Making love

She makes love all the time,
this girl I know.
Wavy hair on the rough side.
A clown adorning a crooked smile
that lights up really small eyes.
A girl who has already fallen in love with words
before, while and after she fell in love with a man.
If the first that peeps from the sky is a worm,
she'd write how beautiful it was
with its rings sparkling all through the night,
inching its way across the infinite realm of God.
If that little niece of hers puddles on her lap,
she jumps up in antagonising joy
while enjoying the warmth that lives
before she showers herself 'clean'.
While you only just read it in your head,
she articulates it in her heart and shouts
in passion that,
she lives in conditions unknown outside,
that she cannot track the number of words
nor the wrangling between her two different selves.
She cannot decide which side to go,
what to do about a boy she probably loved
and the rejection that sheathed itself in her heart.
Ramblings churn their way from her soul
losing its way in her blood,
sometimes hitting hard at the head;
which led some to think that
she has lost her senses.
I pity them,
for beyond a small nose and legs,
a large forehead and an independent stature,
they can't see that words swim inside of her
that give her more pleasure
than any boy EVER could.

~Hemu 

The Airport Effect

So, I enter through rotating glass doors to look unto a sweeping stretch of dotted spot lights in a high false ceiling,  white-marbled huge columns, steel barricades and the tiled flooring of the airport. I never understand what runs in my mind when I go to the airport. Technically speaking, it should be like going to the bus depot or the railway station. Why does it feel more enhanced here? All of them are sentimental at various levels of distances between dear ones and one thing always reigns everywhere : separation and reunion.
But those two words are the global synonyms for 'airport' all around the world, in particular. The first thing that strikes anyone.
   
             As I did mention before, I never understand what runs inside me when I go there. I love staring at the activity around me. I feel like I have been trapped beyond reason and have my eyes following the pilots in their smart uniforms. When I was young, I wanted to be a pilot...and now, for some un-understandable reason I am in the course of studying to be an architect, which I love too. I guess that patch of yearning remains in my heart forever. I stare at wide-eyed babies and old people pushed about in wheelchairs, newly wed couples excited, elated and nervous at the start of a literally and figuratively new journey, working professionals, and tourists trying to fit in with the locals with our style of dressing. It floods my brain which suddenly seems to becomes a blank canvas. For no reason at all, I visit the over-priced snacks bar and the probably-clean washrooms. I climb on the bars of the barricade and look around at nothing in particular. (well, there are the pilots...But other than that, nothing-I swear) I make faces at the kids when their parents are not looking and smile looking at sleeping passengers-to-be. I feel completely blank- a combination of nothing and everything.

     The emotions I feel cancel each other or fuse to create a sense of patience and un-bored nature in my mind.I feel yearning and loss, joy at the reunion, excitement and the heavy feeling that I have not yet begun to travel as I had always wanted to. Mere counters, paper money and cold steel bars in an air-conditioned volume of space has stopped me from reaching the corners of the world, you know.

   I wish there is a word for the tingling feeling in your stomach that feels full of nostalgia and curiosity, the heaviness of the heart at the brief separation with tears in the eyes, the hope that we'll meet soon again and the excitement of a start of something new.
  Do you have such a word or phrase?
   I call it the 'Airport Effect'.

P.S : I'm still under the airport effect and that has made me write this post. You'll have to excuse me if you don't understand the point of the whole thing. I don't too. It's some sort of a drug.

From google images 

Hemu

The Girl in the Mirror

I stared at my gymnastics coach with the a big puppy dog face. It was yet another of those times when we clash head-on in silence. Well, at least it was the language of signs for me. He generally won.
'Please Sir, just this once?' I pleaded with every ounce of yearning in me.Every single time.
I always got the same answer.
No.

I had never know how it feels to brush my hair all the way till my shoulders or more almost until I reached my  seventh grade. I never did know how it feels to even brush Barbie's hair. I never had one. I was curious to know how it felt like to have hair any more than the Bob style that I possessed. People would sit together- my parents, sister and my coach. Mother realized that in the daily ruckus I created every morning, it was going to be impossible to sit and plait my hair. My coach decided that it was too difficult for him to help me with my floor elements if my hair kept coming in the way. My father was fine with anything that got me out of the house in the right time in the mornings. (Why wouldn't he? He had to drop me at school.)
As for my sister.. she liked to see me go through the misery of having my hair cropped till my ears.
So,  that was decided then.

    It was not that I didn't enjoy the bob hair that bounced with my every step, but as you all might know, the grass is always greener on the other side. I was the tom-boy (girl?) at school and the short hair helped no more. When you're young, you tend to look at the fallen hair with attachment in the barber shop that your father frequents. There was only one hair style in that small saloon. He had no issues with me, that barber. Boy-cut for the little girl, every time. He did a satisfactory job, I must say. I was once approached by a curious boy after my gymnastics class who wanted to know if I was a boy or a girl.

   So, when you ask me my childhood stories, I'm all tears for the fallen-could-have-been-pretty braids.But there is a smile that assists me on my mirror. That kid smiles back at me all the time. She had a tiny comb the size of her palm and ran that through her thick hair and felt its bountifulness. It fell all vertical when she did her hand-stands, back flips and back somersaults.
 (Not to forget that fountain on my head when I attended school and classes.)

