why didn’t any one believe,
I was faster than Gilbert?
and couldn’t make out
as a boy, four and forthright,
what buried in me like a shroud
was the truth of the cotton that
flew up in to the sky alone,
over the coconut tree
to merge with the nearest cloud,
leaving me down to cry aloud.
Blurred image of a coconut tree fallen across the tile roofed house, the indistinct shadows of an assortment of people, remained a frozen memory entrenched in my consciousness. Searches in the abyss of my mind, to find my father and mother among them were unsuccessful. But I vividly remember a bronze tumbler and a skirted girl.
A vague apprehension’s shroud a hazy picture of the goings on at that time of my childhood, the effluence of qualms and misgivings among the elders instilled in me a reserved reluctance that manifested as a perpetual lump in my heart. The images looked like faded photographs of emaciated human beings bent on eternal quarrels for reasons best known to them. There is no evidence to what I just said except hearsay, later in my life, endorsed by the general atmosphere that influenced me subtly.
The smell of lac and gunny bags in the post office lingered in me engulfing my senses like a pall of smoke billowing and hesitant to merge with the ether. My father the postmaster was a loving and caring man but the burden of responsibilities he voluntarily shouldered told up on his composure and his affection at times seemed imprecise.
The missing links of time in my childhood’s passage will always remain a fissure difficult to traverse. Those eternal black holes of poor memory are not accidental but as planned and designed as the inevitable emptiness of the heavens.
I never felt ignored but remained unobserved. The truth that I ran faster than Gilbert who was elder to me was not accepted like the truth of the cotton that flew up beyond the coconut tree to merge with the nearest cloud, leaving me look up helplessly and weep.
As a five year old I still enjoyed my parents’ special attention due to being the last one in an array of four. Very much in this world yet out of it was the basic condition of my mind, which basked in nature and above it where the eagles floated………
We stood near the gate
Watching the moon’s gait
Two stars did patiently wait
On love’s melancholic bait
The impending departure
Swelling agony’s torture
The mind powerless to cope
Lonely-heart’s yearning for hope
Frail running form lamenting
After the unkind train, hooting
A speck in the retreating station
Like a part of me lost in desolation
There were seven of them
Sidetracked from life’s race
Taking positions in the track
For the hundred meters dash
On your mark… the gun, shot
Scrambled and jumbled
The race began, in fits and jolts,
Frantic, like, gone berserk
One fourth of the track to cover
Slipped and fell, the fifth, in line
Six of them stopped to enquire
In concern and anxious pine
All of them had won the race
Hand in hand they stood in a hug
I stood in utter shame and in a haze
For having all my limbs in place.
Diving and bathing in
Green mossy pond
Water reeking weed
Going up nostrils
Smelly sensations
Burning the eye and nose.
Glassy cracking sound
Of marbles, red, blue
And green, mixed in
Disused empty bottles.
Just two taken out
To be aimed and hit.
Flakes of fresh glass
Pieces in the yard.
The hum of rotating tops
On hard soil, swaying,
Leaving marks of nail
Deep and not erased.
Pebbles filled in baggy
Side pockets, mixed with
Sand and shells reeking fish,
Thrown at flock of crows.
Smell of the new school bag,
Pencil, rubber and books,
The nice smooth nib nicking
The crystal white paper.
The aroma of frying
In grand mother’s kitchen
Of firewood burning
And smoke billowing.
The smells and sounds
Of freedom in one’s lifetime.
Rough uneven terrain
Like wasted life’s refrain.
Deep gorges remain
Divorced by gods of rain
I felt free from love’s pain.
The truth known only by the moon,
And the distant mountain,
The stars, hidden by the sun,
Lost in the day’s bargain.
I felt free from love’s pain.
Psychedelic flowers, beautiful blossoms
None to behold, like bundles of sins
High walls protecting, trees reaching the sky
The muck of perished memories,
And broken dreams manure the grounds
Of the infertile, soiled lives
Beaming a sinister smile moon withdraw into
The hollow of hazy rings, woven
From the labyrinthine souls of mindless things
Stuck with their last thought.
The edges of the horizon
A gray prowling python
Lethargic as a mountain
Scarred glowing disk
Glistening sheets unmoving
Reflecting moon’s gait
Reeking weeds and mud
The quiet of the night
Broken by a fluttering flight
Of birds looking like souls
Countless glowworms
Adorn the vast eternal ether
Night flowers blossom,
Fragrance ethereal
Mind becomes a flame
In a windless chamber
The scorching heat
Churn out salty sweat
Throat dries from thirst
Nostrils burning hot
Eyes swollen and red
A long way to go
Vast spaces in front
Parched grasslands
Mountains high and dry
Mirages on the high way
Sun smaller than usual
Sky cloudless and clear
Waterless lakes, home
For cattle and Cranes
Cows yawning, lethargic
Fallen into a sweaty doze
Saw grandma in her farm
Watering her vegetables
Fresh cool water pumped out
From the pond clear and full
The two twittering rogues
Got the better of my portico
Neglectful of my existence
Gossiped in a foreign lingo
Pointless babble, arrogance
Of overconfident dominance
Leaping, hopping and frolicking
Brought one up beyond doorsill
Basking in the banned adjacency
Turning its neck in swift flicks
Oblivious of me hiding, frozen
Stayed for a while in impish posing
Caught unawares, seeing me in a wink
Dared for a moment in bravery
But shot of like an arrow through
The door, the cowardly crook
Making me an insignificant fool
Mocking at my vain postures
The two tooting tiny rascals
Went their way to the house nearby
