To Diana,with love.

A glimpse of your bearing

Through the veiled evening sky I caught.

Dazzling me with your sheer presence,

Lighting my darkest paths unaware.

You said I’d never be alone.

Miles apart, yet together we’d stay at heart.

You coasted through the clouded sky,

yearning for the sun that never came by.

As the drizzle filled with your pain

rained down on the world,

behind the dark clouds you vanished.

Never a moment had passed,

without me looking up there.

Searching for a ray of light,

searching for my ally,

Evading me for what seemed like an eon,

I still looked out.

Waiting for that one beam of hope.

And when you did,

when you peeked out

through the gloomy sky,

My sky lit up in your thereness,

It felt like not a minute had gone by.

For I am radiance and you are the moon.

Beyond blood and kinship,

Beyond distance and time,

Beyond now and eternity,

This bond shall go.
 Demanding not like, but the great love.

Not happiness, but euphoria.

Not a partner, but a companion.

Not some, but all.

Demanding infinity, we stand united.

Alone against the world,

but together we shall endure.

Through the loud music and light verses,

the withered pages and new leaves,

the moving frames of make believe.

Through life as it seems,

In search of the knights for our darkness,

who do not smother our luminescence.

We may fail at our cause,

But you will always know, you had an ally in me

Miles apart, yet together we remained at heart.

                                                                                                - The Illuminated

Your average Mommy day post..!!

I am assuming that mother’s day is around the corner for there are so many promotional campaigns and advertisements about how to impress your mother by sending her gifts. I have never been a fan of the Hallmark holidays, celebrating a relationship or an emotion or a gender; things we need to cherish everyday rather than downsizing it to one particular calendar day. Do you just need one day for love and one day for the women?

For all that she does, just one day for a mother? But what does she do? At least what does my mother do?

Like every other woman with unbearable children, my mother was strict, expected obedience, and good marks. My siblings and I complied to this with utmost devotion in our younger years, but as years went by following the norms of teenage, we rebelled now and then. My mother grew tired of our antics so she gave up on her firm hold and became a tad cooler. My sisters were married and out of our house, so I had the cool mom all to myself.

Almost all the children never call their mothers by name. My mother had scared my sisters so much about telling her name out loud, that they dared not to mention it even when they were asked. But then, I called her “J”. That’s how we roll.

Rather than instructing me to do things, she listened to what I had to say. She believed in my judgment and took suggestions from me. This may not be a big deal to the present generation “Hip-Mommas”, but my J is from a different century. She hailed from a small town, born in a big family with humble means, never had much experience with the world and became a mother when my friend’s mothers were either in school or in the crib. She was taught to comply, never to question. Your typical 1970’s Indian women.

In the flavours of her cooking, the vibrant shades of her neatly tied saris, her fragrance in the house, the unchanging way of how she rings the pooja bell, her bargaining skills, the way she stomachs our sickness, her curly hair, the vermilion stain on the center of her parted hair, her cracked heels and calloused hands, the rare smiles, the vapours of her medicinal oils, my mother was everywhere without being there.

She lived with a sense of selflessness, being the eldest sister to a big bunch of siblings. Even after all these years, with the size of our family down to three, my mother remains the same. The simple things she does, like taking the burnt dosa or chapati and offering the good ones to me and dad, not taking second helpings of that tasty dish she had made, buying something for her but give it up in a heartbeat, because my eyes had lit up seeing it, letting me sleep whilst holding on to her sari - even now, enjoying cricket with us and so many more things stand as a testament of the love she has for us. Small obscure things that she doesn’t mind, she doesn’t draw attention to, but they make me feel immensely gifted to be with her for they never go unnoticed.

Of course it is not roses and love all the days. There are days that I feel like throwing things at her. No matter what goes wrong between us or how long I decide not to talk to her, my mother never gave up on me. Every time I fall, she holds out a hand for me to get up. My refusal to rise doesn't deter her tenacity to get me up and going. She believes in every promise that I eventually fail to keep up. She holds on to me fiercely even when I walk away from everything. She cherishes my dreams, however obscure they may be. With all her love, that woman shames me for my mere existence.

I have always wondered if people can truly find their one great love.

I know have.

My J is my one true love, my knight in shining armor who really wants me to be saved from me. Nobody could ever love me unconditionally as much as she does. She is my hero, the one I look up to, the one I fail, the one I hurt, the one I care for, the one I wish to be someday, the one who means the world to me. She is the one. Everything and everybody come after her.

Most people feel this special about their mothers as well. I write this because this is the only honest emotion that I harbor. Her love is basis of my life. Everything good and bad that has stemmed out from there is my doing, but all this is impossible without my J.

