Nothing Crushes Us.

Dear Leslie,

It's spring again and more beautiful than ever. More beautiful than it had ever been in twenty years. More beautiful than anyplace I've seen in twenty years. Last night I saw the moon fairy again. She shone down our tree-top home, a moon-beam double bright. And I longed to speak to the squirrels again, but it was night and they were asleep. In the quiet I heard the stream gurgling, over the stones and festered lilies.

I've been love-sick and torn. My wounds unfaded, fresh and raw. Early morning today I saw again.You in your corduroys and converses, refusing to grow up and telling me stories. Of kingdoms whose kings were cowards.And new lands discovered. Monsters fought and defeated.Gentle giants won with love. I felt again. Your warm breath as you outran me to our lair.

Today afternoon, years later, I played again. Hide and seek with the brambles.And the bluebirds that return only after winter fades. It was the same bluebird, I think.

Its strange that Today, when I ran back twenty years, I felt only the fluttering in my heart as I looked, once more, at a Queen's land.  I would never exchange that brief summer in an enchanted land for all the sparkling diamonds in the world. I wouldn't trade for all the magic in the world.

But I wouldn't trade the pain too. The pain and the senselessness.

This Twilight, as I sat nested beneath our tree and you beside me, I saw you speaking to the golden squirrel.

You smiled.

You hadn't ever left him.

And then, as the purple faded from the sky, I fashioned myself a crown again. A few wings. Light enough to fly me to another universe.

The king will return from exile.

Ready his palace.

Love,
Jesse.

To See Eternity In An Hour.

(The luminiscent dial of his watch told him it was 3.00)


It wasn't easy. Returning home after another futile day . Endless rounds of begging had almost ripped him apart. If only he had money for a drink. All images of him worming would blissfully fade away. Rather like those streetlights which seemed to stretch on forever into nowhere. Or maybe like those stars that seemed to be looking at him, twinkling down sadistically.

Those stars, and a decade went swishing past. The twinkle in Annanya's eyes far outshone anything heavenly. Some years blurred.... Sayan, and the same twinkle. He would be there at his doorstep too. There simply wasn't enough courage to face that faith.

"Baba....ekhono chakri pao ni? chinta korish na.... kalke to sure"
( Papa... you still didn't get a job?? don't worry. Definetly tomorrow)

Some tomorrows never come.

Every drunken laughter mocked him. Every smile made him cringe. When had he lost it all? And why?

Sayan..... he felt repulsed.
An old man lay shivering. He passed on.
The cold air knifed at his lungs, rather like his grief that cut through him, slicing him, wounding him, over and over.

"Baba..."
(Papa)

He was passing through the beach now and he could feel the coarse sand grinding beneath his shoes, his last pair. He thought he spied a couple in the distance, and muted voices carried through the waves brought him words like 'love'; 'forever' and a jaded, cynical smile spread over his face.

He passed on.
Perhaps, over the sounds he had taught Sayan to hear in a sea-shell, he could hear Ananya's recital, A 16 year old voice speaking at an elocution:

To see the world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour

He understood what that meant once. Not anymore.

The world, maybe in another world might have been his to see and show Sayan.

Eternity...Rather like the vast sea before him, streching on, changingand mutating with each new wave. Rather like the world around him that transformed with every new beat of his bleeding heart. Rather like every ray of the Sun, each that brought more light to the forsaken.
Rather like Sayan his only Hope and Love.

And Love?

Ananya could yet come again

A fiery red broke out on the horizon.
He would wait till the red faded into full daylight.


(Beyond the fog, the could barely make out the steeples from which the church clock was striking four)

A Late Night,

and I am, uncharacteristically, awake.(3.23 a.m).

Memories are better abandoned every time they bring only pain instead of wet smiles she remembered. Last time she visited the hazy past, there were better fruits for her. Leaving forever and leaving forever are two different things. The first brought her anger and resentment, the second brings a void. And it is yet too early to decide what is preferable.

But even through the numbness, a realization seeped in. Unlike the real ones, bittersweet endings always leave hope.

Untitled - 2

(......contd)


Her face was blackened with smudged kohl and coagulated blood. From this distance it seemed impossible to distinguish.Her hands bore wounds from where the broken glass bangles had cut her skin and from where the rough coconut ropes had bound her wrists, leaving them raw.Both just about distinguishable.Her foot was bare. Not at all unusual in this part of the country where all except the sahukar went barefoot. Her loose, soiled sari was soaked with blood- receding as it flew down, originating at her neck which was sliced. This clearly visible.

Swearing, Prasad brought out a spade from his toolbox at the banyan tree and started digging just next to Padma's body. She had bewitched Kara's land when she had walked through it late the previous year and now the crops wouldn't grow this year. There had been whisperings ever since she was born- an ill fated birth which saw the death of her father and within a week of that, her grandmother. "born at amavasya- what types are born on such nights you tell me?"whisperings which continued even as she grew up- "even uses maaya to learn her lessons Sita told me."
why of all places did they find only his field to dump her?

(to be contd)


P.S. I certainly did not get up at the crack of dawn to write such crap. there something wrong with my post time format and it seems that its just as stubborn as I am.And it actually had the audacity to display that changing time was illegal. Beat that.

Untitled.

During the summer afternoons in the sleepy village of Mau, life slows down. Unbearable heat rises up in waves, enveloping all. Hot humid air from which only the homes protected by dripping jute provide protection. The sun beats down merciless and unyielding on the vast, arid, flat plains. Humanity retires from work, seeking respite in the intoxication of sleep. So it has been for centuries. So it was on that dusty afternoon.

Prasad lay under the dense banyan tree, half reclining,half sitting. Beside him lay a steel tumbler and an earthen pot containing the only kind of cool water known to him. In a distance only a restless crow cawed restlessly. As Prasad was slipping away in blessed drowsiness, the hot air wafted a heavy smell towards him. Dense and rotten. He cursed at this extra hand of work, conjecturing that he would probably have to dispose of a dead rodent. Usually, the hawks found in the vicinity would have done it for him, only his field was thick with unripened grain. Walking on for a few feet, he sighted something far larger than a rodent. Reaching the corpse, he surveyed it disinterestedly.

(to be continued)

Vagaries..........

it couldnt have been him. No . Of course not.Even as he lay wounded and dying, he was desperate for one thread of of assurance ,a glance,an indication,an iota of someone's belief....... a whisper that could put his tortured conscience , finally,to peace that had eluded him for years......in the last thereos of life,one often hears...........scenes of life flash before one's life................. then was he dying??? Maybe. Probably.



Somebody was shifting the venetian blinds.............and bright sunlight filtered in..............

"tomar bondhu esheche"

"ke? ashish?"

"hmm"


..................it was such a sunny morning..............how could it have turned into one of darkest days of his life????????

life was fast ebbing out of him..................he was now aware of a numbness that was gripping him...........how long before he turned cold????........


the highway was in perfect condition.........perfect enough for a real spin before college................the sensations were so real........... flying through the air................great music.......
heavenly day.


Blackness was spreading over his eyes............blurred streetlights in the distance....... honking horns all fading away........maybe he might yet find peace...

........Ashish's smashed face loomed large..........what had happened???? how had Ashish died???
surely he wasnt responsible??? No,of course not. wasnt that what his mum had told him??? his dad had repeated???



Maybe he'd ask Ashish. Ashish always spoke the truth.