Leper Colony

With broken bent fingers and holes of hands
We gathered the colours of the rainbow
In open palms
Scattered it over fruits, vegetables, flowers
Watched them sprout and bloom
There was this hunger we had to break
There was this thirst we had to slake

We harnessed the wind
Broke the yoke of rivers in spate
Subdued torrents, dammed their fury
We were creators of many lakes
On clear nights we kissed the stars
And they twinkled bright for us
We let the moon free from the earth
We could even douse the sun but we did not
We tilled this land, once barren once bereft
And from towering rocks on dead plateaus
We curdled water and quenched our thirst
From our threads, we saw kingdoms rise
Gods who forsook us, came beseeching now
We weaved baskets which held life
We raised our young and we gave them love
We did all this and more

The road was long and it took a while
Often we slipped but then we stood
And then we walked on a thousand legs
We knew
We knew that with every step we took
We knew that with the first step we took
We lepers of the leper colony became whole again
This mutilated journey done, we each became all again

Dreams of botox

At 3:40 in the morning when I woke up with a shiver, I knew that this would not be a good day. For I had dreamt that I had had botox injections in my eyes and while the rest of my face was wrinkled and sagged like witches in fury, my eyes were smooth and straight as the sort of marble they used once to build the Taj Mahal. I could have done many things then - analysed the meaning of this nightmare, pondered on the vagaries of time, read a sad book to make me sadder or perhaps, autosuggest my way to happiness, which I am sure exists somewhere in this good earth. But I was sleepy and so I went back to sleep and overslept and missed my 7:51am Borivali local to Churchgate and with fright in my mind, fear clutching my heart, waited for the 7:57 slow sure as sure that I wouldn't get a place to sit. I jumped in, wrestled my way afore and pushing aside a stock broker, captured the third seat, the last on offer, in the first class compartment and erected my flag there.
There I sat, leafing through a copy of the Mumbai Mirror, till I came across an article on mental health. Being interested in this department, I quickly dog-leafed it, flipped through the rest of the ramble and returned to mull over the piece. It spoke of anxiety disorder and I quickly put a tick against, it spoke of depression and I quickly put a tick against it, it spoke of schizophrenia and I put a question mark against it and then it spoke of bipolar depression and I put two exclamation marks there. There the list ended and thus satisfied, with many unexplained mysteries solved, I spent the rest of my time desperately trying to get a glimpse of the sunlight through the elbows of fellow strugglers in that inferno.

The problem with dhai

I am giving the muse a break and since I am pretty damn sure that no one is reading all this drivel, I am going to keep myself amused by recounting something funny. And then I will laugh all by myself and feel sorry for the whole world that they are not privy to this. So here goes...

Once upon a time, in a building of six wings reclining below a hill in a place called Borvali in the northern end of a city called Mumbai, my brother got off the autorickshaw. Us Malayalees dont pride ourselves on our know of Hindi and therefore you (or rather I, since only I am reading this) are warned to look at the following exchange with kind commiseration.
The minimum fare in those days used to be Rs 7.50 which my brother was unaware of. Having got down, he fished out a Rs five note and threw it at the rickshaw driver.

The rickshaw driver now: Saahab, dhai rupiya aur ('Rs dhai please more, sir', if you want my sorry translation)

My brother fishes out another Rs 2 note and gives to rickshaw driver. Now here comes the nub: He thinks, 'dhai' means Rs 1.50.

So, we have this situation: Both rickshaw driver and brother looking at each other, each expecting the other to donate a 50 paise coin to the other. Time passes thus.

Finally, the rickshaw driver breaks the ice: Saahab, pachas paise

And my brother, paragon of generosity, says: "KEEP THE CHANGE!!!

Because all witnesses were rolling on the ground at this point, no one knows what transpired later.

In the beginning

In the beginning,
Even before the word
Were silences.

Silent gods
In Silent heavens
Whispering Silences.

And came beginnings
Order from order torn
Explosions
Creations
Divisions
Revisions

Then happened the word
All was suddenly still
And worlds were born

And I read you and think

And I read you and think
When our histories are written
If our untold lives are noted
In this age of evenings:
How much of that ink will spill
And go
Or will they write on water
And watch the words flow

Will they then apologise
For all that was lonely today
Will they perhaps reason
Why so many were sad
Why did all the poets lie
Why did the divisions die
Between what was wrong
And
What was right
Why didn't the writers write

Is that how our conclusions begin:
Here lived people in healthy times
Women and men of steel
And here began the end
Of all that we remember
It's official: history stillborn is dead
All in this excellent land is henceforth myth