My sweet J.

Timing, a well known Bitch

      She hated the mirror that hung near the mantle in her drawing room. The mantle held quite a few pictures from her younger days, framed in antique brass skeletons. It reminded her of the split screen comparisons shown in TV commercials. Her youthful, lively, sexy younger self on one side and a careworn, dull, ordinary face that sported the wrinkles of her mid thirties on the other side. Marriage had slowed down the free spirit that Ana was, but it was the three hyperactive children who had completely halted the flow through her interests in life. She had divided her time between the kitchen, her cabin and the kids room that it left little time to pause and scan through, in search of her life. She believed she had lost it somewhere between the diaper changing and attending the numerous PTA meetings, after Dev had come into her life.

        Dev, the love of her life, that her parents chose. She had no romantic relationships before him so she had no scale to compare the love she and Dev had shared, but she felt no sparsity. He respected her space, loved the kids, took her out now and then, cooked the Sunday lunch, kissed her forehead when he left for office, made love when they thought it had been quite a while, stayed home with the kids during the holidays when Ana had an important meeting, balanced the home budget, sang quiet well as he carried on with his mundane activities. He was a well raised, honest gentleman, whom Ana adored. Love grew into their marriage, slow yet unwavering.

      After 14 years of wedlock, everything in their life had found a normal course, except Ana felt few things were going wrong in the recent days. She felt changes in their marital life, subtle changes to the third pair of eyes, but to Ana, they were glaring right at her. Dev was a little more cheerful, but it felt vastly put on. He had long meetings quiet frequently, going beyond midnight, atleast twice a week. He remained occupied with his phone and texting had improved quiet drastically but Ana found no traces of it when she peeked at his phone. That worried her more. His drinking days had increased a little and their love making decreased. The fore head pecks, the gentle smiles, the hugs from behind, the hand holding had almost become obsolete and the ones that came by  felt feigned.

     Ana was not the jealous or suspicious type, but the mirror near the mantle induced a paranoia. Her crows feet seemed a little too deep, her dark circles looked darker, her hair looked thinner and lighter, her age spots looked prominent, her skin felt loose, her breast looked saggy, her whole posture seemed drooped. She confined to her close friend about these changes as any worried wife would do and as any friend of a worried wife would advice, her friend assured her that this may be the menopause talking and probably Dev was busy at work but it doesn't mean her suspicions may be wrong. This left Ana even more confused. She feared the answer she might get, if she confronted Dev, but staying in this grey area of not knowing anything concrete seemed even more painful. That was when she came across the advertisement for a detective agency in the obscure little magazine she had found in the bunch of old papers and periodicals at the dentist.

   Ana fixed her appointment with the detective agency and gave all the information regarding Dev. She kept asking about the confidentiality of the investigation and whether Dev would ever find out about this. The private investigator assured that everything would go fine. It took 3 weeks of restless nights for Ana and for the investigator to get back with his report, according to which Dev was not having an extra marital affair but he had been consulting a therapist for his stress related health issues. All his business meetings were real and that he had not been straying. As much as the confirmation of the affair being non existent elated Ana, the lack of her focus on Dev and his deteriorating health shocked her and the very crude idea to doubt Dev shamed her. She went home that night and had a long talk with Dev, asked him about his work, the stress at office and many other things. She hugged Dev tight and said that she loved him more than anything in her life and apologised if she had been selfish and overlooked his needs. Ana even suggested that she could take a break from work to help him out. Dev was utterly confused at his wife's strange behaviour, but he welcomed the change. He kissed the top of her head as she wept on his chest. He felt it would be inappropriate if he suggested make up sex as he was not sure if they had a fight and reconciled and also as Ana's ride on the emotional roller coaster was still in progress.

   That night Ana had a peaceful sleep, knowing everything was back to normal. Dev stayed awake wondering what could have prompted this development in his marital life when suddenly his phone buzzed. A Text. He read it twice, smiled and deleted the text and went back to sleep.

"The 5 week vacation was fun. It would have been more fun if you had been there with me.
I miss you, your kiss, your touch, your cooking, Most of all, I miss us, together.
Can't wait to see you tonight."

   Dev had a peaceful sleep, knowing that everything was back to normal.




 

Vis Viva

"Energy is neither created nor destroyed. It changes from one form to another"
                                                                  - Law of Conservation of Energy


The seconds expecting a breakdown at the door was as painful as the bullet lodged in his gut. His breathing was heavy and uneven. He knew there was no escape from here, but the killer in him was half mad at the kind of end his assassin's life was coming to,a bullet from a rookie's gun. He thought he would go in a much grand way, like after a long fight sequence similar to a Tarantino movie or at least after a few rounds of shots fired, using up all the clips he had, the anticipation of a shot, hitting the target, feeling the heat of the gun, sweat in his skin, and finally give up to the bullets that would sieve him. He wanted be gone a legend after an intense gun fight. This, was pathetic. Damn the rookie cop with the unsteady hands. He ruined his "Glorious Exit".

