Untitled

God I am sure has a lot of fun.
Whoever he is, carefree,
his job presumably done. No emergencies,
no moral compunctions,
He sits aloft with consorts not just one.
Sure he can with his birdeye view chuckle a lot
and enjoy at our expense a few laughs.
Like I used to when my stupid brother-ravianna-
frozen and helpless could only
steal a glance at his lady passing by.
But does He ever cry, feel guilty at this tsunami.
It only took ravianna to Him says my Daddy
But I know my brother.
Instead of a place by His side
he shall have anyday preferred his lady.

Untitled

I have known them all along, all right!
Those innumerous times when I slapped
a bucktetful of water to lap up
the fated ants with giant waves...

Jimikis

We all have old photographs which like those mountain passes are a tenuous link to a whole wellspring of nostalgia. One look at those faded, brownish images and memories (often tinged with a kind of sad happiness) come tumbling down from old racks. When we run our fingers over them a fuzzy melody could well be running in our minds.

I have one such photograph of me and my sister, in the backdrop of an unsophisticated set in the local studio. The owner of the studio, a tall man with curly hair and a paunch that merged quite neatly with the rest of the body had borne witness to so many of our family occasions.
But I had always cherished that photograph as it is one of the earliest photographs of us together. I have shown it to my friends and the girls have always pronounced, 'Oh so cute!!' Needless to say I was joyous at such reactions, even had a tinge of pride mixed up somewhere. The photo shows us facing the camera in a posture of attention. We stare with eyes wide open, I and my sister. Innocence I thought.

'Cute!! Your sister is so lovable!'
'And me..?'
'You have the same lost look man, some people don't change I guess..'
'Oh you are being jealous'
'Jealous? You think too much of yourself Mahesh...'
'Umphhh'
(I think that was Madhavi...)

In the photograph I am wearing a round-necked t-shirt and shorts, my knock-knees showing. I look at my face in the photograph and I can with the benefit of hindsight see that my face is as yet unformed. The ridges are not yet deep and the eyes not set deep in the bone structure. So they are a large pair peering sincerely at the camera-perhaps trying hard not to wink when the flash goes on and end up asleep for posterity. I see my sister is dressed in pattupaavaadai. Her face is done up with a thick eyeliner and a round evil mark on the cheek to ward off cursed stares. Her fingers are chubby and curved inside, no sharp lines of the bones show up. I in contrast am bony and tall. The differences in our height is huge, she still looks an younger sister. All this would change in later years!

I do remember the circumstances of that shoot though in the past I haven't always recollected it-my sister had to be cajoled and then forced by daddy to wear an eardrop, called 'jimiki' in tamil. I see the picture and there is no jimiki there. There is only a roundish paring of the glossy surface under one of her earlobes. When I had looked at that photo as a kid I had asked myself where the other jimiki was! But there are no jimikis here. Now I can imagine daddy on the other side, in the dark, licking his wounds after a lost battle with his daughter. I hear our family photographer assuaging, 'Oh sir, these days the kids are too fashion consciousness for ornaments of our times..don't worry she looks smart even without the jimiki!'

I had missed till now the nervousness exuding in the fingers that are entwining each other, the toes which are tightly withdrawn and are scratching the floor. The eyes large and yes, lost, exuding an expression well expressed in tamizh as 'miratchi'. The face not cute but puffed up after a prryhic victory over a stupid jimiki. If I choose to go beyond the surface and dig my memories its perhaps one of the saddest photographs! And as a reminder my sister still doesn't like those lovely eardrops we call jimikis.

The Gifts by the Doorstep

The other day busy humming a tune I pushed the toilet door open, only to feel it yanked from the other side with equal force. All of a sudden I found myself smiling at close quarters at a familiar face i have hardly smiled at before-had no reason to till then when a sudden gaffe at the doorstep of the toilet sprung a smile upon our unsuspecting faces.

I will rather die for the truth,
but never let a lie eat me up alive.

The following is what i would call an 'emotion note' like you have concept notes. This was written for the actors (their names as characters) in this 6min shortie called Carpe Diem we are shooting...

