Mango Showers

The warm wind blows,

ripe with warm sticky memories

of childhood summers -

scraped knees, marbles and kites

 and elbows dripping golden yellow

mango juice.

I lie sprawled –

half on–half off

the couch,

feeling a lazy caress

as the air sluggishly drifts

from corner of the room to another.

The Hindu flutters briefly,

the pages fighting a losing battle

against the humidity.

And then it too lies limp

letting the heat wash over it.

On the front page,

a bespectacled man smiles and waves

sporting a coffee cup halo

Dry leaves rustle on the concrete outside,

the crunch competing with the sound

of the tender coconut vender -

“Fresh and Tender”

“Full of Juice”

he claims.

“Beat the heat”

he promises in a fit of sales talk fancy.

His voice is soon drowned out,

by the man who pushes

a blue hand cart

piled with baby mangoes

waiting to be sold by the kilo

and pickled

by many a household

in anticipation of

a time without mangoes

With a jerk, the fan stumbles to a halt,

filling the room with a sultry silence,

and making no difference to the breeze

who does as she pleases,

and keeps her own hours.

The outside cacophony

competes with

the silence inside,

as I escape this heat

to the summers of my past – 

where the winds were never this warm

and the mangoes were always juicier.

Rainbow

We wove together the threads of our life,
We did,
And made a rainbow coloured tapestry
Of our lives.

We wove violet velvet
For the royal way you treated me,
And for fairytales,
And other dreams
We had.
We splashed in some indigo,
For all the industry
In our lives,
Blood, sweat and tears,
That we mixed together.

I pulled in some silken strands of
Summer sky
Blue
For the way you make me feel -
Calm and sheltered,
And like our love,
Extended as far
As the vast sky.
And for the way
I made you feel rooted
You found some green threads
As well.

Yellow and orange pieces of cotton, for
The days we lay cuddled
In our own warmth –
Too content to move,
Smouldering with muted love
And finally,
Thick ribbons of red,
For passions – ardour, anger.
That defined us

But then I looked again,
And saw us for what
We are -
Weavers of an illusion.
A rainbow coloured illusion.

29C Sagas

The green-with-white-stripe
rattletrap buses,
have been replaced.
By the white, and yellow, and orange
buses that come and go,
or better still,
the hiss of the pneumatic
AC buses.

The conductor’s hands,
occupied with coloured stubs
of tickets and
a jangling change purse,
now holds
a black box, that spits
impersonal white vouchers
for exact change tendered.

Gone, are the navy blue rexine seats,
that, on a hot summer’s day,
made you think of swimming
and ice golas.
The hand painted signboards
in yellow and white,
announcing if it would stop for you,
are things of the past as well;
ushering little moving dots
of neon orange lettering-
via, Adyar, Mylapore, Gemini.

But then the old lady from Mylapore gets in
and without losing a beat
of the sloka she’s chanting,
takes a seat near
the wizened lady, with the gold nose stud
and the black tattoos
smelling of fish from the beach.
And in the back rows,
a flower seller, continues to weave
flowers – dreams, hopes, love –
in a thread - for sale
to those who care to look.
And the two men discuss,
their boss and his nasty love
for horrible meetings.

Two young men get in,
With their low waisted jeans
And their gelled hair,
Laughing and discussing
The latest football games,
Drawing looks from the
Middle aged man,
In his pinstriped pants and tucked in shirt
Who had watched them too.
And the college girls sit together
Giggling, and jingling their bangles,
And fixing their hair,
Not caring if anyone sees
But hoping all the while that someone does
Much to the amused stare of the lady
With the vermillion in her forehead
Who’s already made two calls
To “chellam” –
“There’s thayirsaadam in the fridge”
she’d said.

And the conductors voice
“Adyar Signal yerrengu”
Adds to the symphony of
the traffic and the horn
the chatter,
Someone’s radio,
93.5 “Suryan FM”
“Keep listening”
And the smell
Of the fish and flowers
And sweat and tears
And temples and
Fancy deodorant
Unite.