His profile was impressive.More than two dozen hits, all clean with nothing tracing back to him or the ones who wanted the dead, dead. He was the best. He was the unknown and unseen strike that got you out. He was off the grid and it was as if he never existed. That's what he believed until he found the trace and now he was cornered, literally , at some random room in some random floor of some random  building, waiting for his Rain of Bullets. He had not one regret with his life. He was powerful. The scythe that reaped the lives. He knew nothing about the lives of the ones he had slayed and he didn't care for them. Yet with the final grains of his sand clock slipping down, he thought he would feel remorse, for all the lives he had claimed, the tears he was accountable for, the looks of terror, the pleas of mercy, the foul stench of death, and the vacantness that filled their eyes afterwards.

As he heard the hard soles closing around him, he recalled his every kill. From the very first to his recent one. He was proud of some of his work and thought he could have done much better at some others. The money, the life, the comforts that came with the blood, all brought a small grin. He was good at what he did no matter how evil it was. He could hear the voices now. It took them full two minutes to figure out the room he was in. "Good call Sherlock.Was it the blood trail that gave away?", he guffawed. They were taking positions as they closed in on the door. He felt it. He was there, the state at which his victims felt right before he made his kill. Death's cruel hand crushing down with a side of helplessness and a generous serving of fear. But, unlike them, he was not afraid of dying. He knew it would all come to this one day. His heart rate quickened, his body was drenched in his sweat, blood all around him. That damn bullet in his gut.

The door burst open ,a dozen black suits stormed in. All guns pointing at him. At this point, he was so vulnerable that the rookie who shot him can get over with this with an old musket. There was no need for twelve semi automatics pointed at his chest. They were making snide comments about how a "celebrated" assassin like him had ended up huddled in a corner like a stinking coward. He had a few witty comebacks, but the pain had broken the threshold and it was to the point that he was looking forward to the end. He wanted them to get over with it. Yet they kept talking. His consciousness was not slipping but pain kept clawing at his life and the blood didn't stop seeping. At last it happened, the black suits shot him several times as he thought they would as he made a move. A slight motion, that's all it took for his life to come to an end. His glorious life as the master of death. As the shots were fired, finally the thought came to him.

 What if?

It happened so quick he hadn't had the time to catch a breath. He knew he was crying out loud, but didn't know why. He heard strangers around him. There was a women sobbing somewhere around in the vicinity. He felt running water and a soft towel followed. He felt was being handled like a small doll. Suddenly he heard the sobbing women up close. He had finally stopped crying and ever so slightly opened his eyes. A worn out women and a balding man, of gigantic proportions were looking at him. They were laughing and crying at the same time. She mouthed something he couldn't comprehend to. It dawned on him, finally, and this thought came to him.

"Oh its on".

P. S. This is totally inspired. My own words but a borrowed idea.

The Day She Quit..!!

She sat staring at the bright screen and it stared right back at her with nothing. It drove her mad. She walked out of her cell that she shared with 4 other fellows, who were gifted enough not to plow through on the last day of the week. She didn't mind their absence. There were very few souls that inhabited her adjacent cells which was sheltered under a long holding made of thick glass and cheap steel. She identified herself at the first glass door and again at the second metal door to walk to the outer less polished corridor. Her fingers absently traced the cold metal railings of the corridors as she walked to the box in the shaft that sailed her down from the third level. The rough stone walkway led her out of her metal cage that was oddly shaped like a bird. A giant,ugly,steel cage bird.

Everything around her screamed of conformity. The neutral shades may give out an aura that this means business but it clearly shouts to the lot here, "Comply and you shall believe that you are thriving". It reminded her of the colours of the shackles that had clasped her souls. She is one of them. She has been one of them for four long summers and four mildly cool winters. She had the coin, not complaining at that front, but this is not who she is. She is a free spirit. She wondered when she was tamed and it scared her. It scared her a lot.

She walked to the eatery to get something to quench her thirst and settle the the rumblings of her heavy breakfast. Her black stole took the direction of the wind. She tried to curb the garment but failed miserably at the act, so much she let it dance in the air. There was no one around anyway to judge her modesty for she had let her stole fly around. She looked down at her dress. Black with white and brownish green threading all over. Her friends mocked that this dress of hers looked like a thousand crows had shat on it. She didn't like the comment much as this was one of her favourites, but coming to think about it now, it does looks like crow shit. She smiled. Something that hardly came up these days.