Smoke

Mitash knocked twice. Sujoy opened the door to bare a smoke-filled room. Sujoy himself was busy taking a drag and latched the door back with the other hand. The room was darkened, a single bulb and the computer screen glowing in a space of darkness and smoke. Mitash walked over numerous cigarette stubs and looked around haplessly. ‘Sujoy, whenever I see you with a cigarette why is it I am always reminded of a man’s funeral pyre?’, his voice showing exasperation. Sujoy gave him a look which said, ‘now let’s not start it all over again’. Sujoy’s chain smoking was a bone of contention between the two friends exactly because of the great understanding they shared. Mitash knew that Sujoy wanted to chuck the habit. Not that smoking had beginning to affect his health-hardly. The issue was more about the will to leave the habit. And the Sujoy, Mitash had known intimately was one who always prided himself upon his determination. There was hardly a milestone Sujoy had desired and had not reached. More than the damage to his lungs Mitash wondered if this battle of the smoke was now all about Sujoy’s spirit. Mitash gave him a long drawn look and sensing the defenses and arguments Sujoy was stacking up mentally, just dropped the issue, changed his tone, shifted the subject.

Sujoy’s hands involuntarily picked up a cigarette from the packet nearby. He didn’t quite realize it until it was brought halfway to his lips. He snapped himself off from the computer screen and wondered. What’s happening to me? Don’t I need to quit smoking now. He felt he clearly ran out of the confidence that he could stop it anytime he wanted. That was clearly not the case now. At this moment he didn’t feel like covering up that bare fact-He was addicted to cigarettes and he knew stopping it was not as simple as lighting up a fag. If Mitash was concerned he knew that it was time to ring the alarm bells. The cigarette was still dangling indecisively between his fingers. The dark patch of burn on his index finger waited for yet another rendevouz with fire. He, almost absentmindedly, bought it to his lips and took hold of the lighter. If he had been able to take an objective peek into his psyche he could have seen the wild search for excuses to placate himself into smoking this cigarette. The flame from the lighter went up once, twice. Excuses, excuses so that he can smoke this fag without much guilt. Nothing seem to come by. He thought weakly to himself, ‘Well, lets see tomorrow…’ and with those deadly words lighted up his ‘funeral pyre’-as Mitash would have termed it!

The next three days his thoughts, feelings, and even dreams were lashing against one another. Within him he felt the case against smoking resembled furious waves trying their might against a rocky coastline. The waves were never going to give up. But when will the rocks show up their crack lines? Sometimes he had the funny feeling of being an innocent bystander watching this spectacle of a psyche divided over this small stupid extinguishing piece called a fag. He then cleaned up his room of all the cigarette stubs; threw out his ashtray and a packet with two full cigarettes in them. He felt a ritualistic cleansing, which alas did not last long. That evening he bought himself a packet from Thapas and smoked a few with his friends. It just resolved the matter for a few minutes until the smoke lasted and soon again the raging waves…

The group was having a small break at the Thapas amidst classes. Someone lighted a cigarette. The group was having a light banter and small ripples of laughter did the rounds. The cigarette did too. Sujoy was 5 hands away from the cigarette. Mitash at the other end was looking at Sujoy with a poker face. For a moment Sujoy wasn’t sure if he saw the cigarette or a fire raging towards him. His imagination was overworked and was capable of such tricks! He took a few deep breaths, looked at Mitash watching him, his poker face how turning intent. The cigarette now reached his neighbour who took his puff. He extended the cigarette towards Sujoy confidently with the surety there was no need to ask. Sujoy missed a beat, he imagined how aghast the group would look if he said coolly, ‘No thanks’! He imagined the smile on Mitash’s face. He imagined how the raging waves would finally rest, how he would find himself in peace over the determination he had now almost decided to redeem.

‘No thanks!’ he uttered.

An Imposition on Compositions

When I dont have anything to write
When I dont have anything to write
Not even a haiku on my predicaments
When I dont have anything to write
When I dont have anything to write
Not even a poem on my imagined figments
When I dont have anything to write
Not a word on the fact I can't write
why should I worry my blog goes empty
and my readers emptyhanded. Eachtime
my lover returns emptycheeked or emptylipped
shouldn't I be worried
When I dont have anything to write
When I dont have anything to write

The Cutting Edge of Culture

Eyes sunken dried hopes
A bent back jutting bones
A dirtbag by the wayside
whom only the platforms
haven't disowned.

What shall he do about
the desires that croak
within those ribbed cage,
like a thousand frogs on a
rainy night, those ugly noises
wanting to mate, on seeing our
latest flicks' blown-up lust?
Rape?

Jaye, Poems for you.

