With cakes and coffee

With cakes and coffee on a mild afternoon
I closed my eyes and thought
Kevin and I
have walked a long way
together in fun, holding hands
Till he went away to grab the silver spoon.

Seeing darkness within golden yellow
I searched for past memories
ochre in colour
creak when turned over
few have faded, few seem fresh
And few are dead beneath the winter snow.

Kevin, I think, had eyes that were like mine
They like to wander through
lands and rivers
unknown like tomorrow
yet within the reach of knowledge
They stop at night, only when the stars shine.

He took me once to a large green meadow
to see a crimson sun setting down
a blue horizon
to a river that brought
a ship saying him, “Fight for thy land”
He left like a soldier with his grey shadow.

Next Christmas came a present with a man now
 elder to the boy who was away
footprints of time
were clear on his face
which looked tired and lived for months
without the cakes I made him. I wonder how?

The homecoming days soon flew to the sky
and before he was done with his
cup of coffee
the afternoon called him
to march and be the saviour he was.
A teary face bade him adieu with smile that was dry.

The ships brought him back and took him away
for years that brought me
letters and postcards
from countries waging war.
I knew he was brave and till then safe.
The papers relieved me as down my fears would sway.

And then one year there came a bad flood in Italy.
The ship took him there but
brought no more
as on the lush field of play
stood little Kevin and a frail crooked me
beside his coffin which had on it a moist red lily.

Time is our pet, but nasty and disobedient
seeking young blood in his game.
Silly and puerile,
it will just not listen.
And when you send back the yesterday
it punctures your heart giving a deep aching dent.

But the hairs I have are old but in wisdom. Hence
I found a way that never let him go.
With crumbling cake
and coffee that soon turns cold
I sit at the porch to look far and find
my son and grandson come in little steps to stand by the fence.

Fantasy seems like an old lady’s only wealth remaining.
What was I without Kevin?
I raised him
but he kept me young.
As the autumn birds would chirp after fall
I knew from them his breaths could be heard, I would sing.

Yes till I live I would cook and sing.
Only for him I would cook and sing.

To Alejandro, with love

To Alejandro,

My Spanish king, where did you depart on a night of spring?
Young it was with a cold wind and a sky full of stars glittering.
My cello has stopped playing the tune on an hour I know not when
But I remember the flower you gave me, I have kept on it since then

Hope you recall the evening you took my glance through the books of library
The next I saw your face on the glass of a Greco painting at an art gallery
Our eyes met then in pairs of two, bringing a wide smile from the west
Country songs have bored me enough till you brought a rock ‘n roll quest

That French café round the fifth corner still keep glowing that red paper light
And the couple next door are loud even now, over politics they like to fight
The debate over Dante and Mr. Roosevelt still don’t seem to be too old
Alejandro remember the pendant you gave me had my name etched in gold

I wrote to you taking words from Spain that thing those times have left behind
The moments I have spent with you those days showed how life to me was kind
They gave me frolic to the brim with an elegance, that was subtle yet wild
Beaming in its glory I danced at midnight, in the rain, like a little child

It was autumn, the season of fall, but for me nature seemed to be growing
You closed my eyes and took me there, by the river and came that spring
I opened my eyes and you were gone as the wind blew a sea of faces in
I was lost in a land I knew not, without a house, a friend or a kin

I always knew the crowd was scary, I cried as they walked over me
Stooped down with head hung low I could see yesterday in all its glee
Alejandro it was never your fault, you made no promises that were broken
Yet I saw them written in your eyes, deceiving by nature, they left me shaken

Before this poetry turns lousy and heavy, I’d say a good friend you have been
I have kids now, three to number, so I tell you with a heart that is very keen
To see you, from whom I’ve learned the stories I tell them in our childish prattle
And often on a lonely noon I smile seeing the girl next door on a prolonged rattle

The years speak of a lore now, it tells what I shared with a guy and his horse
That raced past the country woods to an island by the beach, dry and coarse
I was happy and I am, you taught the way. Oh! Yes, you can take a bow
Alejandro lets meet all these years later, like the friends we were, then and now.

How sad are we, really?

Tagore dared to write a long long time ago,

"আমার মতো সুখী কে আছে

আয় সখী আয় আমার কাছে"

Today, as the lovely evening wind hummed the song in my ears, the thought struck me. Oh well it’s all about Tagore. The man with such intense eyes can no doubt reach the daunting heights of such bold thoughts. I have been his loyal lover since time immemorial and even in times when adultery seems to be a pardonable offence, I am proud to keep my feelings for him unsullied. Then again love is such amazing thing. Like happiness it grows when we share it. We all have met love, haven’t we? We have come across it by peeping into a mother’s eyes, felt it in a father’s warm embrace or touched it through a lover’s intense kiss. And happiness, it is that precious thing we all wish to protect. Happiness is everywhere, intangible but in no way abstract.

