Evanescence

The fluorescence of those tiny bulbs, accentuating the darker green of the leaves. The yellow-amber of the Chinese lamps. The cobalt blue of sky, in contrast with the azure sea. The red blush of the last rays of the sun.

The grainy, gentle resistance of sand, the rocks smoothed by eons of waves. The breeze. The rhythmic rush of the waves; caressing, awakening, enlivening.

The sour taste of beer, the strumming of the guitar, the lilting vocals, the shimmering swaying bodies- moving apart, yet getting ever closer. A brush, a touch, a smile.

A touch. An embrace. A stolen kiss. An open full blown one. The embrace of bodies, the swaying, the twisting, the madness. Exhaustion.Sitting by the side.

The slow midnight walk, under the soft arc of the moon.

Your room, her clothes, your bed, her arms, your mouth, her skin, your hands, her arched back; the rising pitch, the frenzied moments, the shared crescendo. Union. Oblivion. Exhaustion.  The shared warmth. The sun rays on the scattered sheets. You alone on your bed. Normalcy.

Was it just a dream? Isn’t it all a dream?

Choices

                                                       

I may not be conversant in the ways of the world. I may not understand the impulses and compulsions of men and how to twist them to your ends. I may probably never learn how to get things done. And I do know, this leaves me extremely vulnerable to the world and its ways. I will be exploited, my heart will be torn and my very guts wrenched out of me.

But you see, this was a choice I made a long time ago; a choice I consciously made- to choose the ideal over the real, poetry over prose, the subject over the object.  I chose elegance and subtlety, principles and convictions.  I chose life. In all its glory, in its entire splendor. In its radiant beauty and it naked fragility, I chose life. Life as it should be, over life as it is.

Maria

Its late on a dark windy night. It might just start to pour any moment now. You look at the road, anxiously waiting, hoping to catch a glimpse of those distinctive headlamps, the familiar sputtering, wheezing, rattling of an auto. Your chances are slim; vehicular traffic has become sparse over the past half an hour. You have already tried waving a few down, without much success. "Pogadhu saar". Another one whooshes past you , the flying side flap revealing intimately entwined figures. 

You see another one and you walk into the main road to make sure that he sees you. You wave him down and put on your best imitation of  Chennai tamizh. "100 ruba". You are stunned. " Maatna  police ku".  Exasperated by your puzzlement he says " The". You are bewildered, worried and you understand nothing. You get in anyway. The auto starts moving. Its pitch dark inside. One side is already covered by the flap. The driver does the same to the other side.

You are nervous. You don't know what he meant about police . Maybe he is delivering a load? At midnight? Of what? You shudder at being caught with whatever it is.

Slowly, you hear movements and become aware of a living presence. Your mobile reveals the contour of a face and the silhouette of a shapely body.  You are startled by the blonde hair resting in a fringe on her forehead. The  blue eyes look at you. An anxious look.  But behind that , in its depths, there is a calm. Ive seen everything , those eyes say. All this in less than a few seconds.

Then it hits you. Thevidiya. Prostitute. You shudder at the thought of the auto being stopped simply because both blinds were down, to find the both of you. You reconcile yourself to that possibility, thinking " enna aida pogudhu?"; you've gotten in anyway and you might as well see it through. All this in less than a few seconds.

" Where are you from " you ask, going by the blonde hair and blue eyes.
 "Pondicherry" 
" Tamizh theriyuma?" you ask, a little foolishly.
 "Theriyum".
  
"Epdi?"
"Valandha edam tamizh dhaan"
"Ippo enga pora", probably the worst question you could have asked.
"ooru trivizha. Gramathula". 

You nod, understanding perfectly. Record dances were an integral part of festivities. But a blonde? The crowd would go wild, you suppose.

"Pondicherry la?" you ask, unwilling to finish. She understands. " Amma kalyanathuku munnadi porandachu. ammaku kalyanam aachu .3 pasanga. Theriyum. "

She melts you.

"Enakku... enna solradhunu therila" you manage to stutter. She acknowledges that, taking your hand in hers.

She is a prostitute, your conditioning tells you You though, have already bonded with her. You..You admire her. She, who has seen more of life than you ever will. She who has more depth than you ever will. She could submerge you in her life, swallow you, amalgamate you in her experience.

It is at moments like these that you catch a glimpse.  Its at moments like these that you commune with reality. A soft,tender, ethereal kiss on your cheek, her eyes closed. An eternity passes. You smile. 

