is to avoid physical activity. So.
I think it all has to do with that word 'belief'. Everyone needs something to believe in, something you can't prove but you can be absolutely sure of without any proof, and the lack of proof is the point. Or the available proof may not be generally acceptable and all that.
Everyone believes in something- some in The Force, some in the Greatness of Man, some in other things, like karma and nirvana, some in just themselves, and then some in God. It is fuelled by a need or desire, utterly personal, and the belief itself is also personal. Communities and societies don't come into it at all.
Each belief has some reason to it. I guess a need for achievement is fuelled by a belief in the Greatness of man, and then maybe it's the other way around. A belief in onoeself gives confidence. And the belief in God is the need for a person who fills a certain gap. For most people, it's the comfort derived from the thought of someone who cares. For, as I read somewhere, it is God's business to care. And so the thought of someone who cares and has the power to do something about it- well, it's more comforting than most things. So we believe, and are given strength, refuelled, again and then again.
Sometimes believing in God can be for other reasons as well, like habit or tradition or no real speculation into what you need to believe in. That could make you imbue God with characters he may not have had, so that he suits your purpose. Sometimes, when you can't forgive yourself for something, you let God do it for you. God becomes multi-purpose, so to speak. And then of course, there is the fact that it's the easiest to believe in, when you think that lots of greybeards, almost all historical architecture, around 85 or 90 percent of the world's population, i.e. about 5 and a half billion people, the Vatican treasury, Raphael's works, hymns and the magnitude of the Da Vinci Code debates all exist, proving to you that God exists. So there are lots of reasons why you should believe in Him, lots of so-called reliable sources that tell you God is a good bet. Sounds quite crude when you put it that way, but it is that way.
Of course, this is all from the viewpoint of the Christian religion, which is the only viewpoint I know, and it makes plenty of sense to me. I'm not sure of exactly what I believe, but I know that I do believe in something. As I might have mentioned before, my mind is a mess, and what I believe is probably a pinch of this and a dash of that forming a senseless stew, but it seems to work. And so we all get by.

Illusion

I stood there, and she stood before me.

I raised my face, she raised hers.

I smiled slowly, deliberately, and she smiled as well.

A mirror ?

And I, that woman, with black glories of hair and the leaping fire all around ?

It must be me.

There are flames in my eyes as well.
I raise my arm.
A long straight brown arm ending in an outstretched finger. To touch the mirror. The fingertips cut through air and brush the cool mirror surface.
A second.
Then it shatters.

Splinters fly.
Shining, sparkling splinters.
Leaving gashes of red that glintin the dancing light.

I look up- at her.
At where she still stands.
Quietly.
Her arms folded gracefully.
Her quiet, understanding face.
No mocking laughter, no damning judgement.

But I hate her now.

Teardrop.

She walked down the road. A tear formed. It didn't fall, but it was there. She could feel it. And she wanted to cry it, to rid herself of it. Of the great burden that is a tear that hasn't fallen. It welled and burned in her eye, but it didn't show. She kept walking. She passed a bit of footpath where a man in dirty rags was sleeping, surrounded by chalk marks in orange chalk on the footpath. She didn't stop. She passed people, who looked at her suspiciously as she hummed a sad song to herself. Accusing her with their eyes. But they didn't feel the tear. And they walked past her and disappeared into the world at which she would never turn and look. She passed a dirty roadside stall, where groups of people stood about, talking and sipping tea from little mud cups. A man, done with his tea, hurled the cup at the footpath, where it shattered into big and small pieces. They didn't notice her, she didn't notice them. She looked at the pieces, a little startled for a moment, and then went on. Past a big banyan tree, past a bilboard with a picture of a shiny- haired woman, past the cars stuck in the traffic jam, and the loud, irritating bollywood music that blared out of an open window. Past a shadow of a tree marked by fallen yellow flowers, and a white house with an open door. And an empty lot, and a sleepy security guard. The tear was insistent now, hot and wet somewhere behind her eye. She turned a corner. She looked at her shoes, and at the empty parking lot. The shoes were scorching, something she hadn't noticed before. She didn't hear anything, or feel anything, or think anything, because the tear was getting its way. It slid out from beneath her almost- shut eyelids and travelled down her cheek, leaving a cool, wet trail on the skin. It fell off her cheek and dropped away. She thought for a moment it was over, she felt relief. Then another drop followed that one, and then another.She stood for a moment and thought about it. She was crying. Why ? She didn't know. She didn't feel anything. She wondered why she needed a reason. Why she needed to justify that tear. And she found she didn't know. The last tear lingered on her chin for a moment. She felt it, and was comforted. And then it, too, fell away.