    As every story goes, I grew up. (Damn!)
   A small change in the scene that you see up until now.
  Now, this was when I wanted to cut my hair short while everyone around me insisted I grow it long. Beauty parlours became the new saloons and I had hair styles to choose from. Hair dressers got tired of waiting on my indecisiveness as I sit down with the nylon cape round my neck.
   I entered third year in college and sat around with Barbie dolls for the first and last time at my friend's place. I wonder if that exactly counts for growing up but let us just safely say I finally learnt how to dress a Barbie doll with different clothes and hair styles. (I still don't know if it's the right way to play. Like I said- that was the first and last time.)

    Again, the grass is always greener on the other side. I now want short hair. I want to go snip, snip, snip and my mother gives me deathly glances and amazing warnings that fall a little short of threat that my hair would never grow back if I cut it too short now.

  It's amazing how we grow up into something we were the opposite of. My mum wants me to nourish my hair until it falls till my waist and I want that bob cut from the times when the boy on the street didn't know whether I was a girl or a boy. Ah, how times change!

For now when I see the girl in the mirror, she tugs at her curls and smooths them over. She has three different types of combs and other materials that compliment what it probably was. She now knows the difference between ordinary braids and fish braid.

She's grown up now. And wants that hair short like the girl in the mirror from the fifth grade.

But for change, the world would be boring. But for some constant entities, the world would have now perished. Do you know that ever-changing and ever-constant girl in the mirror?

I really don't.

Image from the internet 

~Hemu

This post has been submitted for Indiblogger contest in association with Dove. 

   

Radio Love!

When the days where much in the past filled with joy and innocence, when technology hasn't taken an advert turn forcing itself down our necks, but during a time when we were the masters of the same, there lived a radio in my home that made my whole family's day from morning till the night falls and gloats. This post is dedicated to that radio that braved everyday along with us, thorough the thick, tough and the truce times after many fights and eternal love.
   
 When I was still in my underwear, trotting around in elementary school,  there was no proper television at my place. ('proper' with reference to nowadays) It was a tiny black and white square box of red and black colours holding up the black oblong Philips radio on its head. (That, was the sole purpose of the television other than Sunday morning happy times watching 'Rangoli' on DD channel where the colours kept filling the Hindi subtitles as the actors danced around the trees that Bollywood had had planted for the very purpose!) There were a couple of buttons, a round disc to tune into radio and a cassette player. I used to wish I had a bigger television to watch cartoons and more movies, but now, I thank my parents for never having bought one till I was much,  much older and myself for never having pushed them for one. I was content with the people who spoke to me through that black being's speakers.
 
     Mornings began with the radio broadcasting devotional songs for which my mother was highly grateful. I never was awake during those hours but I remember those hours as my mom would chant or sing along with the radio working her way through the kitchen. It was dreamy, with the Tindell effect working it's way into our house's mosaic floors and the smell of food rising up in the air. Sometimes, I would be in and out of sleep  when I would hear her voice in all my drowsiness. It was beautiful.
 
Later, the radio was tuned into one of the famous radio stations. Songs kept playing and radio jockeys kept talking to us. There would be music while I brush my teeth, when I take my bath, when I put on my uniform's belt, while I gulp down my breakfast, while my father helps me put on my gleaming white canvas shoes and till I run out of the door with him. They made my day into music, into notes and lyrics that kept playing in my head all the time. Back then, with no remote or buttons to immediately change the channels and given our busy or lazy nature in the mornings, there would be but one channel floating it's offerings through the wind. We listened to the RJ speak about women's issues, about America, about the traffic and last night's rain.There was continuity and an anonymous bond that existed unlike now when radio means more often the time killer during the wait in traffic; in cars with buttons to change the channels every second.

But this was completely different. There was something about it, that radio.

   The morning news would be relayed on the 'Aakashwani' which told me of the time. My father and I would beat for the door, for it meant the time was 8.15 a.m and time for school. The newsreader had such a pleasant voice but it also meant I was late and so never during weekdays did I ever get to hear her recite the news fully nor during the weekends for I would still be dozing.

The radio that we once had at home! 

 Evenings, when I think about it now, were pleasant. No television sounds, no serials and soap operas, no movies. Just good music that assists you finish your evening chores, that helps you relax with some good milk, that helps you read and that helps you write. I wonder how much I would be into either reading or writing if I had had a 'state-of-the-art' television at home. Radio, music and RJ's taught me so much more than an idiot box could ever have. Just as they taught me to fall in love with the old Tamil and Hindi songs that were played well into the night lulling us to sleep. I do remember vividly how my entire family would gather and sit together to listen to one particular RJ during the nights. His voice was the most soothing one ever and his thoughts were stringed in such a beautiful way that all we could ever do was listen to him and smile. I wonder if he or any of the other RJ's knew how much they moved us, made us smile and tear up or just plainly engage without an idle mind for company. Well, they made our day always, starting up the next day where they had left the night before.

   There were no fights in the evenings for the television remote or what channel one wants to watch, merely songs that we all loved and listened to, as a family.
  To the rushing mornings with peppy music and liveliness, to the evenings that helped us run around and the soothing nights of family dinner and sheer dulcet mood before our eyes drop into dreams, I am forever thankful to that companion, our dear radio!