And then, as
someone hands you two coins and a note
and asks for a ticket
that familiar feeling hits you,
as you jostle for space
and make your journeys;
you know
that despite the odds -
Nothing has changed.

Cerulean

She had kept the blue pebble with her for as long as she could remember. It hung around her neck, a shining blue on a coarse black thread, nestling softly into the hollow that formed at the base of her neck. The stone was an object of beauty – it was the colour of summer skies and sun kissed seas and it lay there, unpretentious against the smooth brown of her skin. It shone with a polished intensity – the kind of colour and gleam that only time could impart.

She leaned into the breeze, letting the drafts play with her hair, breathing deep and letting the tang of the salt in the air settle on her tongue. She could hear the waves breaking on the shore, and she was sure if she just opened her eyes she could see the moonlight reflecting off the water, but she didn’t. She shifted a little bit; the threads of the wicker chair were biting into her. She frowned as the breeze stopped and leaned back against her cushion, with her eyes still closed. She’d settled for the time being. The night grew still around her and the silences grew louder still.

She grew drowsy, the breeze and the heat lulling her into a trance – a half way place between sleep and waking. Her hand drifted to her pendant unconsciously and she began to fiddle, worrying the knot that held the stone.

Her thoughts strayed to him like they usually did. And she could see him like she’d seen him that night, from the night her life had changed.

She’d met him on the beach. She’d been sitting at the water’s edge, letting the waves crash over her toes, and watching the moonlight glint over the swirls of the water like she liked to. And then he’d shown up. Out of the blue. Literally.

He’d made himself rather comfortable beside her, wordlessly burrowing into the sand near her and settling himself down. At length he let out a long sigh and then turned and looked at her, still not breaking the silence that had enveloped them comfortably. She’d been the one to smile, and he had reciprocated, breaking into a beam.

That smile had broken her guard, had helped her relax, and she could still remember it – the wrinkles of his nutty brown skin, the smooth contours of his mouth against the alluring contrast of his slightly crooked teeth. She shifted in her chair and smiled.

They had spent that night together, sitting in the sand and talking, about things that mattered and things that didn’t. He knew that her favourite sundae was three scooped – one strawberry scoop, one mint chocolate chip scoop and one French vanilla scoop, all covered in chocolate sauce. She knew that the small scar on his back was from playing ‘Cops and Robbers’ as a ten year old and getting caught under fencing that had torn his shirt clean off of him. She knew that he was terrified of dying alone and unloved. He knew she was petrified of being alone and unloved. She knew he wasn’t ticklish, he knew she hated purple but found mauve perfectly splendid -the distinction escaped him. They both knew that this was something special. And so they had gone on, telling each other everything, keeping back nothing, baring bit by precious bit of themselves to each other. And when the sun rose from the distant horizon, casting its fierce burning glow over the sparkling blue of the water, they sat in silence, knowing that they had said all that there was to be said.

They got up little by little, stretching and working out the kinks of spending the night sitting curled up in the sand. He put out his hand and she slipped hers into it with the familiarity of time. They walked away from the water’s edge. The little dunes of sand that formed around them overnight began to shift and move with the water, some vanishing completely.

They had walked quite a distance when the blue had caught his eye, winking merrily at him from under some sand. He had bent over and found this, a stone, so blue it had startled them both. They stared at it for a while, the blue of it cupped so perfectly in his palm, and then he’d given it to her, hers to keep as she liked. They’d walked on and had parted soon after, with promises of meeting again before long.

And she had kept it. The cerulean blue stone and her memories of him – all she carried from that night. And the pain of never seeing him again.

She shifted in her chair again. The beach had never seemed the same after that, she mused. Then again, neither had she. The breeze died down, she sighed and shifted once more. In the distance, she heard a few waves break, and she slowly dozed off – a dreamless, man-less beach-less sleep.

