Tuesday, September 23, 2008

On the brink!


The last minute arrived
Explosive and fatal to life.
Prayers and chants
Enveloped the air.

On the brink of death,
He confessed.

His wait was over!
But... no explosion?
In the deafening silence
His question remained...

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Vision





The cold wave swept her off
Lifted her like a weightless form
She crossed over oceans
Of glistening melodious drops

Pines pricked her
Leaves rustled her soul
Piercing through the foliage
A new world she saw.

Cornucopia!

Human forms, but unlike us
Animal forms, and like us.
White clad damsels
Basking in crimson hue

Symphonic lute
Teasing the breeze
Amidst incandescent
Flowery alleys

Rocks draped in cascades
Exotic fumes taking a dive
Bliss of eternal light
And luminous nights

Bees plump with nectar
Humming around hymns
To her, strange,
Alien yet soothing

Sparkling voyeuristic gaze
Match her conscious eyes
Each glance hugs her
She kisses back the mediating air

She lets herself groove
Upon the airy lyre
When...

The rocking chair jolted her
Down it went with weight
As the door flung open wide
Dark silence stood uninvited

The opium attack
Was too hard to bear
Hush, hush...said silence.

The Devil's Advocate (A short story)


They say it is not my forte. But what is my forte anyway? A string of neatly measured letters or a sporadic out pour of words, resulting from a tumorous growth of vague ideas? Brooding over these, with eyes fixed upon the eaves outside, I slowly dissolved into the unconscious realm until the eaves melted in my vision. My eyes were just about to droop when a loud noise broke the peal of silence. An all- engulfing smoke skyrocketed as if to stir the deafness of Heaven. Its satanic aura intimidated to deaden, for perhaps years to come. My eyes opened to discover the eaves no longer there. The explosion sent tremors down my spinal column.

"These people serve stories, juicy stuff to be swallowed easily," the old man blurted out, frantically balancing himself, yet so unmoved. His tea spilled over him along with the biscuit crumbs as he swallowed the newspaper article, that was soon to become a tool to kill flies. His senile mind functioned almost mechanically. He castigated the article, oblivious of the hours spent in gathering the ingredients of the delicacy. This dish tasted of the never ending problems of society, radical students reading 'Mein Kampf', the defiance of home makers amidst all their drudgery, the paunch-carrying khadi clad law makers (or breakers is it?), the misery of suicide-bombers and their deadly bicycles, et al. All this was certainly not meant to be taken with a grain of salt.

Miles away, was heard "God is great."

My rented house was clearly under attack. The curtain over the violent drama pulled down as the dramatis personae revealed itself; perpetually annoyed caretakers of the society. Each bead of sweat and horror shimmering on my face made them euphoric. This was the fatal cost of the tumult in my mind and the subsequent itch in my fingers.

"This is all we get from sheltering you writers", the old man's response shook me more. His questioning eyes, sunken under the weight of his years, now appeared resigned to fate. People attributed it to the loss of his only son, something that had brought more shock than distress, for he blew himself up in the name of religion and nation. It was an inexplicable sacrifice. His pondering over the 'why and how' of things had squeezed all energy out of him. His physical immobility complemented his voluntary mental numbing, making himself all together inaccessible to scorn and disrepute. The can of worms had reopened today and I could see the glint of horror in his eyes. My article had stirred the hornet's nest as I eulogized his son for no clear reason. I had attempted to disclose his son's heart, that was tampered with, to such an extent that it had ceased to be a human heart at all. The revelations had dismantled the order and this attack was a means to bring it back. Unable to withstand the dilemma, the father had placed himself in, I vacated.

What was it that angered them? A localised clan of self-styled law makers, a bunch of hot headed men, as much the victims as the culprits. The gender of the author infuriated them? Or was it the warmth the article diffused for the controversial? Was it subversive? Did it subvert the nationalist sentiment? Was it a combination of all? The act of thinking was subversive enough. They reiterated it was not my forte.
But my cancerous ideas refuse to be contained and sneak out of the defined, relegated threshold. They take it as an act of sabotage.

Weeks have passed and no one has been hooked, no probes made and no one's curiosity is impatient enough to break out. The eaves have been rebuilt, a couple has moved in my place, docile, not much aspiring and staunch believers in destiny. The old man continues to gaze incessantly as usual, at the horizon, waiting for the sun to set; his outward calm existence in sharp contrast to his inward grief.
My self-imposed exile has taken me to remote corners, from where I continue to send ripples. They still complain, it is not my forte.

Catharsis


This moment is a dew
Fresh, sparkling alive
Yet brief in life

Its in amity
With my watery eyes
Trickling down fearfully
Pricking like nettles

Each tear a prism
Refracting tales of its own
Hoping to seize (or cease)
The dew

Their interplay
The time mocks at
"I am in fetters"
Creating a stagnant pool

The Dew in a disguise?

I know not what to feel
what to write
The coagulated pool waits
For me to take a dive

So, is a choked throat
Better than watery eyes?
Alas! Only time can tell
When it moves.

Shadow

One and One
make one.
Our riddle exists with us.
Its vision unseen, unheeded
Its exuding voice unheard.
A pensive gaze lives along,
Indivisible, inseparable, invisible
Gyrating around the visible.
Our selfless self,
Soulful soul
The nectar of life.

But who evolves?
Life or its shadow?

Timeless


Today is gone
I have erased it all
And continue to do so
As each day passes by

Time knows my folly
And brings a tomorrow again
To heap up
Another trash

The stains of past
Confront
The present strains
Who rules the roost?

Until future shows the face
And becomes the present.