Do all writers go through cyles of fallow and flourish with regards to specific genres of literature? Fore me it happens with poetry. Sometimes there have been dry periods lasting even half an year. Then without any premonition the flow starts again. I would like to fancy that this process to be an upward spiral-each time poetry finds me I am a better vehicle than the last time round. But ofcourse it is not necessarily so!

I have finally written two poems not able and eventually not feeling to write one for the past 3 months. Check em out!

1. Sitting on the banks she dropped a pebble.
From that wretched loci now recur her thoughts;
Incessant ripples that spread out to the banks.

2. Can I sit still?
With no Doors on the Player
and Pirsig on my mind?
Without worries that ache
and dreams that flake?
Especially without her memories
that are now mementoes?
After every trip the last resort
is to sit still by myself.
Can I sit still with only
loneliness for company?

Excerpt From a Mail to Someone Stepping into a BSchool Campus

...So this is me welcoming to two years of an amazing experience!! I shall narrate this very small anecdote to let you know how dear our psyche shall hold the campus and its memories...

During Manfest-our management fest (what an unimaginary name, eh!)-we also have the Alumni Reunion happening. The greatest draw for the alumni is the chance to relive their wild nights at the instiparties, just once more, for a brief three days. Towards the fag end of one such instiparty I came across one slightly drunk alumni talking to a senior in Tamil. Mother tongue bonhomie tempted me to join in and I did-the conversation was in a sentimental key.

'Hi...!', I said at the opportune moment when he looked up to see who is the new one in the magic circle, and introduced myself,
'Mahesh. And you..?'
'I was born Karthik Ramanathan, I shall die an IIML graduate'

I am sure, to this date, it was not the drinks.

An Indictment

Class presentations, rituals that marked the closure of each course of a term bored us to death or were minefields of inane laughter. With exams usually a week or two away and a few more Projects to be wrapped up, who wants to stay alive in darkened rooms to listen to power point presentations which earn only
disdain-ah, don't I know how he did his Project-all gas, no substance-he simply started working on his Project last evening. And hence everyone wanted to go to sleep. Generals of a losing side would have an easier job of stopping their troops retreating from the warfront-never the presentors from rousing us from sleep. They had an audience of one, the professor, the poor soul who had ordered the whole affair in the first place.

The other day Satyan was presenting the Pharma industry to us. His father was a Doctor and Satyan, not being able to study Medicine, always nursed a soft corner for the Pharma sector. He could hold his own on IPRs, process and product patents, the impact of WTO on Indian Pharma industry and he peppered his talk with a lot of relevant examples...Poor Satyan, that day he was putting up one of his best performances but there was none to savor it. He would be finally shown his seat with a round of customary applause which was done more for breaking the audience's monotony than for pepping up the speaker.

Satyan was using the example of Viagra to illustrate how the lack of product patents in India gave the local companies enough room to reverse-engineer the final molecule and rebuild them using different processes. He took up Viagra as a point in case. Viagra he said was very costly for an average Indian. So the local companies cashed in with reverse-engineered verisons such as Penagra, Cinagra (add up three such rhyming names, dear readers). Medically safe and effective, he said, but definitely bending international patent regimes!!

The lights at the back and the corners of the classroom had been switched off to falicitate relaxation and scores of silent snores. The class was deadeningly silent-not of a rapt attention, but of a deep sedation. From one dark corner arose an innocent voice, 'You seem to know so much about this...!'

It was as if the class was waiting to pounce on something and shred it with laughter. The dropped bomb created waves after waves of laughter. The professor couldn't help smiling, neither could Satyan searching as he was the owner of that nasty voice!

Case of A Mis(interpreted)nomer

We were a group of tamil friends in a predominantly hindi- speaking campus. The language bonded us closer than usual and we knew each other so well that we were each quite a character for the other. We bickered, fought, loved and stayed put together as only family members can! We had Venkat the most idiosyncratic of all-Rajini fanatic, and a guy with one helluva attitude and
confidence. He had an engineering degree in Computer Science and was very comfortable with coding, softwares and actually anything to do with Information Techonology (IT). Then there was
Krishna-amazing singing talent, quickwit, and such an amiable character!

Our summer Project scattered us to different cities. I and Krishna were in Mumbai while Venkat was based in distant Coimbatore. Embroiled as we were in work and the leisure of our respective cities, we hardly spoke or even mailed each other for a month. And then came our term grades.

There was a flurry of mails across each asking the other's grades, consoling and congragulating and feeling worse or better at the end of the day. Krishna too sent a mail to Venkat asking his term grades and informing him his.