Something to do with tradition, I think

There is this thing- this intangible thing that always eludes- like a feeling, a sort of emotion I suppose it must be, though what it really is, I can't quite get hold of. It's something that's got a lot to do with culture and tradition and so I'll try to work from there.
We in India know a lot about culture and tradition. Much of it is inextricably linked with Religion in our minds, and also with Society and the Community and other such things, and we know all these things are somehow quite important, because, as Tevye, with some inkling of truth, once said- 'Because of our traditions, we know who we are and what we are to do'. Or something like that, anyway. So these are things that take us from our blind wanderings and put us somewhere- in a line, say, and when we place our hands on the shoulder of the person in front of us and feel the hand of the person behind us, and hear the shuffling feet of all the others both ahead and behind, you know you are somewhere, and there is still some reason in the chaotic world and you've got a definite something to depend on. So this framework of sorts that props us up, is held together by little rituals we perform and by the bonds that hold people together, in a group, depending on each other, and we pretend the reasons for this are many and varied, but it's just one- that we need other people. But for name's sake, we do it for Tradition.
But then, culture and tradition and all the rest of it is entirely dependent on what one is brought up to, what is familiar to one while one is still assimilating surroundings. It is all perception, nothing solid, and so it isn't absolute. Scientifically speaking, all the ideas related to this stuff are implanted in your head from when you're little so that as you grow, you accept it as inalienable truth, which it isn't. So it can change.
But when you are brought up to it, and then plunged into something different, then what ? What do you do ? Do you hold on to your concepts, which may seem silly from these new perspectives, or do you let go of the deadweight and try to make yourself fit, finding out later that you've lost your anchor ? I suppose this is the choice people make when they move out of familiar places, and become pioneers, and all that kind of thing. When Indians go abroad, and what I will feel when I leave my home. What Gogol Ganguli felt, and so on. For that matter, even here, we lose ties to this structure all too often. We let go, and then we see no point going back, it feels so good to be free..... Who gives up Coke and hepness for mishti and a sari ? Hip- Hop and Dance- Pop- Rock for Rabindrasangeet? Let it go. There will always be some kooks who go that way. They'll keep alive the tradition. We lose ourselves and find ourselves, and lose ourselves again, weaving in and out of objects and people and places, because when you can't tie yourself to one thing, you're never tied by anything. Cut one chain, and you know how to cut all the rest. And you do.

It's awfully impractical, this. Without losing a communal identity, one could probably never find an original one, and nothing can be achieved while lugging deadweight around behind you. Deadweight like who your 4th cousin twice removed was and how he's related to the Prime Minister and the Great and Grand people your parents knew, and other things like that. The funny thing is, we have the courage to want to let it go, and not quite the courage to live without it. We have the courage to cut ourselves loose, but not the ability- call it tenacity if you like- to go on living without the regrets. Or do we ? Perhaps we're just always torn in two. The desire to be secure in something, and the rebellious feeling that pulls the other way.
I am this way. Maybe when I go further it will make more sense, and I will lean in one or other of the directions. Now, I'm getting stretched rather hard both ways.

Sleepy.

It's late.
Outside, it's deepest dark.
Here,
It's just me and the whirrs of the computer.
The air is heavy-
Slowing me,
Holding me down.
It is a task to breathe.
Huge, full breaths
Like a diver might take after resurfacing
Or I might take
While pondering diving at all.
They even sound heavy.
As does everything.
Not a thing is moving outside.
I might as well have been staring at a photograph
Of blackness
As out of the window.

The stillness
Is soporific
And my eyelids, insistent,
Drag me down
Into depths of murky
Sleep.

tired, at A Function.

I am tired.
Only a shell-
In the corner of
A crowded but empty room
Too brightly lit
Too full of people,
Shells themselves-
Clumsy, overdressed nothing.
It is noisy.
Giggles and chatter and infant wails.
Hearty laughs and
sympathetic exclamations.
It's all here.

I am alone.

In my corner,
My mind is open-
The lock wrenched,
The key lost,
Empty phrases flowing
In and out and in
Meaningless,
Leaving no trace.
Thankfully.