Depravity -2

I sit on the street mound at ten am on a warm Bangalore morning joint in hand. Three travelers carrying a couple of bags of luggage each give me puzzled glances. The stare at the hand holding the joint, pause for a second and then go their way. They wonder what I'm doing here on a Monday morning. They would be shocked by what I was holding. Or heck they might have thought I'm sitting here cigarette in hand, inhaling away to glory, relaxed, with all the time in the world to spare, to sit and stare at how everyone is rushing to work, always tense, always in a hurry.

What am I doing with my live they ask. And people have asked. You are young and you have your whole life in front of you . They talk about working hard, about achieving and about purpose in life. About how it makes life worth living. They scurry along rushing to whatever twenty story building houses their office, the stress showing on their faces. What if I'm late they think. Maybe the frown on their faces has to do with forcing yourself to work on a Monday morning. Maybe they worry about the next deadline to meet, the next person to answer to. Life gets easier as time goes by. Promotions, more power, a better salary. Worker bees of yet another colony, slaving away their lives. And they pity me.

That can't be my life.I can't live like that. I can't barter away my life and time . The trick is to minimise your wants. I've perfected the art. My needs boil down to just two things. Joints and books. Thankfully, both come cheap.

I stay at the place my parents left me. I subsist on their savings as workers. I have the company of people who care for my company, for the quality of conversations I bring to the table; People who would sponsor my dinner, buy me a pint of beer or share a joint. I have people who think what I scribble is worth something. And so I subsist on inherited pittance, the generosity of my company and what garbage I spew from my pen. I get to go to second hand book markets where I get to walk along narrow corridors with small stalls on either sides filled with brown battered dusty books with sellers ever willing to strike a bargain. My eyes roam through piles of books tracing the titles on their broken spines, my eyes glinting when I find a Tagore amidst the Barbara Bradfords. I take my time searching for gems among the dust, of reading titles on spines, sometimes picking a book to read the blurb, sometimes opening a random page and savouring the flow of words but always savouring the joy of looking at so many books and wondering what I would find.

I get to buy ten books at five hundred; fodder that will last me a couple of days. I get to wake up late grab the book next to me and read as long as I want. I get to roll a joint from my stash on a Monday morning and sit on the mound in front of my house and watch the people rush by . On really good days I get to do both.

The Women in your Life.

You may meet her at a mall, when you casually turn back to see her flipping through that one book that caught your eye in the shelf. She would seem the quiet type, lost in her own world, where only black ink on white pages exists. At first glance, nothing would strike you about her. A closer look will reveal more. A tastefully chosen earring, accentuating the soft curve of her earlobe; the colour of her lens frame; those carefully chosen sandals. The way she carries herself. Her confidence in standing in the middle of a store, not caring about the world around her,  focused on the words - the worlds within. And you would yearn to connect, to be allowed entry into her world.

You may meet her at a clothes store, dressed casually, nonchalantly even, in old shorts and a faded top. Your mouth would open slightly before you realise it. You would have not seen her face yet, but you are already drawn to her effortless elegance , her unassuming confidence.You strain to look at her face, but those tresses evade your mind. You sigh, wishing you could speak to her, the sigh conveying everything- the desire, the hope , the futility. You are afraid.  Afraid that by getting to know her, she may somehow fall short of the angelic vision in your head. You sigh and you walk on, the image never quite leaving you.

You may meet her on the warm sands, amidst the sun the waves and the euphoria- a solitary figure, sitting by herself, her legs crossed, her eyes open- seeing nothing and yet seeing everything. Her curls sway gently in the sea breeze. You are inexplicably drawn to her,. She calms you, detaches you, makes you pause for a minute and look at it all- not as you, but as a third person- looking at the world, your perception of the world through your eyes and the resultant thoughts, emotions and memories they evoke. You see it all. And it scares you. You snap out of it.You snap back in. And you see everything. You see her. Your world has changed.

You may meet her at a mall, on the waves; you may see her on the road as you pass her by. She may strike a chord in you. Touch you in a new way. A brush. A touch.  A word. A mood. An emotion. An experience. A memory.



This is  blog post number 100. A personal milestone for me. This blog has seen five years of my writing.  Thanks for the encouragement, the criticism and the motivation. Here is to a 100 more.