The eagerly awaited mail from Venkat, alas, was blocked by an Anti-Spam Software . An automated mail arrived mentioning that the mail was identified as a spam and hence blocked. Krishna was
asked to reply in case the mail was not a spam and was valid and personal. Krishna immediately replied that the mail was from his friend and surely not spam. The reply mail from the Network
Administration was a bombshell. It said, 'We are sorry to say that according to the Network Management Policy of this Company mails containing sexual content cannot be delivered to the recipients. We regret the inconvience caused. All the best in the future. Regards, Irfan Ahmed, System Administrator'

Krishna was flustered. Not only was he a very uprighteous guy; he maintained restraint and decorum in such matters that he found it very ironical such a thing should happen to him. He wondered what sexy mail could Venkat have sent in reply to a mail that discussed something as sober and grave as one's term grades!! He called me immediately to share his woes, wondering loudly over the telephone wires just what could have been the dubious content of Venkat's mail...I too listened with curiosity and interest. It was a sleepy afternoon you see, such interventions were very welcome.

I assuaged him that no one can do much about such spams and he should be treating this a minor issue. Krishna was worried of infamy. He said that it reminded him of the predictions of a
certain astrologer who coupla years back stated that Krishna shall lose face in his Company on a 'ladies issue' as he had delicately termed it. As I was wondering how to reason him out of this line of thinking, it suddenly struck me...

'Krishna which ID did Venkat reply from..?'
'From his yahoo id...'
'Oh ok,' I beamed 'the venkatit one..?'
'what...?'
This time I spelt the ID again, slow and meaningfully,
'venka-tit!!'

No wonder the automated software smelt something sexy in the id which actually should have been read as venkat-it. Anyway how could the software have known it was venkat's expression of his career interests and not of other shady fetishes! Krishna revealed a sigh. Sadly, my efforts to push the matters along the line of further fun by inducing Krishna into explaining this subtle matter to the Network Administrator failed though.

The Days we Coasted by...(Part 2)

As we disengaged our footwear and tentatively stepped into the river we discovered why it sported such a deceptive, dark facade. Its clear waters simply showed up the color of the pebbles that made up its bed. And this was indeed to its credit quite unlike what we had made of its dark colors. Agreed the water level was quite shallow, it could at best only come up to our shoulders but in contrast
to what we had imagined, the water was cool and crisp.

We undid our clothes and walked into the river in our underwears to scrub ourselves and enjoy the cool morning. At dawn the river looked like still waters. The flow was imperceptible. Vijay avered the river hadn't a flow, which sounded presposterous to me. I picked up a little leaf sticking on to a nearby rock and let it float in the waters. For a moment I wondered whether Vijay was right, the
leaf hardly moved. But ofter a clutch of seconds we saw the distance it had patiently accumulated.

We sung a few tamil songs that featured heroines bathing by some waterbody, gay abandon. Further our imagination careened to those in which some mischief-monger, a la Krishna, walks away with the clothes and belongings on the banks leaving those in the joyous dips of the river high and dry. Then our imaginatinative banter extended to us getting arrested for nudity and profanity in the town of Chiplun...because of us losing our dresses, the news getting flashed in Sun TV', 'Two IIM Students Arrested in Chiplun Town for Obscene Display..'; 'IIM
Students' Innovative Protest Against Joshi's Diktats-Sleepy Chiplun Enraged!' and so it went. We had such rollicking fun for the next hour or so that it made me think how delicately this tour was posed till the previous evening, its prospects swinging like a pendulum-shall we , should we, would we,need we, why should we...hmmm! Finally the pendulum just stood struck in the affirmative and here we are.

After an hour or the sun was out along with a few lads, upstream, to get its morning dip in the river. The river shone only a little despite the black pebbles that colored its flow. And the flow now turned quite strong. The water level rose rapidly and I had to relocate our belongings twice, farther up in the bank. We were wondering if the river was dammed somewhere upstream-that neatly explained the low water level which was growing tremendously. Soon after we finished our rendevouz with Vasishti, dried ourselves, and next headed to the hills nearby.

To be continued...