More nothing.
Sounds, like garbage
Floating on a once beautiful lake
Drift about in mire
Going here and there
With every ripple.
And people who come,
Who look for beauty,
Find only this.

halfway time

It's that nice time now. It is nice. Just a little time before darkness falls completely and suddenly like a sheet, covering everything, blocking it all out. But now, it is cool and quiet, and everything in the world is giving the sun its One Minute's Silence. And everything is still at the end of day. Even here, in the city, everything is still.
I suppose you might call it twilight. I don't think that fits, though. It's more dusk-ish. Comfortable, a little blank, and that's not demanding, just beautiful. And everything has a resigned, gloomy air, utterly disapproving, as though, in it's opinion, the sun has no business shirking its duties to go off in a westerly way wherever it pleases. That's not the nature-ish thing to do at all. Stand and fight, gentlemen, stand and fight.
It's deepening now, and the shadows are gone, for everything is shadow, though you can see, so it must be light. nothing is strong enough to cast a shadow, everything is just blurry and very unreal, like this world, this Earth-place, was changing its forming, becoming something else for a night out amongst the stars... who wouldn't be willing to change for that ? Bats let loose, they joyfully fly, the Night, that saucy seductress, whispers words of horrible comfort from the shade of trees and comes slowly, shyly, like any seductress worth her salt, out to unfurl her cloak of darkness which the city so blatantly defies- neon lights here and tubelights there- and bilboards all in a row.
My little bulb holds out valiantly, as she swings on the wire as so many of her interrogation-room predecessors have done in movies of times long gone, and her light battles the silent darkness at the corners of the glow. And suddenly, it seems as though there are a million swords emanating from her in every direction, each a millisecond in light, fighting off the darkness in every direction that threatens to engulf her and put out her light. Permanently.
The time is almost past, it is almost dark now, and princesses who wished to leave their towers in this magical hour when it is bright enough to see and dark enough not to be caught and have not done so, have lost their chance. Leaping out of their highly romanticized single-windowed towers now would result in a number of slender and pale, but broken, necks, I'm afraid. The darkness has come, my bulb fights on, and time has passed the hedge at the end of the garden and moved on.

Angry.

Stop.
This shouting.
These noises, in my head.
Loud, and echoing.
Getting louder, and noisier.
You can't hear this.
These horrible noises.
It doesn't sound like this to you.
To you, the sounds leave,
Getting lost in the black hole of distance and seconds.
In my head,
Little grey sounds,
And big black sounds
And sharp- edged white sounds
Clashing, crashing inside my head.

Stop yelling at me.

Each word, each line growin bigger, heavier,
More ominous in my mind.
It makes me angry.
Frustrated and angry.
And that's bad.

The anger comes like a flash.
It wipes everything out.
Cleans the slate.
Everything cracks, everything breaks.
And then, as suddenly, it all freezes over.
In its angry form and distorted shape,
The world freezes over.
Then I am tired.
So tired that the clean slate stays clean.
And everything is grey and weary.
And I am gone.
In the silence and stillness of the peace in my head
I am gone.

When Versifying...

Take time to make it sound good. The words must roll about in your mouth, becoming bigger and more poignant than they are, becoming greater things in themselves and in the light of each other. Make it as though the world conspired to make those phrases happen, and their coming into being had some real purpose, not a scribble on a whim to be flung to the breeze. Make it such that when you read and re-read it there are hidden and hinted meanings in every word and every line, like an onion coming to pieces under the observation- light of a microscope. Make it so that it means everything you want it to, and some things the reader wants it to, but has a meaning of its own, beyond all the small, personal ones, so that when you hold it up to the moonlight for verification, there is something there, a pearl on paper, and the moonlight laughs at foolish mortals who read and never see, never know, never understand the bigness of the whole thing. A big thing, in a small thing, and a precise, perfect, painstaking production of pain and protest- your poem.
It's quite a bit of pressure, you must admit.

The Dreaded Things : Why I Hate Tourists

I have a morbid fear of being a tourist.
I'd much rather be 'visitor' or 'atithi' or whatever.
Imagine !
The horror !
Sightseeing !
Snapping away at everything in sight !
Talking too loud !
Insulting the sanctity of local shrines !
Being mean to innocent bystanders who refuse to cart your luggage because they've never seen you before ! (and because they don't work for your tour company )
Demanding ridiculous things, like pony rides on times square and dahivada on the Champs Elysees, and then complaining loudly about the lack of facilities when you don't get them !
And saying rude things about 'incompetent' locals loudly in vernacular, and then giving them smiles a self- obsessed teen queen would have seen through !
Taking along loud, bawling brats that decide to wail loudly in the middle of historical talks and infuriate all those within hearing distance !

Tourists are awful. Awful, awful, awful, awful, awful. I don't want to be one ever.
They're nothing but exasperating, irritating,vacillating, calculating, agitating, Maddening and infuriating hags. Or, in this case, people.

know what ?