                                         Images are from the internet and not owned by me 

~Hemu 

And my client said : An architect's woes

So you come to me; an architect and say,

'I'd like you to design this dream house in my head.
A large wooden door and a window at the bay,
The flooring I want, in dark dark red.
Now, let there be the stairs above into three rooms
basking in sunlight and skylight
whilst the closet be onto the left here for the mops and brooms.
I almost did forget, the doctor did cite
for some of those oak paneled wainscoting
along with bricks red,grey and brown.
Please do take these down as you see the drawing
of where my land lies, in the alleys of downtown
where water stands still for days together if it sees a little rain;
but should that be a problem for a basement around,
tucked just a little in by the room for laundry gains.
I want my kitchen just right here for my wife feels the vibes that surround
here, doesn't really matter if a window can't be placed
there dear. We'll puncture some of those holes and put some grills.
My dog wants his kennel in the hallway, my daughter dearest dazed
says the cupboard under the stairs gives her thrills;
so if you could clutch in a toilet and some cupboards for clothes,
a tucked in bed and neat line of shelves, it would be but great.
I want to see the sky when I doze
and a long corridor for my son to skate.
Put my treadmill right over here where my neighbour can see it;
a couple of plants on the balcony on the top.
If there ain't any portion left, we'll put the pots on the roof for a bit
but let there be lines that don't let it bop.
Splash the insides with colours of blue, orange and yellow,
I want some cheer like the magazines said.
Let's keep the loo right there where it is mellow
and the settee over here ad right there, the bed.
Make the landing smaller than usual,
I'd adjust and the people in my family are small.
We can use that here to put a room below that's unusual
for the visitors' eyes, that's good enough to host a ball.
Well, I'm a little tight with space as you can see,
but that shouldn't be reason to stop you for designing for me
with a little challenges along with some money that should be
an honour for you and a privilege for me.
Oh, lest I forget, may I add,
I want the grounds open to play catch with my dog over here,
I'm sure that can be arranged, it's only a lined fad.
Don't forget the front porch and patio behind where I'd like to drink my beer
and a nice sturdy barbecue grill  by the side.
My wife is allergic to concrete dust, so if you can tone that down,
it would be nice. The rest I shall abide
but not the these little details I have envisioned and sown.

Good day ye,

I shall drop by evening to collect what you got
and let's start work tomorrow if you're free
there are still some nuances I missed that you got to jot
and then I shall pay you your fee.'

So, I wondered as I watched him out of the door
staring at the sheet of pencil smudges,
the site was gone and my brain jumped a lot into being sore.
But right now I need that fee, so I hold back all grudges
and pull out the papers onto the board
picked up the pencil and let my imagination soar
as it came back to where it all floored,

'I'd like you to design this dream house in my head...'

Oh, what I have to do for some tea and some bread!

When I have a son

  And when my little son walks in while I feed my infant,
  I wouldn't shoo him away and draw up my clothes;
  but hold him by my side and give him a kiss.
  I'd tell him, 'Son, you drank my milk like this when you
  were much younger.
  These are breasts that fed you
  and I am the woman who gave birth to you.
  Stare at your sister's eyes and see the joy
  in the suckling that fills that tiny little body
  that you see everyday
  and learn it's only flesh that is different from
  your own.'
  I know,
  he'd ask me the six questions of his beginning
   language.
  I'd answer while my daughters' eyes droop
  and his vision grows bigger...
  and when he finally asks me 'Why' I'd say :
  'So that when you're older and in a circle with
   some other boys like you into adolescence;
   When they show you pictures of women clad in an
   air of nudity visible through poring eyes
   and sneer at the woman who is open to her ideas
   and her
   sexuality,
   you'll know to say:
   'I've seen those. My mother has them too.
    And so do all of yours.'

~~ Hemu

                                           Image Source : http://www.chroniclesofanursingmom.com
               

The Heart Rout(e)

There are always those paths in front of you,

sometimes forked, sometimes parallel;

some of them tiny at the beginning opening out into a thicket of sunshine

and some that narrow down into walled fortresses. 

Every single of those places have a sliver of light, a flower that blooms 

to merry, 

fighting warriors abreast with swords awaiting to lash and

many a shores of the beaches where you can soak your mind. 

You get to choose but one of those

beginnings so deceptive; 

you get these eons to stand and stare 

at the stars above you and the ground below, 

the trees that hug each other and the colours that hang around. 

Some smell of the petrichor, some like baked cookies. 

A lot of them have sweet smelling flowers and 

a handful that smell like tea. 

You get to stand there and make up your mind

that wanders down all these roads once

and you weigh it in your head from what you see. 

Sometimes you move out of instinct, some after you set

out after logic

whose crown falls tumbling down another avenue 

that hold your emotions by its reins

or even the little lure of your favorite sound. 

You tell yourself, I'm not going to regret this

and go down that adorned pathway 

hoping you'll find a charming prince or the fruits of heaven

whilst your parallel mind notes the joys that lie 

in the path that separates you by choice and helplessness. 

You'll most often live there, 

in that parallel path where another traveler dreams

of standing in your bright little blue shoes. 

                                           Photo credit :

                                          Image from the internet : SteveRossman's blog. 

                                          http://steverossman.com/2011/11/11/two-roads-diverged/

                                         I do not take any credit for the picture put up here. 

~Hemu 

Wishlist to a thirty seconds memory!

