Hark! The rhythm

Hark! The rhythm. The pellet drum rattles. The dance begins. The creation, the annihilation, the fleeing in-betweens, and beyond these appar...

Saturday, March 28, 2015

Where did the yellow lights go

Their XUV was snaking, though more like crawling, through the insane traffic of a nearly metropolitan city in the sun-bathed afternoon of late summer. The tiny trots were amazed and at times even engrossed in the shimmering delusions of grandeur. But the overall combination of heat and snail paced traffic was exhausting and draining. Kids were getting increasingly unruly. And her attempts to tame their rumbustiousness were all but defeated. Until the traffic lights. The XUV resounded with merry sounds of the good old nursery rhyme:

Red light Red light what do you say?
I say stop stop stop.

She prompted them to sing further:

Yellow light yellow light what do you say?

"But the lights are still red" whined the youngest.

"Wait wait wait" she finished and answered in same breath.

After halting at the red lights for about a couple of minutes, the traffic breathed again. So with excitement she encouraged them further:

Green light green light what do you say?
I say go go go.

The response of her kids was not as sonorous. "Mom, where did the yellow lights go"?
The question was suspended in the carbonated soot of the city.
The yellow lights had lost utility and meaning. The modus vivendi had no place for the pause and reflect button.
Perhaps it was time to change the rhyme.

Thursday, March 26, 2015

All for spectacles

I was the “ugly betty” of my class. Light brown, plastic-rimmed, thickest Gandhi lenses.
I would leave them for the last. And forget wearing them. Intentionally, ofcourse!
My sister, ever-the-punctual, would not wait for me to run back home.
Since I would not be wearing my set-of-eyes, my class-teacher would genially allow me to swap seats. And I loved front-rows.
But parents are witty enough. Been there, done it all kinda witty.
They got a glasses-holder string and down it went my neck along with the school-tie.
Problem solved.
And, specs? Oh well, am at home with them. And heart.

Courtesy: aliexpress

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Secret

In the box
beneath my bed
lies
a forbidden story,
with unfinished ends,
etched out in Chelpark
on
blank white pages.
No secrets.
Only incomplete mutterings.
Scrumptious possibilities
hovering over the
pool of blue-black ink.
The fluted-nib of
moonlight's quill
standing still.


Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Beyond the little while

Pen? Check.
Purse? Check.
Mobile? Check.
Handkerchief? Check.
Spectacles? Check.
She sighed as she zipped her handbag.
The drill had become exhausting.
From getting up to hitting the bed again. She lived through the day mechanically.
She sighed again as she heard her companion calling out to her and willed herself to get up and get going.
It was a beautiful day. With late spring and early summer blending. Glorious golden sun. Fresh greens. And the scent of fall. All spread out like a painting.
She sighed. Scenically stunning day. And it would be wasted behind Philips LED and rotting files.
She drank the day, or whatever was visible of it from behind the skyscraping apartments, while weaving through the lanes which were being swept and dusted.
At office hours. Always at office hours.
Hah! What good was Nivea and Lakme when pitted against the Delhi dust?
MCD sweeper using broom with vigor on a good deal of road. A rickshaw puller ruling the remaining. A grocery vendor waiting to make his way ASAP. The Skoda, Merc and BMW honking.
They all looked at her as if it was her fault to be walking all the way. Pedestrians! Well! Hell with them. Why do they have to be out there on roads? She wanted to shake them all out of their driving seats. She wanted to tell them that though you have enough money to buy Pajeros and Scorpios, you have no traffic sense. No road sense. No common sense. Basically no sense at all.
But she bit her lip and let them all zip past her.
Just four more days.
And then beneath the shade of evergreens deodars, she would feel alive again.
Her eyes misted, she slowed down and let them all zip past her.

She could wait. Four days. She would wait.

Original image found on Pinterest.

Courtesy: Ermiliablog: Picture it and Write

Friday, March 20, 2015

Vicious desires

Then I saw you.
Aglow. Alight.
And it was like
You and I
We were meant to be.
Always. Forever.
In that one moment,
One flash of a second,
I imagined my whole life with you.
Truly, Madly, Deeply,
I fell for you.
You, who were
All light, all fire, all power, all beauty.
I, a mere moth,
Bewitched by your
Flickering dance,
Rushed to embrace you,
To seal
What I felt was mine
With passion.
Your very touch
Seared me through.
Singed,
I let my
Vicious desires
Consume me.
Satiated,
I abandoned myself
In the bosom of
My infatuation.

Linking with : Velvet Verbosity : 100 words : Vicious

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Dust in the wind

Yesterday,
I waltzed
Through
Your doors.
You
Pulled me close,
And
Held me tight.
Today,
Dust in dust, ether in ether,
I rise with smoke,
Blown away.
You lament
But ashes.
For
I am the
Wandering wind.
Stay put and I die.