“All the merry birds which sing
And enter into the sunny horizon
Fearless they are, of the fiery orange
they only wish to meet the sun”

The couplet brings to my mind a familiar vision. A common leisure I share with my friend is to observe these birds enjoying their flight in seemingly endless patterns. Delighted as they sound chirping through their aerial journey, often they strike a chord. They remind me of the wonderful people who surround me and mould my living. Friendship has been a constant companion. Though “change be thy name, woman” fits perfectly when it comes to me, my friends have never complained. They have loved me through my good and they have bore with me through my bad. As I upturn the different chapters of life now, there benevolence only touches me deeper and deeper.
Just then, as I’d feel the warmth of a growing radiance within me, a bird would fly away from the flock leaving behind a white trail of despondence over the cloud. A single odd bird, its sudden departure invites a creepy solitude. Have I felt it before? Of course I have. The nights that came following my brother’s demise still seem to be young and melancholic would be the adjective making an understatement to describe them. I won’t elucidate that further as the harrowing memories would then arrive to knock my heart’s chamber in no time. To sum up in a line I was sad then apart from being wounded. We all feel that way when a loved one is removed. And in spite of being poor comforters themselves, words are what the dead man leaves behind; words that shape up the memories to some yellow picture the mind finds easier to place in it. The lonely bird flies off to some unknown island where it was destined to travel. Often it loses its previous direction even without realizing. Fate always executes its operations unhindered and the other birds can only observe her loss for a few moments. The journey drags them forwards. Destiny, so be it.

“What pain was there in the last wind of night
that walked through my blurry eye sight?
It drank my tears in a thirst endless
and gave me strength through gentle caress.”

I was sad then, really. But how long could it linger? Life does stop for a moment when you stumble down on the way, only to help you get up and walk the remaining road. And in every little tremor with which the pathos arrive, one by one, we are offered latent realizations. The sky turns black to give us the bliss of rain. Even the plants let their flowers wither with a smile. The fruits grow in the loom and grass sways in a lush green. Finally a fall comes with a certain brown to wash away everything like yesterday’s lore leaving behind certain emptiness, coarse and dry. Nature teaches us through its vicious cycle to take the hand which stoops down to help us.

Once we were in disdain and then came the wind from the west, rich in the laughter of yesterday. It brought with it a wine and as I drenched myself in the dark red the voice in the air spoke. Bit by bit it recalled me of everything his presence has attached to me till then. Enthralled I was to live through that moment. How could I be sad anymore? I knew I was already walking.

In the many facets of life, we often pour our heart on many people. Some stay and some leave. Goodbyes were never easy to be spelled. Then again, if we were blinded every time by painful segregation, the beauty and lustre were surely to be missed. In the little time we are given to breathe, life stays honest to its virtue of keeping us happy. We are happy to spend silver nights of moonlit romance. We are happy to play with friends on a vast meadow on a noon of spring. And as long as the dove keeps flying light years above, we can keep alive the hope of happiness.

Like many I have found love again, in someone who has found his love in me. I have found love in all those beautiful places where I have been with him. And though I might not see the best in me now, I have a newfound belief. It states, if we be together for a time long enough I might be able to witness myself the way in which he sees me. Then only I can love myself truly and reiterate Tagore like I wish to do. Once that faith comes, along with the glory in which you find another yourself, how sad can you be, really?

Dear Tagore,
You have educated me like it should be, like the filling of a pail, like the lighting of a candle.
Your faithful lover

Epiphany? So be it.

That thing called Rock 'n Roll

The very name pushes a whole gamut of thought up your throat, thoughts jostling together on their way up the vocal alley, to set themselves free as words. Rock ’n Roll, the thing which surpasses all definitions and boundaries….. Those ‘drum-rolls’ which came with the winds from distant Ohio, changed the very notion of who you are. Oh wait, can’t speak about you but at least for me it did.

Down the memory lane as I go through the brittle yellow pages of life, the tryst with rock seems to have become an ancient one now. Just that the lustre stays anew forever and ever. Speaking of the genre, some will say about The Beatles, Pink Floyd; some will bring the iconic Jimmy Page with the Led Zeppelin holding his hands. With Pearl Jam, Deep Purple, Black Sabbath, Doors, Freddie Mercury, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Cream the queue will grow rather long. Then again are these legendary bands playing with two guitars, a bass and drum kit all about the genre? Those who know and love that thing, called Rock ‘n Roll, are already shaking their heads in a no.

