Deep Under

As I matched my steps with the people I was marching with, I realized all the passers by were staring at us, but that did not stop us from singing aloud bhajans praising our little elephant god whom we were bidding goodbye. Chanting aloud the shlokes I had shed all my old clothes and I walked naked absorbing the radiant glow the idol was bathing in.

The sea was just not water today; it was a hot volcano burning souls and their idols in spirituality. Hundreds of hosts like us stood bowing down to their own ‘personal’ idol, though they were all clones, but each group had put a bit of themselves, their family, their spirit in these idols. Inhaling the camphor fumes , I saw dancing shadow of the little flame it produced , putting a smile on the onlookers, bowed heads looking for an answer in that fire on the beach. Tears filled my eyes, it was ecstatic, and a blurred image of red faces formed a beautiful scene in front of me. People who had left themselves behind were now moving towards the fire, probably in self destruction, it was pulling them to it, like a fragrance, like a drug. I felt high, head spinning I was lost in the many lights shining, fuming, swallowing the sea.

And loosing all their inhibitions, souls ran toward the light, soaking themselves, like new born tortoises who rush to live, at midnight. And as they immersed our idol in the water, I too was submerged with it. Taking in all the water, filling my nostrils, but not choking, giving me a yet another life. I relived a hundred years in those few seconds, I relived a lifetime.

The Rain

7, his wristwatch said, he tapped it twice, to check if it was working, it was. A deep sigh escaped his parched lips. Sipping some cold water he anticipated his situation. If he took the train, it would transport him to the other end of the city in mere 15 minutes. Walking down to the station Kumar thought about his day, it had been rather tiresome. And the frequent, angry calls from his wife added nothing to it. It was still raining and after a week of water slashing down he had almost forgotten the warmth of the rays.
He waited and waited but the pleasant whistle of the evening local did not reach him. Was he at the right station? He tarried for some time, pacing the platform in hurried steps. Where the devil was his train? He gazed irritably at his watch, almost 8.
Clothes sticking, phone ringing at every second, Kumar waited rather tolerantly to get a taxi, his last resort but none of them budged. “The roads are blocked because of the rains, sahib”, they all said. He dialled his wife’s number to tell her that he would not be able to make it to the dinner party they were having , but stopped as he saw a taxi coming his away . Slowly it approached him, the headlights flickering, the machine making a loud growling sound. It stopped short of where Kumar stood. For 2 seconds nobody moved. Maybe both were waiting for the other to approach like a prostitute who waits uncomplainingly to be picked up by her employer, the silence till the deal is done, is uncomfortable, revolting.
Kumar made the move, he hurried to the taxi and peered inside, and he looked at the man inside who was to be his companion for the next 60 minutes. Dark complexioned, pork marked nose and a little fringe for hair, Deepak was in his 30’s with the most genuine smile ever, child like. Kumar instantly took a liking to him. Deepak agreed happily to take Kumar. As he stepped inside, he realized he was not alone. 6 pairs of eyes gazed back at him. He hesitated, thinking if he had mistaken. Then he heard Deepak laughing, ‘don’t worry sahib, this is my family, i also live in that part of the city. Hope it is not a problem if they travel with us. Kumar smiled, smiled at the taxi driver’s simplicity, smiled at his children’s glowing faces, smiled at his own fate.
Everything was an illusion, mixed with the transparency of the rain; soaking wet in its warmth. He looked on through the glass, touching the rain drops from the other side, there shadow staining his hand with darker and lighter shades of light. He made shapes with his finger on the frosted pane, with children’s laughter playing a soft note in the background. With Deepak’s family in that little space, he felt whole, complete. And soon he was playing little games with the kids, becoming just like them, forgetting his origin. They twisted their hands to make chirping birds and roaring tigers and then burst into babyish cackle. In that 60 minute journey Kumar forgot about his angry wife , his friends, their dinner party , in those minutes he made a new world , which he had not known before . He wanted to hold these minutes, wanted to capture them, wanted to capture the memories between minutes, wanted to capture time... he took out his phone and clicked whatever he could. The children made funny faces and they all laughed till their sides hurt ,a merry go round on wheels.
And then the minutes were over and the taxi was turning towards his house. The journey had ended too soon, he thought. He wanted a few more moments to relive it.
Kumar stepped out of the taxi, ready to pay Deepak whatever he asked for. As he fumbled inside his pockets to get the change, he realized that something was wrong. His phone had gone. He came out of the trance and started searching everywhere frantically. He turned into something totally different, something totally wild. They all engaged themselves in the search. Looking everywhere they could, opening up the heavens. But in vain, the devise was lost or stolen.
It was the first thought that crossed Kumar’s mind. It had been stolen, and the thought made him blind. He accused Deepak and his family, accused their innocence, accused their existence. They stood there, in the rain, heads bowed, mute with the silence.
The muteness made him barmier, and in that insane second he put them all in the cab and took them to the police station. Not once did Deepak revolt, he just looked on with dead silent eyes.
Beaten, tired Kumar walked back home. His mind free of thoughts but in a prison of them. He felt deceived, shaken. And as he reached the lane where the taxi had dropped him and the unpleasant events had unfolded , in the blue darkness, he saw it, lying there, condemning him. He picked up the listless device, put it in his pocket and walked on.........