When I was younger and even now, people told me, 'Wait till you see the real world'. I said I will. In images and sketches,my dream of the real life floated : designs of an exposed brick work house filled with framed pictures of my life, traveling toes, love, financial and personal success, a little studio and work that I love. It ran in my head that I'd earn all the cash I need to trot around the world and do all that I want to. To dote on designs by virtue of livelihood and live in writing as filled with heavy passion. To read all the beautiful books in the world, sometimes the bad ones- just to know the worth of the good ones, a cosy personal library.. Ah, dreams. Clouds dressed up as angels looming over our heads giving us hope and then filling us with the sweet sweat of the sky. So many things. Little little things.
   And I'm still dreaming of them all.
   It's fun to float in there.

~Hemu 

Leave where again?

Let me leave it here, I tell myself.

Building blocks and scourging for jobs;

pleasing people and being polite to the best of my being.

While I love the sea I live in; something suffocates,

and drowns. The little gasps of air above this blue trance

give me little yellow sunshine spots of joy.

Let’s leave it all and steal some money, perhaps.

Roam through the streets of hidden hills and solitary forests

in unity and love with the fresh air that I breathe

and the other girl inside of me.

Let me just go around those places,

Broken swings and overgrown jumpsuits,

wading pools and many a strip club

themed around little kids and the grandmothers in their prime..

appreciating whatever is left of the world, people. 

My perception too,maybe.

Or Let's go to the guy I stole the money from and buy him a soda.

And perhaps, create a little bookstore with yellowed pages

that many have flipped and

A little bell that runs through loud

behind the counter and across the carpets

as someone approached me and says:

“Got some books that smell lovely

and a colouring book for my daughter?” 

                                          Image above is from the internet.Not mine! 

What next?

What next, they ask me? What next, I ask myself a lot of times. I know just one answer to it, which does no justice to the question itself. 'I don't know.'
What are you going to be in 5 years? In ten years? Fifteen. Fifty. I still tell them 'I don't know'.
The vague outline of vision that education offers is so faint that sometimes I have to trace it and chase it around to find out where I'm off to. To meet whom? To earn? Or to learn? These are just only a very few of the questions that keep popping up in my head.

   Life goes on. I was enrolled into a school when I barely learnt how to walk properly before teachers asked  me to 'sit down' in a place. Just when I was learning how language and sounds roll under my tongue, I was asked to keep quiet. (I'm still told the same, mind you.)Maybe it was for the good, I was trained in the basic 'skills of civilization'.. like every other kid. Ran through primary school, secondary, senior secondary and now college. But if I look at the net result as to what I have learnt and what I want to be... I think I'll have to un-'study' most of what I was taught.

 ('Don't talk back to your elders.' - So, what if they are teaching me something wrong? What if I'm being stuffed with something I don't want to know if I did know how it would lead.)

So, what do we learn? Or do we learn anything at all? Do we just study, score marks, get a well-paid job which most of us hate to be in, get married, 'settle down', reproduce, get old, die. Why do we have this pattern? Why do we have these definitive words like career, salary and life-partner? Why not unconventional ones like dancing, music, farming, one-night stands and hiking? When people ask me what I'm going to be doing next, I say.. 'Oh, Finish studies, work for a year or two, study for another two years, start my own architectural firm'.. when what I actually want to do is to let all of this go. Keeping ambitions aside and working towards a goal or what not.. I've probably forgotten how to live.

   I want to attend or go to an educational 'system' which lets me enjoy the freedom I already possess, I want a 'job' where I don't want to sit staring at a laptop screen for 8 hours straight when all my heart lies in the last few lines of the book I read that morning on the train, I want to fall in love with someone who is willing to spend time on crossword puzzles, tea and sufi music- not through a profile that talks about his height, weight et cetera. Is that who one is? What happened to the soul one had? Knock Knock. I'll be surprised if someone does open a door to that one.

      The saddest part of it all is to know you're on a path that you don't want to be in. The problem lies in staying on this path that you like and are comfortable with and not on the one you would love and feel completely passionate about. Where 'identities' such as doctor, engineer, architect, farmer holds no meaning. Where craziness, joy, love, kind, stupid are the probable tags... and I want to live there in that world where salaries don't contain any meaning, where educational qualifications mean nothing... where only what one holds, loves and stands up for makes sense.

  I'm not there yet, but I know I'm changing tracks. It's going to be difficult but to learn to live in the moment is a long term dream I hold, as paradoxical as it may seem. Next time someone asks me what I am : I hope to answer the question to myself first.

 What am I going to do?
Roam through roads I haven't set foot on yet. Travel. Read. Write. Design. Sing in public washrooms. Eat farm cheese. Play Frisbee with my dog. Break a couple of roads. Get into a bar fight. Fall in love. Dream. Sleep on bare ground staring at the stars.

What am I going to do?
I'm going to live.


~ Hemu

Image from the internet : 

http://vi.sualize.us/toburnthreadswho_am_i_to_imply_black_and_white_portrait_painting_art_picture_vMcC.html

Envisioning Reality

Itinerant roads roam their way through fogged sights of my being

cutting through the suspended invisibility of dark secrets and earthy light,

tracing those numbed memories in the eons of my past- beautiful and seething;

sprinkling his smiles on moist ground from my tears trite.

His cherubic grin hops from one joyful stone to the next

as welcoming as the opening lips of a woman who loves her other soul,

offering herself to the reason of existence towards a seed growing convex;

cutting through my near frozen thoughts with a formless and farce parole.