My days with rock started within muddy pits of disdain. Dark times those were when I’d sit at one abysmal corner of my room letting the hours of plight to pass. Then appeared one crimson evening when an English guy sang “Wish you were here” thereby giving me some way to express how badly I yearned for my brother’s presence. That was David Gilmour for the rest of the world. The song came with a feeling which calmed my tumultuous inside. It soothed and healed and before leaving it filled a lot of void within me. As if there was a strange stoned woman breathing deep down me and suddenly the Rapunzel she had trapped for quite a while was released. Then again it is how my life has planned the rendezvous with Rock ‘n Roll. Am sure there are other stories of the like and they are happier ones.

Rock ‘n Roll is dynamic. It twists and turns like a meandering river and gets younger with the years. It screams and shouts and turns you on. And as you groove into the music, it touches you. It has its golden bygones that have led to its magnanimous presence defeating the race with age and time. Like you mould yourself as you grow, it has grown too giving birth to one way and the other. Yes, at the end of a very long road you can see the sun. It is waiting for you and it will go down in a bright red shine. That is where you have to reach; the horizon will be your limit. This journey you travel with the lyrics and they hum at your ears the many secrets of life.

When I was young, I remember I’d attach my omens to it. Inviting darkness to my room, I’d light a candle and hold it facing the east to find that ‘Stairway to heaven’. It never showed itself before me but then explained the theory of making it myself. To move on, walk ahead and get what is mine. Suddenly, in its own journey, progressive rock made it all so literal. Often I’d find myself sailing in a boat holding a lamp with a frail glow, all alone in a dark navy ocean with gigantic tides. Jugband blues indeed showed its true colours that way. Psychedelic you see!!

Oh yes I have loved Rock ‘n Roll more than all my teenage boyfriends and though my puerile adventures with romance would end after a brief whirlpool of emotions, that thing called Rock ‘n Roll would just keep coming closer to me. It would paint all sorts of pictures to me. From Norwegian Woods to Tangerine all what grows in distant lands would pass by my sight leaving me astonished. The Tambourine Man would sing to me during lonely nights as pathos of Yesterday would gently rejuvenate. For one they will not hurt me rather they would mildly caress my heart giving a feel of what it was like to be with all that I’ve lost. The tears would fall on the ground and glitter in the silver moon which laid herself down in my room through the open windows. As the water would dry up leaving behind long trails of contemplation, the silence would speak to me, in whispers. It would recall me of promises I might have made once, those which are due to be fulfilled. As I just wrote, this pain is different. It tells you gently what you are capable of, those little things yet to be done and then build up one golden moment. As the wise hour would go, I’d hold the dusty portrait of my brother to my heart for one last time. The apple would faintly cease to play its songs and his smile would tell me that the prince was to come to me, surely. I was a folly to love till then. But when I did make an effort to hold it right, I saw I’ve already learnt a few good things about it. Sweet surprise?? Rock ‘n Roll the name would say.
I once made a journey with rock on a swing. To and fro I'll move as the songs kept ringing to my ears unfolding paradoxes that have baffled me before. And as the tangles open you feel that lightness of being in the air. A certain weight from you is fetched down by gravity and all of a sudden you break free from a shackle. its more like a freedom from being anyone or rather it is the feeling of being a no-one. Then again you are someone right? Who are you? Are there voices in the wind to tell you that? Just when this paradox itself appears intriguing, Rock 'n roll will spare you a dilemma by providing the necessary distraction. You are happy being no-one in spite of being someone. In short, you are just happy.

The songs make us stay delighted. Carefree, we ride over waves after waves in a joyful sea. Happiness is wealth and the world is a miser when it comes to it. Often we rejoice by living in a bowl. The bowl is our arena and we move there unhindered by any worldly force. Just one thing seems like a glitch, the bowl is placed as the edge of a table and even a slight push of wind might upturn it. You know what I’m talking about, that scare of losing a loved one, that fright to feel a scarcity of love within the apparent perfection of our daily lives. But the songs would pay no heed to that. Beyond the supervision of regulations, there is a small island of wishes. The songs take you there while you keep hearing them like a one last time before you go to meet your heart. You live, you imagine, you want and then you conquer. And when imagination is out for a vacation, Rock ‘n Roll will introduce the enigma to you. While there are people rushing and racing to make it big in the bad world as they say, the music will make you recline closing your eyes and have a lazy day. There will be people becoming doctors and engineers and all that big names while all you become is passionate. You get hold a love you can live and die for. Oh yes, it teaches you to live weird and make the most out of it. It makes you valiant enough to trade everything for that one love with which you can die happily beneath the stars. The glorious people, bright stage lights and the undying cheers of thousand fresh spirits who dance to their sounds are the apparent about the big life we all aspire. But what if you turn that to inspiration? Well, maybe the veil of untouchability which forms a transparent sheath over them does not dispel but you do learn to live like yourself, unadulterated by exterior influences. The destinations and prejudices you make are your original thoughts and in a way, the world becomes your cup of tea. What you share is an undying fervour for a single thing which happens to fit your entity in one line. And you start loving it so much that all your pain and mirth encircles it. You become, as I would name a song here, a ‘Simple Man’.