The Days we Coasted by...(Part 1)

'Is this the river we came to bathe in, all the way from Mumbai', Vijay asked in a downcast voice. The Vasishti that was drawn in a promising blue color in the map was now a dark little flow which seemed to eke out a stark living and seemed ready to wilt further in the oncoming summer. From the bridge where we had just alighted upon, we could sense none of the grandeur we had imagined in its name. Worse,
instead of clear waters, a suspectfully dark river, banked by srubby undergrowth and smooth pebbles were all we could see now. Evidently this bank was once its bed-or takes up its old avatar under the river once an year if the monsoons granted the boons. Images of Cooum and Buckingham Canal, smelly black open-air sewers of Chennai, visited us. 'Here is the Cooum of Chiplun', we wanted to wail. The size, current, color-from this distance all the dimensions of the river tucked our conversation within dissapointment and deprecating humour.

'Never say aloud we came all the way from Mumbai to bathe in this river...', 'Hmm this is what the hotelwallah mentioned as where you can have a refreshing bath..ahem..', 'I am not bathing..whatever water making up this river would be displaced that I shall have to emerge dry anyways..' And so we went on.

We felt pity for the lone individual who was washing his clothes in those dark waters. 'Cleaning up the river', intepreted Vijay. I added, 'Why the bother yaar...if only he had been patient for a couple of years, he wouldn't have had a river to clean up...'

We went farther away from the bridge towards a parallel railway line that spanned upon a bridge the misplaced banks and the skeleton river. We saw a couple of other individuals bathing, in a manner we surely cannot mistake as a cleaning expedition of the river. We asked the last person if we can indeed bathe in the river. The man neatly srubbed and with washed clothes over his shoulders answered in affirmative and left the place for us. We opened our eyes for the first time to look beyond its dark and skeletony facade and view the river afresh. We dipped into its cool waters and came up with some of the best moments of our life...

...To be continued

Vacations

To live slower and plough deeper
So that savoured memories are sown well:
In parched times they shall sprout springwells.

Ode to my Old Pocket Diary (roughcut)

You were the receptacle for my
stray thoughts which would have
vaporised if not for your pages.
You held that yellow leaf I decided
for posterity to accompany and also
my dreams big and petty.

Do you remember my four minute mile
wish was first recorded within your realms.
Where are you this minute when I am nearing that mile.

Ha ha ha..

Finally, on the threshold of my first freewheeling journey.
It feels good to just plan as you go, take ferries or board buses
If all comes to naught simply take a walk or
swim along the currents of the river.

See faces, observe landscapes
and dip in a life that moves slower
and deeper.

Await, friends, lots of posts on places and travel. My mind is bubbling and my fingers
itch to bang it all off the keyboards.

Adieu for now. Back on tuesday.

MaheshC.

The Sundew Moments


My 'CubicleNeighbour' asked me to explain the story behind 'thesundew', the longstanding name of my email accounts(hotmail, yahoo, and now Gmail!). Though there isn't much of a story behind the name there are surely crystal moments.

Human memory is a mysterious instrument. It has its own laws, which rule what to remember and what to discard into the deeper recesses of our consciousness. Often it springs surprises by pulling up to the forefront, frozen pieces of our memory we thought have long vaporised. Hypnosis and various experiments on memory have shown that our memories are only fossilized, not vaporised. Field reports from Freudian psychoanalytic practice has also shown how intricately memory is linked with emotions. That which is painful we forget, hence the necessity for
techniques such as free association which can approach those sensitive zones tangentially.


But there are images that linger on, to recur and almost become leitmotifs. Some of these beautiful images I suspect are not moments in the sense they could have happened in a discrete time interval. Rather, I wonder if they are luminous aggregations like pearls are-layer after layer of related memories over a seed event.

There is a sepia-tinted image of my childhood in which I am walking down an avenue of tall Ashoka trees, my fingers tenuously linked to my mother's palms. It is dusk. The place is littered with seniors chatting, laughing and walking down the avenue in groups. My contention is that this moment probably never happened as I cherish it. Many such evenings would have been picked, chosen and pickled for an everlasing flavour; crystallised for an everlasting radiance.

Ofcourse most of these images do happen to be vivid, definite moments too. I consider them granted boons, by God if you like it that way. They can't be contrived. They can't be waited for. If you are lucky you catch these as they come by, like whiffs of a distant kitchen in the air.

Have you seen the American Beauty? The film has a name for these. It calls them 'the plastic bag moments'-the seemingly commonplace stuff of our lives which can parent extraordinary beauty, if only we want to. The final frames of the film are that of a discarded plastic bag sauntering in the breeze, rising and falling, dancing in slowmo-lovingly, if you may.