Goodbyes

GOODBYES

I thought I would always remember this,
but over time, it has become blurred.
I thought that this, this little bundle
Of memories - stored deep
In the recesses of my
Fusty, unreliable
Neuron circuits,
Would never vanish.
But over time it has.

I thought I would never forget
The way you smiled,
The corners of your mouth
Turning up, just so.
And pushing your skin
Into deep tanned folds,
Just like the sand dunes
We used to race on.
But your smile has gone astray
In the valleys and peaks
Of my mind.

I never thought I would forget
The way the wind played with your hair -
Pulling it this way and that
Making it stick up at angles
Unknown to mankind,
And the way it lay tame
Against the soft cotton of your pillow
Giving you a salt and pepper halo

I never thought I would forget
The sound of your laughter,
A deep guffaw, a chortle
Or a bellow
Depending on the teller of the joke
But they seem to have faded
To faint echoes
Travelling in the winds that rustle
Your hair.

I never thought I would never forget
The way you smelt
Like “Old Spice” and caramelised onions
And Amma’s aggarbathi kuchi.
But then, smell is rather touchy
And refuses to recognise
Anything anymore.

The day you went away
I looked at you
And promised myself
I would never forget.
And I held on
As best as I could
But you slipped away
Like water in my fist
And all that was left
Was the wet.

Circle Of Life

"Wear these" he said, pulling them from the stand.

He'd bought her those yesterday, a peace offering -

round, colourful,

passive circles of metal, and plastic, and wood, and thread,

hanging from his extended hand.

She'd taken them quietly, picking them up

and feeling their weight,

pulling her down

encircling her.

"Thanks" she had said, a single response,

to all things unsaid -

the thoughts, buzzings in her head,

the sting behind her eyes,

the dryness in her throat,

belied by those circles.

Those pieces of wood, these circles of thread.

Running Race

“Run”, he yelled so I ran.
I ran like I’d never run before
I ran so fast, the wind,
It chilled my nose.
My fingers got numb
And my toes went cold.
I trundled along,
Rolling, huffing-puffing
I ran, and ran.
Throwing up little clouds
Of chalk dusted track.
“Run”, he yelled
It’s a race for one,
So I ran
And I won.

Only a few things are really important,
Like say warm tea on rainy afternoon..

The Fallen

I suppose it would be easy to make this a post about death, the end, and all those mortal conundrums. But then where would that leave life, light and beauty?

I suppose it would be easy to focus on the dirt and the mud. But where would that leave that fighting life, that new blade of life?

I suppose this could have been a sullied ending. But it just as well could be a benign beginning.

I suppose things could be anything. People could be any one. Something one minute. Someone another. But where would that leave me.

I suppose this isn't about flowers or the grass, beginnings or the end, or anything of that sort. But then again, I suppose this isn't about me.

End of the Road

Running. Hurrying. Scrambling.

Away from you.

Done.

Living life the way you want me to.

Because my world is mine -

happily grey.

Contently growing up.

Letting go, moving on.

Slotting - where I want to be,

Who I wan to be,

Where I want to go

What I want to do.

And yours is strangely yours,

much like you.

Stuck in your rut

Holding on, grappling

where you wish you could be.

Contradiction.

Black and white.

I'm done trying.

You're you, I'm me.

Somewhere, grow up

For once, let it go.

You know as well as I do,

The twain shall never meet.

Addicts DO Ramble.