But it flung me-to the crassly corner of imaginations and visions

coercing and pushing my dreams towards reality until the soil lay dug

with my desire to hold his hands in mere mental collisions,

while I slept on flitting clouds enceinte with my hollowness into the carnal drug.

Still he awoke-pacing along the rim of fallen petals crested,

creating words and sounds sailing on the concrete lines of love infested.

~Hemu 

                                                               Image from the internet  

A Shakespearean Sonnet -Insipired 

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Lost grooves

Block by block, I built my reveries

reaching the sky, one on top of the other.

They weren’t stable and often jumped pieces

like monkeys in an antic play;

to make me smile, to see me tickled

by tiny joys in its unfitting grooves and sated levels

of imagination,

until one day another traveler in my life

shook them with his stick.

Really hard.

His name was Reality he said;

and he tore apart my dreams

bit by bit,

as it all crashed taking me down with the million pieces

that I painstakingly and lovingly created.

Some bruises later,

I only stood up;

held it all in my tiny fist

and began to build it all over again.

Only now, there is a taste of reality

in its sliced being.

Like cutting onions for a tasty meal
I bore the tears through invisible eyes. 

image from the internet 

Speak up!

Meaningful conversations are few, intellectual discussions are rare and a lovely debate treating the other as an equal happens once in a blue moon. But what happens very easily, like snapping one's fingers arises counterattacks in an argument owing to reasons silly, stupid or even on a higher plane of thought.. but the approach just brings down the whole level of importance and pertinence of the subject as the topic finds it's way down into deep blue seas while we just end up with the skim of an oil layer on its surface- mucky, icky and annoying.

   I am a person who enjoys everything of the above to a good deal. Invariably conversations, discussions and debates arise only in a circle of close friends whose thoughts and ideas vary from mine, but knowing our base and the underlining factor is the same. Sometimes, it so happens that conversations and discussions with many others that I might initiate leads to arguments, which might not be as healthy as the above.

     Having an inclination towards the notion of women to be treated for who they are, varied views on religion and spirituality and the ever living subject of love, sex and life as such,  I always land up in discussions-turned-arguments. Though I may not enjoy the rather diversified opinions of chauvinism or practices that don't have any relevance to the current world, I must say I thoroughly enjoy and have fun talking about it with logic, rationality and some emotion. But, what saddens me nowadays is the unwillingness of people to ever sort out differences or atleast talk about the different views without involving oneself's emotions riding an upper hand.

   Frankly, I guess I was on that side.. I used to let my emotions, rage and anger fall through with the words that I say. I have even felt like slapping a few in my hotheadedness. But looking back at it all, I feel silly to have done it. I realize it's of no use getting agitated in a debate as it doesn't put one's point across while rational, logical points do. Neither am I going to say that I don't involve my emotions in any sort of such scenarios. But to know and realize that the whole exchange is fun-filled, an opportunity to learn and converse, to know that that very essence has been lost in a whole crowd nowadays is sad.

 As I did mention earlier, many discussions have been turned into arguments nowadays. To know that people you love might have a wrong notion about something (Well, so may I. But that is what a conversation is all about, isn't it?)
and it might directly come in the way of your life or of someone else's whom you care about, is not a great feeling. It is not an interference but a mutual togetherness towards betterment and understanding.

   What I do want to tell people is to just stand up and talk and not discontinue when a small spark of conflict arises. Friends bond after fights, families hold a difference in opinion always, relationships' parties have a necessity to know the others' mind and for the last cheap happiness of having gotten a message across to a total stranger are all tiny little facts whose personal stories run across the skies. Everyday I see more and people moving away from talking about or indulging in healthy arguments about the issues that don't go along with them.

  What is there to fear? Why is it so difficult to say what one has on one's mind? From many personal experiences, I have noticed people getting away from an argument or a debatable topic. There are times when you need to preserve another's ego and moments when you have to shatter it for the good of both parties involved. And it so happens that some of them even perceive and think I might want to start a fight if I put a point across firmly.. Why have we reached a state where a healthy conversation turns into an unhealthy phenomenon, where cartoons are beginning to lose their very essence called humour in the eyes of many with the happy and full-bodied life going in for a toss.

   I am not asking you to initiate fights but spark off conversations. Let's all try to open up our minds and pour out our conventions and ideas.. to plunge into great talk and not always small ones.. to discuss what bothers oneself and find solutions.. to lead a new revolution, to learn to speak our minds and argue like crazy animals in a fight yet developing a maturity to drop it when need be and to have dinner or tea together. For only he is a truly evolved human being who can respect another persons' opinion while retaining his own and debating or discussing it about it for the greater good.
 I think we should all stop fighting cold wars, drop our inhibitions and talk without fear. So, yeah, Speak up, mate! :)

P.S : I must warn you that indulging in a discussion or debate without an open mind is of no use and you might as well stay away from one if you have no intentions of finding out the truth.

Images from the internet 

Spill

To have to stare at distances far away through my heart
as it shatters each time the details blow up touching the thin membrane
of glass a thousand times brittle,
I pick up my glasses and perch them on my nose,
waiting to see those flowing images ahead
and not having to pass through pain;
with the next gust of wind, it shuts down.
Senses.
I hear myself say that this is the only way I can see the happenings
unless I pluck the bosom that lies within and
throw it out in the raging rains I hoped to play in.
But then, with it goes my heart;
ripped  apart
spilling blood.