The elements of a Margazhi dawn in Chennai are faint mist, dew, and the sun. Alas the ascent of the sun rapidly kills the former two. So much so I could arrive at that magical slot of 6. 15 to 6. 30 when all of these coexisted after only weeks of determined observation. And why did I want them on the same stage? Because of thesundews! During one of my jogs I had chanced upon the dividing median a crop of grass crowned with glassy spheres: dewdrops charged with sunlight. With
a slight shift in my angle they disappeared. So there they had been, shining within the delicate, tremulous angle between me, the dewdrops and the sun. They hadn't existed in my earlier lap. They didn't in my next.

The magic of angles lies in the fact that it is a single parameter capturing the relationship between three entities. Let me give an other instance. While in the memory described previously two of the elements were on terra firma, in this two are right up there in the early morning sky's blue. Me, an early morning jet, and ofcourse our sun. For most of its observed passage it flew dully, silently. At the magical angle I caught its affair with sunlight. It shone like a broken shard of mirror in a placid sky.

During my 6. 00 O' clock fast train to ChurchGate, between Vile Parle and Santa Cruz, an aeroplane usually made its flight, towards the setting sun. The velocity of the train, factored by the huge distance, looked as if it was equal to that of the aeroplane. A kid would have shrieked in excitement about how a plane hung suspended, resolutely stationary, as if a supermechanic went about fixing its snags midair for many minutes!


Sometimes we end up observing each other like the multiple reflections of a mirror hall. Once, in office, our group of four made its way for a refreshing cuppa. Suddenly he broke away making his way towards her at her workstation and cajoled her flirtingly to join us. She, next to me, staring at them, stomached the sight of cooings. My eyes travelling from the pair to her was caught by him behind
me, who like an omniscient being oversaw all the flicks before him. He, had the last smile!


Once, in the terrace, over the same kind of cuppa that we had ambled towards in the previous paragraph, we made small talk and pointless laughter in a closed circle, each in different postures, all at obtuse angles to each other. A joke went around which I didn't quite understand as didn't Radhika next to me. The other three were emitting enthusiastic peals of laughter that I sought her eyes for some solace. But she was looking intently at them. 'Hmmm..!', I cast my sight downwards and immediately thereafter, it occurred to me that she just then suffered the same fate as I had a second before. So I again turned up to her but she was no longer looking at me and I thought I had been wrong and started to turn away. But right then she too must have felt, quicker than I had felt last time, that she had missed me in a snap and hence caught the tail of my turning away. Now she lingered on. I knew that she knew and I knew too she knew that I knew. With that unconscious knowledge hardly verbalized even to ourselves, we finally locked eyes. We erupted into a laughter as if the tension resolved was that of a joke.

Such is life I thought yesterday when I was catching the whirlwind generated between our 8 O Clock fast and another fast train on the adjacent track: In the twin strings of the call of duty and the search for love my life is a necklace of sundews.

Yaaron, Apun Mumbai Mein Hain ..!!

Its happening frequently nowadays..I start to write a piece-of shortstory, of poetry-and hold back from updating the blog until it is completed. Then I find I am sitting on it for too long and on the other hand there are so many other things that urgently want to be voiced. So shelving the stance of 'update-the-short story-what-may-come', here are my reflections on my current muse: Mumbai!

This city is big and at times, overwhelms. Like its train travels, the nattily dressed gents and sexily dressed ladies, the sights of Marine Drive, the amazing clockwork that the railways are, the explicit ads for innerwears you can't excape at the busy Church Gate station, the worklife whose timings seem to extend into wee hours of the night and whose travel, to and fro, could stretch beyond 100kms a day, ...so many things: this place oozes enterprise, sexuality, and energy.

Chennai is in comparison, what do I call it, innocent, preadolescent...? These constrasts are worth atleast a 15 min film, I say!! I even came up with a longish title for the film: Various are the Ways the Waves lap the Shores.

The title takes its inspiration from the contrasting beachlines of the two cities. For me they seemed to reflect the lifestyles of the two cities. Here sitting at Marine Drive on a full moon night I see the waves slap the rocks and crash against the concrete structures that bulwark the reclaimed land against the sea. In Chennai its as if the sea and the sand softly cradle against each other..!!"

I guess this is how commercial capitals all over the world shall look like. Always on the go, with a set of values that are designed to further commerce than anything else. Cities that are the lands of promise to the brethren from the hinterland. Cities that have enough moolah to support lavish cultural activities. Cities that are big enough to allow space for the different types of mainstreams, and hence for various fringe elements at its circumference. Cities busy and hence granting anonymity. An anonymity amidst the crowd that comes so close to freedom, because the others are too busy minding their livelihood!