For Love

When I looked into ‘chinkis’ beady eyes for the first time on that dark lost path , I knew we were meant to be soul mates. It was almost a year ago, when I met that golden retriever for the first time

Yellow leaves were strewn on that tree tunneled poetic path, as if an invisible needle had stitched all of them to the cemented road, making a colorful carpet. I crossed that way everyday to get home after work. Walking through it I was reminded of the striking yet lonely maiden who looks with searching eyes to find something that did not exist. Sometimes I too was swallowed by its loneliness.

I had left work late that day and had missed my train; it was dark when I started on that path to reach home. Walking slowly, feeling the breeze on my skin, i was in a state so transparent yet so clogged up by the smoke of thought, I felt light headed, swaying in the course of the wind.

A pair of glowing eyes startled me. I felt fear gripping me like a swirling snake, crushing me in its spiral body. It was quiet late and the night, so dark, was deceiving. I looked closely, anticipating my chances of escape.

It was an old man, with an older dog, a Labrador. I went closer to the ‘couple’. A streak of light from the old lamppost made their eyes look simple, naïve. They both stared at me , and i stared back at them , and we knew that this evening would be etched in our minds forever.

After that day, every evening I would meet my old man sitting exactly on the same place, besides the rusted lamppost. They looked like a charcoal painting in the evening sun, smiling with their eyes.

I would take chinki for long walks; he had a lot of stamina for his age. We would talk silently, indebted by the nature. It was a selfless relation between us , I never bought food for chinki or it never gave me anything , it was just the love for each other’s company that kept us together. Sometimes we would sit together and watch the setting sun and I would whisper old Hindi songs in his big ears, he would fall asleep in that tranquil moment.

I would finish my work as fast as I could to reach on time to witness my very own charcoal picture by the lamppost. I started making excuses to my boss, to leave early, started shirking off responsibility; I was always caught up in those miraculous moments spent with my friend, caught up in time.

And then one day they were gone, just like that. The charcoal painting was broken; its habitants had left, leaving the frame hollow. I waited for long hours every day by the lamppost, waited for the old man and his dog, but they never walked in. They were like an illusion in the desert which had disappeared when I went to close.

I became restless, looked for a golden retriever everywhere, my heart would skip a beat when I saw a Labrador in the park, but instantly I would realize, it was not chinky .

Then one evening the park’s guard told me that the old man had died and the dog had been sent to a remote village in the interiors of Mahrashtra.

I was heartbroken, deceived by the laws of nature.. And then I realized that suddenly one day, people we love will be snatched away rudely without an admonition. And still people didn’t cease to love. Selflessly they committed their feelings, thoughts, their mind to something which was not permanent and in return they didn’t expect ‘the world’, they expected nothing.

Everything in love, ‘for’ love.

Stationed between time

I am traveling on the second’s hand, going round and round, swaying between the black numbers, stagnant with tranquility of a still pond where the ripples leave the surface unperturbed, not leaving a mark. With each tock the hand moves causing a flurry but I am glued to that one spot, I am stationed between time.

From every thought I can take the next train traveling to another set of beliefs, conceptions, but I sit there, on a bench watching the early morning rays making an ugly mark on the dreamy velvety blues, jostling it from slumber, shattering yet another chimera.

Lifetimes pass by as another minute goes, and I am swallowed by the silence, its muteness devouring my soul making me numb, void. But I still sit there on that old rusted bench waiting for my life to come around, waiting to be swept in its emptiness. Not once does it occur to me that why not ride home in another rail of ideation, I am inconvincible, stuck to my ‘bench’.

And I loose my existence just in those few seconds as I refuse to ‘give in’, refuse to travel between it, I prefer to stay stationed between stations, stationed between time. My stubbornness reduces me to a mere mortal, a human that refuses to give in the laws of nature.

I become one of ‘us’, curled up away from reality, perched on that one ‘bench’ , with a hard bound book of scripted ideas, which never change, which never dissolve

The Joker

Flipping through the pack, I came across a dancing face, a gagster, buffoonery written all over it , not in words , in rhyming duets which refused to rhyme. It was a mask from my classroom days, it was a caricature created by my pencil, residing in my little notebooks, which I had innocently drawn lost in thoughts when the teacher taught the most important laws of nature ‘Illusion’. To me it was a stooge , a prankster that had tinted cheeks and ringing cap, but 15 years later as I held the card in my hand I tried to recall what my physics teacher was trying to explain in that oration . A symbol that was created in my fantasy was destroyed; I was looking at the present day’ Joker’.

A token of guffaw, had burnt down to a denotation of Evil, irony at its best. And then it struck me, it is all illusion, my thoughts, ideas that have built existence.

And today this painted mask behind a child’s laughter has become a mockery to humankind. As we go ahead, we crush that comes in the way making it look like a complicated puzzle, a boulevard of broken conceptions. I am lost to the illusion of our mind, lost to the illusion of mankind.