As she walked there were less din than the other days of the week. She grasped none. It was all white noise around her. She was able to distinguish them though. A power provider's grunts, a mason's strikes, a loud girl's high pitch laughter, a few distant musical notes, the kitchen noise from that other eatery on her way, the splash of water from the green hose, held by a garden man in green clothes watering green leaves that were there apparently for no good reason. They were supposed to appease the mundanity of the cages, but steel grey and bottle green were never the colours of excitement. She heard all the noise but failed to pay any heed to them. She was going deaf to the life around.

The eatery that served her needs was three steel cages afar. She kept her head bowed. Not in submission but in curiosity. She saw the stones laid on the walkway. As a child, she used to measure her strides so that she did not step on the edges of the stone, something she always did with so much involvement that her head found her forerunner's arse many a times. Yet she did it. In her every walk. In all her journeys. But somehow she had stopped measuring her strides. She wondered why. It was just a queer habit that she had lost with time, like most of the things she enjoyed doing. She thought she would do it now. But the walkway stones were longer and it would look foolish to walk with long strides that even involved a few hops. There were not many around, yet she wouldn't do it. She hated being held back.

Her quencher was a brown effervescing drink that neither quenched her thirst nor settled her stomach. She walked back to her bigger cage, took the box up, then to the corridor and  then to her glass holding and then walked back to her cell after identifying at the two doors. She was a bit nervous to bring the quencher to her cell, as the guards were intolerant to anything edible in there. But her cage was not well guarded that day. May be the safety compliance of her steel cage was laid back on the last day of the week.
She realized her fear had stemmed out of her bent back.
So bent, she was even afraid to look up at anything around her.
So bent she let her life waste away staring at the ground.
So bent she thought her mind was rusting to normality.
So bent she forgot her last free opinion.

 She went back to her staring. Her relentless, pointless staring at the brightness in front of her.

That's when she heard a scream from within.

Broken window in the Red bus

I knew not where I was.
I knew not where to go.
Amidst the crowd of strangers,
I stood alone like a shadow.
Spotted a bus at a distance.
I climbed aboard the red beast.
Nothing around made any sense.
Time seemed to have ceased.
Behind two unknown souls
I found my battered place.
Rusted window and broken glass.
A faded leather solace.
I saw the dusky city scene
disappear behind me.
Gazing through the frosted pane,
streaks of evening colours faded rapidly.
Lady who lost her love
crooned away her distress.
Through the radio waves
to all who lent their ears.


Looking back at today
and all days gone by.
As life snatched away my dreams,
It all seems like a grand lie.
A sudden short drizzle
calmed the mind a little.
Sneakily trying to efface
my mask of sanity away.
"Hold on to it "cried my head.
Alas! My eyes couldn't carry on
It did at the end betray.
Tears gather at the brink of my eye.
Tears of disappointment.
Tears of failure.
Tears of hatred.
Tears of the fallen griever.
The cool evening breeze
stole them all away.
One by one,
drop by drop.
The ones I wanted salvaged
with my mother's hug,
by my father's hand,
through my sister's love,
alongside my friend's laughter.
Yet, all alone I lost my tears
to the suburban air
One by one
drop by drop.
Is this all how life gets to be?
No love near by,
so hard to breathe?

A piercing eye caught my notice.
That of a child wearing a smile.
Like a ray of light in all the darkness.
The smile was pure.
Nothing in the world appeared wrong.
A moment of hope,
A measure of love,
A twinkle of life.
Everything felt light.
A sign of being, that smile gave me
I knew this ain't the end,
I knew I had a shot
At happiness, I will see. :)


                                                                         

JaNe EyRe, A FeW WoRdS

The name says it all. One of the most cherished leading ladies of English Literature. I happened to befriend her recently and as much as I fell in love with the unadulterated charisma that is Edward Fairfax Rochester, I fell for Jane as well.

Quoting the wise words of Rachel Greene, this book is definitely light years ahead of its time(well not the Robot part). Feminism was the part which had captured the mind of the few with whom I happened to discuss this book about. What caught me the most was Jane's honesty.

To let go of the love of your life because it is the right thing to do takes much more than mere mortal courage. Especially to one who has never apprehended the pleasures of love and had just been handed an abundance of it. The greatest power in the world is definitely BATMAN. But when it comes to emotions , Love is Batman and dear Jane walked away from Batman.  It may not matter what the world would think, there was no one to stop them, yet she made her decision not to stay.

That requires more than just courage...!!

You mam, deserve a salute...!!