Turmoil

There are days, there are certain times within days when you feel so low that you cant bring yourself to get out of bed, when you don't have the will to pick up a ringing phone, when it gets so excruciatingly miserable that all you can do is to let yourself be engulfed in the swirling waters , wave after wave crashing into you, tossing, throwing you here and there. You hold your breath, you endure, you just wait. No point expending energy swimming against the tide. You surrender. And you wait. And you wait. Slowly, like someone pulled the plug in the bathtub, the waters swirl with every lessening intensity, every so slowly draining away. There you are, feet on land again, tired, battered. There you are. You. Are.

And What Remains in the End - 2

" Speaking with you on the phone, from this room, at this time of the night... brings back memories, you know?"

" Sorry to keep you up this late" you say, polite as ever.

"No, no its not that. I'm happy with you. Its just that... this reminded me of my days in college, when I used to spend every night on the phone till darkness melted into the early hours of the next day. Now it all seems so far away, you know.. The habit of speaking on the phone for hours is gone. This room; I dont live here anymore. My college life is gone. The people I spoke to, those bonds are mostly gone. That life, one of many lives I've had, has been washed away by time. The old die and from their corpses grows life. Yet some things are remarkably resilient."

" Have I ever told you it would be a shame if we never got together?"

" We've spoken about how things are, how things could be, how they should be.  We've spoken of alternative universes, universes of possibilities,  ever since ours began"

Depravity

Depravity. The steady slide  .The slow, uneven growth growth of stubble, the tangled  clumps of hair , some of it falling in patches, the greasy attire, the squalor of your space. The coarseness of voice, of speech ; the freedom and scope for brutal honesty that it offers. The mind numbing boredom of having nothing, being nothing, with nothing to look forward to, nothing to desire. The dimming of your intellect, the dull aching sense of being, the yearning for escape. The desire to seek oblivion. The scorn for the people around you, the bitterness their presence entails. Their sly whispers and their mockery, the derision and ridicule. The lack of food, the reluctant scavenging. The shedding of your last remnant bits of ego . Scavenging. Existing. Eking out a living, struggling on for you know not what. The atrophy of muscles, the  protruding ribs.The tattered clothing, the smell of piss and shit. Human, sub human, worse till the mongrel looks better in comparison. The exorcism of the zeitgeist, the rejection of contemporaries. Of country, family, kith and kin. Of name identity and the other million strands of existence  . Of life as defined by others . People . Utter rage and dejection. And rejection. A middle finger to their face and a jerk off for their values. The smug satisfaction of it all. The rejection of and the scorn for everything conventional. The negation of them. The allure of decadence.The freedom  of depravity.

And What Remains in the End

" We are meant for each other, you know that? " She asked, looking him in the eye. They were sitting in his car, under a tree nowhere, as was their wont. They never knew where to go.  Most of their time was spent inside that metallic capsule with leather seats, their cocoon against the world.

" I know", he said , holding her gaze. " We are two jigsaw pieces that fit,each complementing the other" .

" You also know this may not be right? " 

 " I know".

"Takes a lot of courage to accept that. Even more to acknowledge it"

" Thatss the truth isn't it? And its you " he shrugged. " I dont know whats in store for us Ananya. We may be or we may not, both equally likely. We may laugh at this conversation, looking back with fond remembrance , while our kids scream for our attention. We may have other lovers, wonderful men and women, changing our lives ,shattering us. We may marry others, move to other places , become different people until 

what we were becomes mere memory, another thing in our cupboard of recollections- to be taken out, dusted and put back in once a year."

" But within us , in some small crevice, underneath careful layers, there will be the person who is here today. And in that part, wherever it may be, however small or distant, what we have will still be" .

To See the Universe in a Grain of Sand

"Shyam! Shyam! Did you see that? " she asked, barely concealing her excitement. " That butterfly there. Its a pale translucent white. If you see it from one side, it looks white, if you see it from the other side, it looks green, the colour of our wall. its so pretty ". The joy was evident on her face.

" Its nine ma. Only moths fly at night, not butterflies" I thought. " Moreover the lack of patterns and bright shades indicates its most probably a moth" .  As soon as these thoughts flashed, I realised something.

My mom may not know the minutiae of flying insects but she knew something far more valuable. She could see beauty in everyday things. She could share joy.

Kindered Spirits

Where you are from, whom you are, what your interests are, what your views in life are do not matter much to me. What matters is do you think or do you not. Do you try to make sense of your life? Do you have a core set of ideas and a worldview? Do you have a morality and a sensibility that is not merely inherited but also honed and shaped by you with utmost care? Are you open to ideas ? If so, you are someone I would love to know. For we are kindred spirits, you and I.