                                          Image from the internet

Hemu 

The Last Fag

Disclaimer : Smoking is highly injurious to health and my happy characters are not harmed in the making of this story.

_______________________________________________________________________

I closed my eyes to the whistling winds and the sun playing between the deep dark lines of my palms. My shorts were greased with mud and dried slush, my skin was slowly turning two shades darker leaving a band of fairness along the lines of my watch.. and yet I didn't feel dirty. I felt like my two year old daughter in the sand as she piles up dirt and everything from the ground to construct a direct road to heaven studded with her three-toothed smile all the way. The sun hid behind some grey blotches as I saw the whole world ahead of me as the past intertwined with the future and blended into the present until I stopped realizing the tense I was living in. I sat there with my thoughts of who I was, who I am and who I will be long before the driving wind ran its life down my t-shirt into the transparencies of life... Another year already.

                                                                *****

             I stared out of the car's window as the world above turned a whole blue again. The stars hadn't come out yet, hiding in peace from tranquility waiting for the shadows to rule, to shine in the midst of insecurities and the unknown- To assist the wayfarer's way back home from a joyful day of travel, road and concrete. My eyes traced the way back to the road sliding the gaze through a distant rainbow holding itself for my transit. My hands danced in unison with the music from my player while my other hand played with a cigarette, the last of my pack. I'm going to quit, I told myself and as the mind raced ahead of times to reach the beach house, I reached out for the last fag.. so that the waiting petrichor doesn't lift me off my senses. To be grounded somewhere, I needed it; I thought. It would be my last one, I vowed.
  But I reached for one soon enough. In the depths of the night as I sat next to our mutual friend smoking his happy one. The tip glowed with fiery in its endless perimeters of being and mocked me. I could see tiny devil faces calling me forth. But I said, No. Go away. He took another deep drag before looking at me with a 'don't-you-know?' look.

 What do you mean, he asked. You think he doesn't know about this?

  The green grass we were sitting on seemed to be greener, the stars shone brighter against my dimming vision. My eyes widened for the first time since the power shut down. The angry tip of the white roll began to dim as he sucked on its ends for a high pleasure. I stared at him before slowly questioning in petrified silence.

What do you mean by 'You think he doesn't know about this'? He doesn't know right?

He turned to look at me and spoke the words. 'Of course he does.'

I unearthed a cigarette from his pack and fired it up in an attempt to put off the flames in my heart.

                                                                ******

    I rolled out my yellow tent from the bag and set it up driving pegs into the rocky soil. The only sounds I could hear were the restlessness of the night trees, owls and a few deep groans of the wild dogs a little further into the thickets of the forest. I stood looking at the whites of the waves holding its froth up until the shores of the sea only to let them die there, rising with the omnipotent air. I pulled myself close as I realized I was wearing a sleeveless top, my hands naked to the chill of the mountains overlooking the sea. But my feet kept going anyway, away from warmth and fire.

  Hugging myself, I walked along the inner edges of the cliff. I was running through all the yellow and green post-it notes on the fridge. I wondered if my baby had fallen asleep or if she was giving my man a tough time. He seems so busy with his meetings and work and what not... I walk, my feet touching the bare ground, counting the number of sand particles with my sole.. counting my memories as I cross our Royal Enfield conversing with the glowing fireflies.
   Yet another road trip, one more night with the universe before I reach home to the warm hugs of my husband and the gleeful noises of my daughter. One more...


                                                               *******

 Want to go out for a fag, he asked, his brown eyes shining wide.
  I looked at the boy I so yearned to be with, knowing that his eyes exhibit the knowledge of my love for him. I contemplated while some music played in my head. Of strings, drums and the flute for reasons I have no clue of.
 I'm trying to quit, I said.
So am I, said he.

   And so we went in, in the common drive of putting off the desire to smoke while we vowed we take the last one in a perfect setting. He kicked the stands off his sleek Royal Enfield, snapped on the helmet on my head and his. Lets go, he said. Tyre wheels skid and I held on.. forever, perhaps.
 
   I have a perfect place for the last fag, he said whenever the wind permitted me to hear him say anything.
Where? I questioned, the answer to which was barely audible.
  I hugged onto his black jacket and rested my head against his strong shoulders waiting to reach a place where our last fag would be special. If not anything, it would be my last memory with him. College would soon end and he would be off and away with his pretty girlfriend. The roads rolled out ahead of me as I kept staring at the fleeting moments of concrete merging with its past place of being, stretching my vision, running along with the speed of his bike and the water in my eyes. It felt like a trance, that ride for I knew not where he went and my instincts asked me not too. For the last fag, he had said. For the last memory, I had reckoned.

  I was beginning to drift in and out of dreams as he pressed the brakes and stopped the bike. We got off and looked down at the sea which was atleast a fifty feet below our standing. He held my hand as we made the way to the edge, to sit down, our legs dangerously hanging like pieces of plants from the crevices in the rocks. He brought out two long butted cigarettes and lit it up in a jiffy before the wind could destroy its purpose. The sun was slowly sinking as we got to talk. Time passed on and so did the ashes with our periodic tapping. It flew with the breeze towards the shore, mixing with the waters so blue.
  It was now a little dark and the covers of the sky held itself in blackness. The last traces of our last cigarettes were looming into view. We held onto desperate butts while I held in private the last few moments I would be with my closest friend who would soon drift apart. I turned around pondering about the same to catch him look at me intensely. He looked at my face and smiled.