No, the world is not a stringent jailhouse. Those who were austere with their ideas can keep it to themselves. The birds fly, flowers bloom, trees grow and storms make noise whenever they feel like. And Rock ‘n Roll shows you a way to emancipate yourself, letting you be exactly who you are. Yes it has its dark alleys, smeared with pigments of drugs and promiscuous scandals. But Rock ‘n Roll was never about sex and alcohol. It is about Pete Townshend who looks for ‘The Who’ in you. It is about growing young gracefully as you meet your destiny with that one special thing or person who makes the journey worthwhile. The sun is waiting for you showing its orange hues and it will go down only with you. For once, talking and thinking about yourself is not selfish. Rock ‘n Roll spares that conviction. Peace. Now move yourself with the faith in you being unperturbed. Write your name in diamonds on the night sky. Why worry? Be sure, one day all those wishes made by your taciturn mind will come to your abode in little boxes. Well you must know, “good things come in small packages”. And remember, Rock ‘n Roll is one of those things which will not desert you even as you grow old. 
Till then here is Jimmy Page saying to you,
~"Tangerine, tangerine
Living reflections of a dream"~

Colours

Oh yes I am shamelessly taking the cue of other people who have already written about it. Then again we never usually bother to spend a thought for most of the things we do, to frame it better the same things which even the other people do.

Speaking of colours what does exactly come to your mind? A brilliant rainbow occupying the view at the horizon or the mirth which lingers as you smear the pigments on your friend's face. Or is it just the white hibiscus blooming in your porch at night? The blue of sky with the green of grass; the yellow of sun and the red of Rose beneath it all mingled together wrestling towards a certain contrast which says the understatement of life.

And when I speak to you about my days

Happy and sad put together

Hand in hand they sway after

The trembling wind shows them its ways

Subtlety is what I prefer, both in thoughts and actions. Keeping sync with that I'd choose my colours. Colours which etch my life, paint the vistas, seen and unseen. The red I find in the wine of love oozes towards a brighter yellow which illuminates a field of green. Suddenly there is a white amidst the leaves, the white which scatters out from the sunshine creating the edge where vision gets lost. Oh!! Am I seeing the bright ones? Just then you find a random violet hidden somewhere down the dense foliage. Look for it else it will not appear before your eyes. And when you hold it gently, you see the streaks of navy near its bosom. Yes, the darker side of blue from the cold depths of sea. The blue, which being dragged out by one random tide, falls on the sand only to fade away. And if this sounds like oblivion, I'll bring the grey to you. The grey of steel rails or wretched walls brings with it the depression of being led to certain nowhere. Often that nowhere ends at crossroads which together hold the immense of black. Black is mighty and it alludes to those mysteries of life unearthed from the bygones. Bit by bit it spreads its impervious veil to blind the mind’s eye overpowering nostalgia and all the prudence clogged there. Then again is this all about grey and black? Won’t the optimist get over the gloom to mix both of them on his palette and then paint the endless sky when the clouds up there become moist and heavy? Close your eyes for a while and you can let go your body in the inebriety which flows in the maddening winds then. And when you wake up from the aerial slumber you can find the little orange patches towards the west, the very west where the sun has gone down. Smile at them and they would come to touch your soul with letters from the window pane by which your beloved sits to remember you, in a country, oceans apart. As his face sings out “Remember Me Lover” the moon appears in its ‘silver shoon’ adjacent to the orange. The moon adds to the intoxication around. It sprouts out desire in you from the portals of romance embedded in you. Much like a wild eroticism you will wish to make love to nature, to the tranquillity in which the moon treads, to him seated thousand miles away. And as the night of passion dies drawing a cobwebby picture of cherished memories, the eastern sky welcomes a faint pink, a message of goodwill and hope that turns the bad man good. The beginning arrives to set forth the vicious cycle for the umpteenth time as the breaths are spent to reach the inevitable end. Death? Yes, death. The demise coloured in Sepia ochre that runs beneath the veins of dried leaves. Life goes on as the embryo within the mother’s womb takes a yawn before waking up and death exists as a part of life, not as it’s opposite. Thanking Murakami for the wise words I’d let the colours shine on their own, undisturbed and unadulterated….