As I am just into my third week I guess my eyes are still fresh to catch the nuances in my daily life. The city still feels like a dope and I like to absorb, through my eyes and in lesser degrees through my other senses, its wares. I travel from ChurchGate to Andheri by train and from Andheri to MIDC (East Andheri) by Bus. These account for most of my observations.

I have never seen such ferocity in people trying to board trains. Believe me, even the wretched crowd of Jallianwallah Bagh would have acted in a less frenetic way on their route to escape. Last night I and my friends were badly mauled at Dadar station and emerged with hurt ears.

We were wondering why people do this because there is always enough time for everyone to get in. Vijay who was accompanying me said, 'Simply, there isn't enough space for everyone to be seated. People travel long distances, nobody wants to stand the whole distance...the fight is for the seats'. Everyone in this country fights for some sort of seats I thought wryly-politicians, students, train commuters..! 'Vijay...I feel it has almost become a sport for them..I have seen
people doing the same even when the train had been empty and there were only a handful of people trying to board the train. Even then the behaviour was the same...to beat others into boarding the train first. Maybe people simply get a kick out of it or simply have got habituated to it, that they keep doing it irrespective of the change in the situation. Maybe this is an ocassion everyone can legitimately show aggression and who wouldn't want to let some steam off after a hard day's work. So the few seconds madness of train boarding becomes an alibi for agression...'.

It was evident Vijay, and Krishna who was with us then, were hardly convinced by my alternatives. We simply wrung our hands that this was one of those inexplicable things and shoved it into the deeper cellars of our mind for future cogitation.

To be continued...

kicks

Hiya folks, somehow not able to turn out poems however I try. Many of em in various degrees of incompletion are resting in my computer and on untidy sheets of paper. Following the wisdom that it is of no use yanking a dry udder I thought, let me treat you to some prose.

I wanted to write something on the various shades of joys and sorrows I have had the good luck to pass through. So starting with...


Pink, the Color of Joy, Seeped into my Fingernails

If I had to give joy, mirth, and fun gay abandon a color it would be pink.

I had a friend who used to question what reason what sanction one needed to celebrate life. He was an apologist for birthdays, New Year celebrations, Diwali, Krishna Jayanti, Independence Day, Republic Day, Valentine's Day...I strongly suspect he had gone around wishing 'Happy Good Friday' to all his Christian friends in his younger days until someone not quite politely stopped him on his ebullient tracks. He used to say, 'All festivals are great excuses to rejoice because to do so all alone and without a reason shall look a wee bit crazy. Imagine how would it be to burst crackers on some odd tuesday, to throw colors on each other on a nondescript saturday, or to ask your Dad for new jeans on some godforsaken day that is not your birthday!'. 'I can't feel happy just because you are supposed to be celebrating a certain date. It seems to me as fakery, plain and simple.' He would theatrically retort, 'Though it is sad that celebrations too have to be institutionalised it makes me shed tears of blood to see you question their logic instead of grabbing the opportunity to be gay abandon'. So, when he pranced on Diwali morning guiding kids quarter his age in exploding 'atom bombs' and 'hydrogen bombs' of Bijili and Sparrow brands I would spend my time on my balcony breathing the smokey sulphur fumes that rose from the streets.

I had my own reasons ofcourse. My personality came dressed up as reasons-a sobriety supported by a overdeveloped sense of skepticism when it came to human nature. I couldn't digest the fact that wishes kept pouring to no end from people who on other days would only extend a cursory nod or at best a smile. Bear-hugs, salutations, endless greetings that people could say in an unthinking 'Hey...Happy Diwali, Hey...Happy Christmas, Hey..Many Many Happy Returns of the Day' tone like a turbaned door-keeper employed to bend low in grace for every customer. I thought people smiled incessantly without investing it with any amount of responsibility. I compared it to what alcohol could effect in people. On a high, people become super-friendly, forget their petty troubles, jealousies and self-centredness, and apparently become so gregarious. Festivals seemed to have the same numbed pleasantess about them. A transitory intimacy. Automaton joy on an appointed date; friendliness for no rhyme or reason. Only to vanish the next day like crowds after a cricket match leaving the stadium littered with a loneliness (known only to the ragpickers). Is that why I have always felt the day after Diwali to be the most desultory?