I broke up with her three months back. You know the reason, I reckon.

His face smiled in every bit, his dimples resting rays of the rising moon. His hair flew in the direction of the eastern winds while his eyes bore me on with happiness and a glint of victory.

Do you wanna discuss it over a last fag?  I asked, my hands reaching out for the lighter.


                                                                      *******

I sat, my legs wavering with the cold weather leaving me shivering with the trees far behind. The world seemed to have rolled ahead of my soul unfolding stars, a moonless night and a lot of fireflies. My bonfire burnt its cracking logs away in a distance throwing sparks in the air, now and then.
  The cold caught me on as I thought I should get back to the tent.To find something that might get me warm But then this can't happen alone.. Not the usual. My eyes welled up with slight tears as I turned around cautiously not to fall off the dry ledge as I saw him walk in silence towards me. He sat next to me as we ended up sitting, seven years back. Legs dangling free with our hearts full of love. Every trip since and every travel after.

Feeling cold? he asked, throwing a blanket around us and I knew I was wrapped around with the  immeasurable weight of his love.
I nodded with a smile, tears given up for his presence as he's always demanded it to be.

 And... do you wanna discuss it out over a last fag? he asked.

 Some more sparks threw up from the fire far away, crackling in laughter as I spit some fire out of my lighter.

                                          Image from the internet.



Submitted for a contest. http://www.mahindraxuv500.com/


Hemu

Indian Democracy gone for a Swing : A(u)nti(e) Issues!

When I was young, my social science teacher taught me the fundamental rights that every Indian 'citizen' has. 
- Right to Equality 
- Right to freedom 
- Right against exploitation... and a few more. 

   Somehow, all this works, I get to exercise these rights more than ever once I had become an adult by law. I can marry if I'm over 18 years of age, to any person of my choice: Any religion, caste, creed and colour (Hell, even sex!). I can vote, I can become an entrepreneur, I can work, and I can legally sign papers and own property those old descendants left me. I can scream at police officers on the road if I am an uptight citizen against bribery, get drunk and in some extreme cases of proving my right, go high on weed and hash. 
But if there is something people are against 'an adult' doing, especially when you are over 18 or appearing to be so, it is playing on swings. 

    I don't know where they come from, these bored aunties in jogging parks. I'm not talking about those young mothers with an infant in their hands, not those enthusiastic, brisk ones jogging and walking around the path nor the lovers moonstruck in each other's ecstatic love. No, not these people. These are people who mind-their-own-business lot. Uncles and aunties, some hot boys and cute kids who come to fulfill their own missions varying  from reducing cholesterol to eating sand. 
   There's the other lot of people, some old uncles and mostly interfering aunties who realize they sweat too much in  the daily two hours power-cut in the town and thus haunt the parks I seem to like for its' colour, vividness and fresh air. I guess they get bored fighting with their spouses and torturing kids that they turn up here to find innocent youngsters exercising their right in the most decent way possible. 

    I don't know if its just my luck but these middle-aged-old aunties who just probably got their VRS find it extremely annoying if they find any soul who seems to be older than ten years of age play on the swing. Of course, the LTTE issues of the nation, the ever-existing corruption and scraping of our rightful resources and taxes gets solved when they roughly make young girls get down from the paradise and back to the earth. They are 'rule-followers' who are ready to pay bribes at government offices but.. No, 'YOU can't sit on the swing!' 
Why? 

'Oh, the nut is loose. It'll break.' Yes, I weigh about two-hundred and fifty kilos and so the poor piece of wood and steel has no chance. 

 'It's only for kids.'  Do I see one in sight? Ah, wait there is that fellow making sand castles and sandwiches out of sand. Does he care? No. 

   I don't understand why they enjoy doing this to me. They save a seat for their grandsons and granddaughters who are at the other end of the park. On top of it all, that fellow is just digging into the sand and pulling out plants. What more, they send kids to make me get up. Real mature. Those kids just end up digging more sand around the swing. Neat. 
   
    There is nothing in the Indian Law that states people as old as me can't sit on swings and play. But no, there's a sign, in invisible material stuck right over there. 'ONLY FOR CHILDREN UNDER 10-12 YEARS'. Yes, they have a world of worries you see. They do math in boxes, have sleep-time in school, their homework is done by their parents most of the times and their mistakes don't count. They can throw an egg on your face from atop a tree, but you just can't sit on that freaking swing. The only thing that can possibly be a reason is that ' the swings' health is failing' But no, it's there, rain or sunshine among disinterested children who wonder why their parents push them to and fro, thinking about sandcastles and cerlac. (Still.) Don't you get it, the kid doesn't care. He doesn't need it. But I do. 
  
   Their logic is impeccable. I weigh 'X' kilos. Oh no. I am too heavy. But three kids weighing 'a', 'b' and 'c' with a grand sum greater than my 'X' can play. Why? They are kids. Beautiful. 