Why did I cry this time in the rain

Why did I cry this time in the rain?

Am sure when I lied I was seventeen then.

Reading the very title of this piece people who know me will laugh. I'm a bit prodigal when it comes to my tears. What new can there be if I cry, only this time when it rained?

Today was like any other day. With the heat surging this morning discomfort was etched on every human face visible around. We all waited for the clouds to darken. A brief meeting with friends and the usual fun that comes with it was subtly refreshing. The gleeful Amrita and funny Jb can always make me laugh in spite of the lingering torture that the weather imposed. Then again what are friends for, if not this? The evening came putting stillness within the leaves. I wondered as if a certain senility has gripped the surrounding nature. Something needed to be released. Unsure of the what, I retraced my way back home. The journey was accompanied by those questions of tomorrow which have become prosaic by now. Their regularity in attendance has made me take them for granted. As if it did not bother anymore, the great dilemma between what I am doing and what I am meant to do. The quest for who I am appeared tiring for a while. It too did not matter. And much like the trail of polluted air behind a moving vehicle, all of them followed me, making the wind a wee more heavy.

Darkness arrived when the thoughts were wiped off along with the oppressive languor. For a change black brought hope to my eyes. I was exhilarated because I knew it would rain. Seated at the balcony I revised an old habit, stretching my hand out of the grilled apertures to welcome the first showers of the season. The wind has gone crazy by then and its random blows immersed me into an inebriety of a kind I am scared of. Just when everything was reaching the acme of perfection along a steady acclivity, I realized that it was not raining yet. The vagueness of mild drizzle failed to soothe a thirsty crow. I kept on stretching my hand in a broken expectation. It was then that I felt the pain and cried.

Initially it would show itself through slight tremors and then it churned my inside which sounded much like an empty vessel. The memoirs I have written till yesterday creaked open their yellow pages. The faces I have loved and lost were drawn on them. They smiled at me. I know I can never outgrow them, I wish not to. And there was a wretched stack of what I knew and what I knew not. Memory and oblivion displayed the virgin dreams and the deeper I trod through them, the road would just keep growing. The apparitions appeared soon enough to wipe the gush of water flowing down my eyes. Lassitude I suppose was what held me then. The pain had taken a definite turn by that time as it brought before me the things that ended ages ago. The last game of chess with my brother opened a field of thorns before the bosom full of void and as my legs bled due to their sting a paper boat sailed to me. It took me to the afternoon she lost the light in her eyes. But then my grandmother was right there with the smile which evened out her wrinkles. And when the sweeping imageries made the wait unbearable,

“The rain fell slow, down on all the roofs of uncertainty
I thought of you and the years and all the sadness fell away from me”

Thank God my life is not ‘Floyd’-less or whatever, you know what I mean. The monsoon drenched every vista spread before sight as it gave the surrounding a longed serenity, whose need even I failed to fathom. The years went away and so did the sadness. Suddenly the music which came from the constant downpour had an uncanny similarity to the one which strummed out of the chords of his guitar. He whose love I would never lose in spite of failing to promises made to me. The rains were mystic. Though my oneness to a certain deity seated light years above can be debatable, I did feel united to my love. The brittle faith will be reformed soon I knew. With the fragrance of wet soil enriching my senses, I found a reason to rejoice. I had a love that supports me through emancipation. It reminds me of friendships which embrace the flawed human deep down. What it gave me was not just shelter to my puerile mistakes but fortitude to endure these crippling maladies. I knew I could go on when he was by my side. As the clouds over my cup of tea dispelled, the rain finally ceased to cry.

The sky had a redness of wine mingled with the usual black. Then as silence filled the space that was vacant a thrill touched me. It was a pain indeed, what I felt all the while. No, I will not give it a sudden transformation to pleasure. It came from the depths of the blue skies to ache every corner of my heart not to indulge in sadism at my plight but to relieve me from an unseen bondage. As if, it was a latent epiphany which rejuvenated not for its own sake but to wake me up. Sometimes it is good to get hurt.

Yes I cried this time in the rain

And I did that as I was in pain

The pendulum in my room kept swinging between past and present.