Don't know.
What ?
Lots of things.
What things ?
Don't know.
So I don't know what I don't know, but I know I don't know.
So I know something, and don't know a lot of things.
So ?
Hmmm.
What's knowing, really ?
Is it something you've learnt, or heard, or understood, or just felt ?
Is it a something, or an anything ?
Or do we actually know nothing.
No, no. We definitely know something.
Otherwise we'd know nothing, fool.
If we didn't know anything, we wouldn't know that we didn't know, would we ?
True. But we wouldn't know that we didn't know we didn't know either, would we ?
So what do we know ?
Nothing for sure.
That's for sure.

changing streams of study

The pen lies at an angle on the table. The word angle invokes sharp corners in my mind. I suppose that must have been by association. No longer, though. Angles and peaky- looking squares pondering parallelogramship dash away from me, around corners and into classrooms where they can hide. The subjectivity of the subjects whose aura, like a hauntingly bad smell, hangs around me repells it, propelling it in the opposite direction. Sciences appear to be busy with something every time I peek in a lab. Biology is intently examining a slide or specimen and Chemistry is enveloped in clouds of smoke which I suspect are emergency HCl fumes. And Physics is buried in mountains of sheets and files. None of them will even look me in the eye. They avoid me like the plague. Only Science doesn't avoid the Plague, it cures it. So what would it do to me ? I can't, or don't want to, imagine.
So why is it avoiding me ?
The Betrayal ?
No.
Science is more reasonable than that.
Isn't it ?

Fighting

Flames leapt out at his every word-
Dancing on his tongue, dancing in his eye, all about his head.
A teardrop made its journey.
It dropped off her cheek, catching my eye as it fell.
A drop of heart's blood, encased in a watery shell.
It broke, shattering as it hit the ground,
The water dispersed, the precious blood lost.
Irretrievable.
And then the atmosphere turned menacing grey, as though precipitated by the lost tear.
The glares sliced through it like laser beams.
The lasers sliced through a heart's core.
And she can't cry any more.

Quiz

Head whirls.
I can almost see the words and pictures flying about inside.
Discard them- I don't want them.
They're not the right ones.
Not that.
Not that either.
Where is it.
Murmurs and whispers.
I'm lost in my brain.
Eyes watch me expectantly.
Waiting on a word.
Assessing, wondering, impatient.
Go on.
An urgent tone. A ticking seconds hand.
Eyes all around, counting each tick.
Where is what I need ?

"I'll pass you, then..."

Gone.
Gone and done it.
The eyes are accusing now.
A little despair, a little humour.
Although it isn't funny.
Mind still whirring, too far gone to stop.
I know it's in there somewhere.

"Bang on ! That's the right answer ! Ten points to..."

Grimace.
Damn.
I knew that.
I know I did.

after The Exams

Ha. It's done. I'm out. It's out. The tree isn't naked any more- it donned spring green raiment while I wasn't there to see, and then hoped (I guess) that I wouldn't notice. But it's beautiful. I told it so, but it didn't believe me. Noone ever does. I thought it would, but it didn't either.And I danced. And sang. And lay flat out on my bed. And imagined. Wildly, crazily.And I flew, and travelled across the world. Here and there, across the world, quick as thought. And adventured, in a mysterious sort of way, and laughed because I felt like laughing. That was good.I suppose I must have sounded insane. Happy to inform that I don't care. Other people's minds are dangerous and crazy places to be in, and tricky too. I refuse to be embroiled in the murky depths of such places. I don't know what they think. How can I ? and so, why should I try ? And as for why they think it, they probably don't know themselves. Maybe they haven't thought about it. Idle speculation won't get me far, but it won't get me sunk. So I'll be OK.More than that, now. I'm great. Thanks for asking.

walking

Walking. A cacophony of light and the city's empty noises create an atmosphere of no consequence. Here, I can think. Imagine. Leave, because everything is mechanical, and nothing requires me in it. This walking requires nothing but two feet following each other into the light and shadow of another city street. Pools of lamplight, and then tree-shadows, and people shadows, and nothing substantial or real or mine. My feet follow the pattern in the footpath, as do, unconsciously, everyone else's. Adult hopscotch. A shop with pale mannequins like frozen ghosts. The fair ideal.
I go on walking, and the darkness watches me with a surly expression from the top of a tree, where it has been imprisoned. There is no place for it in the city anymore, not even at night.
On, till a familiar gate in a familiar wall, and then I'm home.