A swing isn't a mere swing for those of you who don't know. It helps soothe a sad mind and dissipates happiness in the air when the heart is like a blue balloon full of helium. It is paradise where your grades, future, past or sentences don't exist. It is just the kick of the leg in the air and words in the heart, of joy, consolation or anxiety to be toned down.. to be neutralized. But no, I'm an adult and I don't respect those yelling ladies words'. I'm a woman who needs to behave in the public. Of all, I'm going to be reported to the authorities. Let them do it and I'll give them a glimpse of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. 
   What happened to the kid in the heart, anyway? These ladies. Sigh. 

Grow up and let kids be. Or adults be. 

 The swing has a purpose. And it is definitely not to be thrashed around with mud or place stupid barbie dolls and to be made the centre of a circle with no purpose. Next time you scream at me for this, I'll be much worse than what I was today. 

Hemu 

Image from the internet 

Steam

Silent mirrors stay as a hanging witness, it's ornate wooden frame soaked 

in the moist of the hot vapours of water steaming hot; 

just not as much as the ones that ran down her cheeks.

She cries in silent desperation lying white lies hidden behind blatant 

words of consolation flying with the winds, unsated; 

for her ego approached none to let them be uttered. 

She wandered through roads she didn't know of, 

on swings high, not touching the ground..

in cemeteries overgrown with green and the dead 

and many a page's quick perusal 

while her soul flies elsewhere;

jumping signals and passing through 

small kids with blue balloons in their hands, a glee she once was. 

She sought out a way that will seep through the macabre of 

not realizing dreams or living a few words, 

to see some smiles and steal a few hugs..

She only has it just looking back through the reflection of someone

she barely knows;

Staring back..

a hazy form merging with dank tears and 

hot water running cold. 

Hemu 

                                          Image from the internet 

Jaunts waiting to be relished

To wander through streets lonely and full,
staring at passerby's with flaming red and soothing black hair
as the spaces next to my feet gets quickly filled with feet
holding and supporting heads held high and tears dropping low.
To be there for the unknown baby that unclasps her hands from
her mother to run on the grass;
to help her up as she falls while her gray eyes still gleam with joy,
to have that face registered in my memory, to forever remember that smile.
To have some tea in coffee houses as the snow falls slowly
scared if it'll hurt the earth;
to stare out of those huge glazed windows as the next page of my book awaits
in silent understanding of my thoughts that fall along with every snow flake
finding its journey to the next level.
To love the winding roads as they take me with it
like the curves of a woman on and off a diet,
to enjoy the sunshine that plays between my hair set free
To enjoy a bonfire with people I don't know of
and get drunk with all shots mixed
so that the dance in me mixes with the rising and falling fire
in its blues, yellows and orange.
while in the end I gaze at the stars and get myself lost in constellations
trusting the moon I love to take care of my guitar who lies alone
in the darkness that lives.
To eat food I haven't eaten before and laugh like I have never,
to dance and sing in speeding trains
as strangers smile in amusement looking at who might be a retarded girl
losing her mind over good ice-cream and waffle rolls.
And probably
while I walk back colourful alleyways and paved paths
to a house I don't know of,
I find someone who plays with baby monkeys and takes solitary walks
at the cemetery I land up at with a notebook in his hand.

                                          Image from the internet

~Hemu 

Her life that they paint...

She weaved a sheepish smile at the mention of his name,
and giggled like a girl unlike the laughter of a woman I wanted to see.
Screens acted as saviours and telephonic voices were all that she heard.
There are people around, friends and family
who know how she likes her eggs and the mood she is by her strewn slippers..
yet she seems to love that man who comes online
or who she meets with consent of families, a grown-up thing I never did understand.
What about silent glances and stealthy kisses?
Where is the secret of love?
I stare as blatantly as I can to grasp the system that keeps slipping off
my cheesy hands and
a heart very easily flattered by poetry.
I try to see the love, the fights and the memorable moments that shall flash
through her eyes as she gets married,
but what if there are no memories?
What if casual conversations are all that reach the mind that tries
to tame the already trained heart to bring out a questionnaire to know the other?
Where does that feral hope of every woman go,
the one who waits for a dashing young man to speed by and catch her unawares?
Probably there is some logic that my small (or fat?) head seems to reject...
It has created a population that beats most of the world.
All this picks up its pace in my jumbled brain as she bows down
with a twitch near the corner of her lips and a hesitant smile.
Waiting to start a new life with someone she may just hardly know.
I wonder if it works like a different kind of weed.. full of excitement and expectations..
I look through the falling petals
for I know the mehendi on her hands will grow red even if he doesn't know her...
but, will he stare at it smiling, looking at her and kissing them as they grow dry?

                                         Photo from the internet.

Hemu

Gasp. Sing. Live

As the fire still goes out continuously, dying out on its own self
I shall caress her strings till she sings out in joy..
I may not know her heart's notes or the right chords to pull
but I can create music out of her, like a mother can make a baby smile!
Singing to myself, the winds and the spray of water from the seas,
the sands shall dance in the light and I shall wave with her euphony.
I'll jump out of my soul to dance in the chilling night
looking at the woman playing with the a black body of sculptured curves
giving out ecstatic gasps of delight until she finds the next spot for her pleasure and mine.
I know she'll be lost in thoughts, fingers plucking on their own
while her mind wanders around the dark skies
and the pearl-white moon.. to the stars and her love.
The flames already reflect in her eternally awakened eyes while lips sing
as she falls into a sound oblivion...
while I dance in bliss!

~Hemu

Image from the internet.