“This is insane,” I think to myself, as I stare watching the shadows chase each other on my ceiling. “There's needing and there's Needing. I know you can be addicted to cigarettes, to chocolates, to coffee, or even Irish rock, but can you be addicted to a person, to a feeling, to a sense of happiness, satisfaction and well being? If you can, then I am, to you.”
I shift uncomfortably on my bed, acknowledging the cold draft across my ankles with an impatient tug on my blanket. The whole thing shifts, now there are drafts everywhere. Oh the frustration. I pull at my sheet hoping to get it back in place without having to get up but to no avail I curse and get up.
Suddenly I realise, it’s just a sheet. The frustration isn’t about drafts, I realise, it’s about warmth and snugness and belonging. My bed is literally metaphor for my life. Brilliant.
At 3 in the morning epiphany moments are rarely well received.
I fall back and watch another shadow – a fleeting presence, thrown into relief by a passing car and then gone... I sigh. “What have you done to me?”
Before you, I was happy alone. Now, every moment alone burns, bores me.
Before you, I had friends. Many. Plural. Girls and boys. Now, I have friends. Few. Those who’ve stuck with me, who’ve seen me through. I suppose I should be grateful to you for weeding out those who don’t matter. But more importantly I’m grateful to you for letting those who do bloom.
Before you, I used the word friend often. Now I’m not sure what it means…are we friends?
Before you, I was an eternal pessimist, convinced of a morbid end with only feline company. A secret lover of all things dramatically cheesy. Now I’m an open lover of the dramatically cheesy. I sigh wistfully all the time. Look out of windows. Sneak surreptitious glances at you. I’m nuts. And yet the felines are faithful.
Before you, I used to like hugs, love them even. Now, I crave hugs. I could live my life enveloped there. Just standing.
Before you I was ‘do-I-look-like-I-care,my-pjs-are-comfy-and-I-wear-them-everywhere.’ Now, my pjs are still comfy but they are pjs for a reason.
Before you, I was rational, sane, cold even. Now, I’m just asunder. My very basis of rationality torn from me, because you chose to see me, and my world, differently from the way anything any one had ever seen.
Before you, I wanted to grow another 2 inches, so I could scout for the tall hot boys. Now I think I’ll settle. To be able to fit myself under your chin, rest on your shoulder, seems like the perfect height to me.
I close my eyes and groan. Who the hell am I? This is turning out to be disaster, I can’t even think straight anymore… I sound like a love struck heroine, a terrible caricature of something I only derided, convinced as I was, that a) that no one would want me in the first place, so such issues would only safely by pass me, after boy meet girl is hardly reality is it and b) even if non platonic feelings existed, a miracle in that, I would be strong, I was smarter than that after all.
Everyone knew the rules. I knew the rules.
I turned. The wall stoically stared back at me. I used to be that wall. Now I’m addicted to you, madly enough. Being a wall kept me sane. Strangely enough, my total and supposed loss, or rather surrender of sanity to you doesn’t bother me much. I need rehab. Now.
Unappreciated epiphany number two. The morning is a strange time I guess. The mind operates on an entirely different level of thought, minus the psychotropic materials otherwise needed to induce this level of whackjob. I had officially lost it.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Pause. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. My phone beeps and lights up and I start. 4:11 am. I have class in 4 hours. And yet, sleep sounds amusing. I grin. A private joke between myself and me.
Before you, heartbreak used to be a terrible emotional marsh, wet with tears, unyielding with all the raw emotion, choking. A hunger, an ache, never to be satiated. Now, heartbreak is just a temporary loss of sanity – ‘the customer you have tried to reach is currently busy, please hold the line or try again later’. Heartbreak. A moment of absolute confusion - past and present, emotion and reason - a giant fondue, into which I was happily sticking my finger, enjoying the warm and gooey cheese, finding a sense of satisfaction, a feeling of being replete, giggling as I lick it off.
I turn again. I drift away. Sleep isn’t very elusive after all.
Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. The sheet shifts and falls gently to the ground, a yellow puddle in the gray of the night. I hardly stir. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale.

Wisps.

These smoke screens.
Our comfort
Hidden by what we claim to know
What we claim to be
Hiding what we are
Who we want to be
We hold on to these wisps
Grasping, searching, hoping,
for a hold in the ephemeral.
But it goes on,
The continuous sublimation
the constant lack of stability
of belonging.
Until we stop,
grasping, searching, hoping.
And just let the smoke envelop us.
Cover us, hiding us again.
Lost in what it claims to be -
until we ourselves don't seem to exist anymore

becoming exactly that,
What we were hoping to avoid,
Insubstantial.
Smoke.Screens.