I held that tokens of love held true meaning only among one's beloved ones and closest friends. They mean it. They shall bear the cross love may entail-if it comes to that. Others-acquaintances, fellow workers, batchmates, society-can't but remain shallow. But where I smelt insincerety or at best the unthinking habit of ritual, my friend held that the fact they atleast smiled, hugged, and opened up on these days was a real gain. He had then pleaded, 'Is it so difficult to be affectionate to a fellow human being, acquainted not even a total stranger, without tying him into deals of love and responsibility...No doubt these festivities are oases in a desert. But would you refuse them because they are a passing phenomenon? The stretching deserts are reasons enough to have our fill of the oasis whenever we stumble by them. Don't you think so?'. I wryly replied, 'I think they are mirages'.

Two clocks in my room
give each other company.
Each one's tick close on the
heels of the other.
Cluck.Click.Cluck.Click.Cluck.Click...
Each one's voice sure, distinct
but I can hear them only as a cluclick-
Like mom and dad have merged
into dear parents.

I wonder: With whom shall I Click!?

Basics

The sharp taste of curd and pickle
remind life's simplicity.
All I find essential is someone
at home awaiting me.
All full day's work to keep sanity,
Elayaraja and Bach to
iron out incongruities.

Runner's High

Lungs cry out for breatherspace,
My limb are a spent force.
In the funnel of a consciousness
that is left amidst a beat-up heart
and beaten spirit,

the chatter of the birds
and the orange orb of a sun
filter through as godsent
gifts.

Method Acting (Reply to Jayendran's)

The duck that wants to play an 0yster.
Let God help it rummage the hurts
and joys of its past
and select those shining drops
that shall crystallise as pearls.

Gathering my day at its end
is as tricky as finishing off
the remaining rasam on my leaf.

No, no one's There Calling at Home

The traffic is usual and the path is far.
Lorries wham past, and roads are potholed.
Some rain has fallen, and so it slips.
My tyres, their tread gone, skid.

Crowded buses lunge,
And the bikes' beelines make a maze.
My brakes are weak. None can
hear my horns.

I have to whizz past.
No, no one’s there calling at home,
which is as empty as the roads here.

But I have to push the needle
to the speedometer's limit-
Perfect my cuts and smoothen my
drivethroughs-Knife through
the maze and be one with
the breeze. Beat time to a second's
section and find purpose.

A kind child's sorrow smile bloom up the sidewalk.
It’s a flicker of a look and a bump in my consciousness-
In the intersperse of a fishcart and a heading lorry,
and a waterslick on the road and brakes that fail.

The Longing and Losses of this World

The stars with no journey made.
The rain splattering on concrete faces.
The flowers smelling of sorrow
as their fate is to fall to the ground, crushed.

The birds coo, get mated and feel joyous.
But the river and the sea; you and me
separated by a lifetime's journey
feel blue and anarchic.

We discover that interesting person
At the end of a desultory vacation.
And feel the romance bloom
when dead end deadlines loom.

The sun looks great just before it sets
And leaves memory alone to feed ourselves.
The moon shines well when we are tired
and with sleep are we all drunk.

Tragicomedy?

My jokes-Nobody laughs.
I cry.


Occupational Hazard

With her face bent over me,
the dentist's ruffling hands tend my cavity.
A curious itch commands me-Lock eyes!-and soon spreads
to the other pairs at close quarters.

This article appeared in The Sunday Magazine (Jan 04 04) of The Hindu.
Its a touching appeal for trust among warring religions and brotherhood made through a delightful cricket allegory.

http://www.hindu.com/mag/2004/01/04/stories/2004010400010100.htm

Rainbow

I understood I lost my first love-
at Delhi Haat, an ordinary autumn day.
Thereby I lost my greatest entertainment,
my greatest companion and my soul turned gray.

I cried profusely that afternoon.
For myself, nay. For her, maybe. For us-I ain't sure.
But tears ran down and under a summer noon
they shall have glittered like a silver fall.

I began to run-my sobs grew embarrasingly loud.
I ran afar from her-she pulled away in a bus.
I wailed and my heart broke down against my chest.
Like a rocket's charge the release fueled my legs.

Staring down from a window seat a Delhi that passed by
I felt romantic, broken and a hero. I felt
beautiful in tragedy and momentous in grief. A thousand
violins sprang epic accounts in melody.

But I lost my capacity to love another afternoon-When on
sighting my old love after many years I had gasped
and bit my tongue too late: 'eeek I never knew she
could grow so stout'. A life's illusion died that day.