Monday, March 16, 2015

Zodiacally speaking

Delicate,
Fragile,
To be handled with care,
But the ascendant charts,
Mercilessly,
Unrelentingly,
Unheard the warning,
Ignored the
This side up
Insignia,
And
Unaccomodatingly
Hoarded
The slightly withered,
Shrivelled
Heart
On to the conveyor belt.
Fortunately
Or
Unfortunately
Breaking hearts
Shatter noiselessly,
Unlike
The cacophonous
Clamouring
Of the porcelains
And melamines.
Calloused
And
Cauterised,
It beats
But faintly
Beneath the ashes,
Preyed upon
Successfully
And
Unabashedly
By the
Zodiacal constellations.


Sunday, March 15, 2015

Taste of sleep

She was scared to sleep.
Closing the eyes seemed an ominous task.
Daunting and lately, repelling.
Dreadful even.
Even though, she was exhausted and drained, yet she would not succumb to slumbers. She could not.
For night after night, she dreamt.
Not the happy, joyous dreams.
Not even sober, ordinary dreams.
Her dream jolted her.
In the middle of night.
Engulfed in mist.
In a seemingly vast endless expanse.
Infinite. Sempiternal.
There seemed no start to it.
There appeared no end.
And she was falling.
A free forceful fall.
Across the foggy sheets.
Her hands and legs flailing, struggling, striving.
Suffocating, panting, gasping for breath.
Desperate. Praying.
To be caught.
To be made safe.
To be tucked in.
Unhurt. Unscathed.
But that never happened.
Theoretically, in the reason of light, she knew there was a slight effort that distinguished fall from flight. She could float over the cottony blanket.
But in the shade of night, all reason left her.
Benumbed, she continued to fall.
In a bottomless inferno.
Descending but never settling.
Night after night.
And she would wake up.
Breathless. Sweating. Shaken.
Drained and jagged, she avoided sleep.
But the body betrayed. Only to be drenched with nightmare.
No.
Her tired spirit did not relish the taste of sleep.

Sunday, March 8, 2015

The scent of spring

The benevolent sunrays,
Warming,
A slight subtle breeze,
Rain, occasionally.
The pristine greens,
Sprigs and twigs,
Beautiful buds,
Conceived,
And now,
Ready to
Bloom and blossom.
The promise
Of beauty,
The hope of summer.
I embrace the freshness,
The zeal and zest
Of spring.
The staleness
Of winter
Washed away
From the verdure
With dewy mornings.
It is so fresh,
So bright,
So resplendent
That it hurts to stay indoor
Amidst
The artificially lit
Corridors,
Breathing
The dark and damp
Solitude.
So
I don
The mocassins
And let the
Air
Hit me in the face
Accompanied
In the exodus
With a friend.
Carefully
We pick our way through the
Foliage
Strewn underneath.
Two people,
Breathing
The spring.
The lights
And
Sounds
Of the
Metropolitan cumulus
Receding to the backgrounds.
The sun setting
In the distant horizons,
The glowing embers
Now bright, now mute,
Finally subdued.
The shadows
Walking back
To the niches
In growing twilight
Wrapping the mild shrugs
A tad tighter.

Saturday, March 7, 2015

Permanently piled-up

The writing barely legible,
More like
Scribbling
Or as mum used to put it,
The gait of
A centipede
Soused in ink.
No amount of
“Finger-exercising”,
As the teachers
Used to put it,
Helped improve.
Yes,
The writing barely legible!
Each home-visit,
I sit down to
Clean up
The little mahogany-bureau,
From where
They keep falling down,
Bits of papers,
Fractured poems, prose, verses;
Random, inarticulate,
Ambitious attempts.
Little creased capsules,
From yesterday,
Those end up
Being smoothed,
Read,
Re-read
And caressed.
The caplets,
Filling up
The capsule,
Dissolving
With time.
Every visit,
The pile is sorted,
But never screened.

Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Tasty teardrops

One tiny tear
At the base.
And
Delicious drops
Hang
By the edge of shelf.
Giving in to gravity,
Blending in the puddle,
Where you can't tell
One from another.
The pendants,
Trickling, slowly.
Spirits,
Draining.
Sorrows, swimming.
And
Empty bottle, mocking.

Monday, March 2, 2015

The gift of scars

Come eventide,
I used to long
For you to hold me.
To shiver beneath your touch.
To melt in the
Heat of the desire.
Oh, and I used to tremble in anticipation.
But wait!
Your hands and lips wandered.
Caressing and cuddling
The likes of me
That held the ambered passion
For you.
Oh, and night after night
I looked on from my regal palace
At your amorous rovings.
Wilting
While you sought pleasure elsewhere.
Writhing
While you reveled.
I finally shattered.
Took the plunge
And crumbled
Setting free,
The object of your desire.
Your wavering hands
Returned.
My quivering soul felt
The familiar touch,
Picking up
The broken shards
Piercing and pricking
Your tender skin,
While
The amber flowed,
Unrestricted,
Unrestrained,
And
Uncared for.
Ah!
As you consign me to dust,
I savour your last touch,
Satiating, sufficing.
May be some day,
After I am long gone,
You will think of me,
A chipped cup,
That loved you much.
Till then,
I shall bask in
These fragmented
Reminiscences
That engulf me.