So it turned out just the same as everyone else

After the initial spurt of enthusiasm that creating a new blog brought on, it was pretty much banished to the recesses of my mind. The initial few weeks were all about putting things up, finding things to put, making things that were put up pretty and all that jazz.

Then the boredom set in. The blog, became a blog, just another outlet of mine in this crazy crazy world. Things went up as and when splotches of colour came up on the gray horizon, chronicling the rainbows in my life.

Even later, the blog became a chronicle of just the gray. My shoulder to lean on. My place to vent about things I couldn't say. And soon enough it assumed a character so whiny and morose, I felt like stabbing it in the eye myself.

And then today, I blew the dust off my keypad, and decided, enough was enough. This thing used to be my baby. I need to go back to taking care of it. Here I am hoping that this second burst of enthusiasm will keep this alive this time around, that the second coming will be for real.

Friends around me are actively getting off their asses and getting things done. This is just a blog right?

Piece of cake.

Blog 2.0

Here I come.

Those Days.

Today is one those days.

You know those days by the way your toes feel on the ground in the morning, searching for your slippers in the cold.

By the way your alarm rings, earlier than its supposed to, too late to go back to sleep.

By the way the sky looks, blue but not bright, cloudy but not overcast.

By the way it threatens to rain, like your tears threatening to fall.

But nothing happens.

Its just one of those days.

The coffee is too sweet.

The water all cold.

You can't find the clothes you wanted to wear.

Those memories you want to hold.

Forgotten phones, missed call dramas,

Chocolate cake ice cream cravings.

The beach just too far away.

You can't catch their eyes,

conversations just flow by.

Its a sloth kind of day.

The kind where you want to smile, can't find the energy to.

The kind where you want to laugh, can't find a reason to.

The kind where you want to cry, can't find the tears to.

The kind where nothing's wrong, but nothings right either.

Its just an in between day.

Average.

Drained. Coping.

Surrendering.

Beyond caring.

Homecoming.

The rain drums a steady beat on the outside patio
Steam rises from the tea in my hands
I hold on to the cup, savouring its warmth,
scrutinising my reflection in its brown depths,
its sweetness dissolving on my tongue.

An errant mosquito strays in my direction,
ends up a maroon spat on my stinging, swelling skin.
A lizard silently watches the proceeding from the wall.
Tongue out, tongue in, contemplations of a meal lost perhaps.

Inhale, exhale, the smell of old books,
dust and musty furniture mingles,
triggering nostalgia, tickling old memories
languishing in long forgotten corners of my brain.

In the next room, a pot gurgles, a kettle whistles, wood crackles.
My eyes sting from the smoke of the fire.
My nose finds a thread of smell, a familiar flavour.
A smile, a childhood favourite.

A sip of tea, warm happiness, a muffled radio plays,
pages of a book rustle, flapping in the breeze, sitting forgotten, on my lap.
A babble of conversation, loud laughter. I giggle.
The inside joke, a feeling of inclusion, of belonging. Family.

At my grandmother's once again,
at home after all these years.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

-Kahlil Gibran.

Exam Haiku

Ten, Twelve, Two, Four.
Studying, cramming. Tension.
Sleep?? Alarm! Coffee.

Mugged hard? Remember
battles and growth and Freud and trade.
Damn. Give me my book.

Spell check. Time check. Neat?
Invigilator stares. Cripes.
Four questions down. Help.

Exams at an end.
Entrances begin now. Boo.
Oh God, kill me now.

Fates Amusement

They say the strongest emotion in the world is love. I beg to disagree. To me it isn't.
Amusement is. You may wonder what I find so amusing...A lot of things actually.

It amuses me that I notice the littlest things about you – the way your eyebrows furrow when you are irritated, the way you bite your lips when you're indecisive, the way your eyes light up when you laugh.

It amuses me that I know that you prefer beige to cream and yet I don't know the difference myself.

It amuses me that I know you almost better than myself –I can predict almost every reaction of yours-so myriad in their extent.

It amuses me that I think you are the second most beautiful person on earth (the first being my mother) and yet you try the damned hardest to fade into the brickwork.

It amuses me that you think you know me at all – the person you see isn't who I am in reality. It's funnier that you judge me on the precious little you know of me.

It amuses me that you claim we are poles apart –essentially we aren't that different –we're both looking for happiness.

It amuses me the way you treat me like a piece of particularly musty furniture.

It amuses me that we cant spend more than ten minutes together without rising tempers and flying insults. It probably doesn't help that I turn into a blithering idiot every time I see you.

It amuses me that I have developed a resistance to hurt you insults give me –because I enjoy your stolen moments of companionship too much.

It amuses me that most of the time you hurt me without meaning to –like when you giggle at that idiot unnecessarily.

It amuses me that tomorrow if I die, my last thought would probably be of you.

But most of all, it amuses me that the only thing I love –hates me with an equaled intensity.


He finally stopped typing and stared at the glowing screen in front of him, the only light in the darkness of the room. He took of his spectacles and rubbed his eyes tiredly. He was supposed to be making a list. Ironically, now he couldn't remember what the list was about. He sighed and supposed it would have to wait till the morning. He turned to face the open window near by and sat there staring at inky darkness of the night, blank. He let out another deep, wistful sigh, suddenly feeling oddly relieved. He put his glasses on and sat in his chair alone, the glowing laptop his only company. After a few more minutes, he got up and silently made his way to his bed room. He had never looked so weary before.


Her determined stride was clearing a path for her. No one wanted to be in her way. She was furious, annoyed and mildly paranoid, and everyone knew better than to stand in her way. She reached him and patted him on the back with a vehemence not thought possible of her.

“What exactly is this?” she asked waving a piece paper with some text on it, rather hysterically, if you looked at it from an objective point of view. He merely cocked his head to one side and continued watching her placidly.

“You know what amuses me?” her voice rising a few octaves. She continued and answered her own question, oblivious to the fact that she had attracted a rather amused audience. “It amuses me that you feel anything for me beyond an urge to complete a challenge. It amuses me that you chose to write this down instead of telling me. It amuses me that you think that I would compare you to piece of furniture” She paused and took a look around before continuing “It might be crediting you with too much” Her voice almost a hiss. He continued watching her, his face blank, his eyes betraying the interest he showed in her. The crowd erupted with gasps and a few mutters erupted across the varied tables.

At that moment, as the crowd watched the two wrapped up in a hug that seemed to convey everything, they knew that this would never end. As she leaned over and kissed his forehead, they knew too.
They were fated to be together, everyone knew that. And now, fate was having the last laugh.

That New Year Resolution

Someday, you will find me,
sitting on a marshmallow
of my own happiness.

Someday, you will find me,
swimming in a punch,
of my own sorrow.

Someday you will find me,
quivering like jelly
in my own excitement.

Someday, you will find me,
all whipped up like cream
in my own anger.

Someday you will find me
spooning comforting little pudding cups.

Someday, soon, maybe today.
I'll decide on that diet.

The Groom In Black

And then the rain started to fall...
What did she expect, only he knows.
That glowing discontentment raged through her
Threatening to take a larger form.
She wanted to scream, only so he could hear
She wanted to cry, only so he could comfort her
She wanted to break down, so he could put her together again
And when he didn’t, life changed
To something horrible, monstrous, evil
And then to something desolate, empty, bare.
And then the rain stopped.
But she wouldn’t see the damn green grass
The cursed bright blue sky,
She wouldn’t smell the clean washed out morning
As the sky stopped weeping, she began.
And it flowed through her, and surged out
And somewhere in a remote corner of the world,
It started to rain, and the drops washed away the
Long dried tear streak from the hardened cheek
Of the man standing at the altar,
Watching the woman hidden by her veil walk toward him,
The groom dressed in black.

This poem is one my friend wrote, and it was too beautiful to not put up.
I have a feeling she'll kill me, but I couldn't resist.