Within every woman was once a bird aflutter

White feathers poised for possibilities
Liquid eyes wondering at the great beyond
Inciting her to that unknown flight
Over the walls of mind, womb, man and god
To whiten, in the wake of her white feather flight,
The ink of the lines that they wrote for her

Within every woman was once that bird almost free
Inside every man is a cage

How we remember with unusual calm that walk up the brown mountain path

To the singing stream where the blossoms of the rainbow flowers fell
And us below the overhang of the umbrella tree and its jungle green
Cool in the black cold of its afternoon shadow in the yellow sun
That day was warm to the touch and we were dizzy velvet
We had walked through the zigzag of sheeny dragon flies
And seen a white butterfly, the only albino of that queendom
Heard the bees whimper and buzz in the pollen’s ecstasy
Watched a squirrel watch a sparrow jounce twig to twig
We kissed ascetic branches, stern, stout, gnarled and immortal
Like sylphs we talked to the birds and made the crickets call
Below us the canal was forking, it flowed blue, it filled many fields
We were like flightless clouds, astray in the languid wind
You then said: We must remember this, this walk up the brown mountain path.
And then the day fell mute, the sun blinked, twilight shimmered
We couldn't allow the night, we let ourselves go and trundled down
We rolled through the rough brown mountain road and its jutting rocks
Over the cobbles in the river’s gravelly bank and the weeds of the grey marsh
Until there was a gate, a door cut four ways, a key, a latch, a lock and a lamp
We are home, finally we are home, look we are home, I said.
But we would never be home again.

Note to self

Since I landed the new job, I have been meeting interesting people. I have met an ex-pickpocket who told me that in their trade the thumbnails are grown slightly long for that extra grip; a gang of boy-thieves who rob travelers trying to grab a wink or two in the grounds off CST Terminus and who all unanimously lied to me that they were planning to go straight; a man who had been written off for dead by his relatives to grab his land in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh and who then struggled his way back to life and then started an association of dead people; a girl who has a genetic disorder which is trying to kill her but who is refusing to give up no matter what despite a brain surgery and a liver transplant; a man who had been abused for a decade as a child but now uses that trauma to do acts of kindness expecting nothing in return; a tribal woman from Gujarat who saw a pamphlet and then took a train to Bihar where 100 people were walking 100 kilometres in the state’s interior and in which I was one of them…you get the drift. What concerns me is my inability to empathise with any of them, of being a party to that human condition which they are all experiencing in the full. All I feel is curiosity and that is enough for the journalist, but for the writer, curiosity will take him nowhere near the truths that he must reproduce in the worlds that he should create. I find myself near such truths and completely unable to comprehend it, much alone reproduce it, much alone create worlds with it. Note to self: send imagination for servicing.

As is said, has been said and always will be said: every seed sown will sprout and at some point, in that ground where it germinated, there will then be a tree with branches, trunk, roots, fruits and leaves. If you have sown that seed and then watered the soil, that tree will come up. Once the mighty tree is before you, it is pointless to repent that this was not the one you wanted, that you erred in the sowing, that that was ignorance, that that was youth, that that was passion, that that was a delusion of the mind, that that was not you. For you did plant that seed and once you unleashed cause, what could effect do but follow. You will never be forgiven for it. That is truth.

Beware, therefore, of what you sow. You plant a seed every infinitesimal moment. Seed a weed and you will get desolation. Seed a queen-of-the-night and on some distant day, you will sleep amidst calming fragrances. That is the redemption which flows from your present. That is the only redemption given to you.

grace

Grace is man in his piety, given unto him not by god, but by that core in his soul, which he willed out from the storms which were unleashed unto him and which, instead of evading, he befriended and fostered because he knew that these were ordeals let loose, not to test him but to break him and that was something he would not do: to bend and to suffer in vain. From that unbending will he wrote his redemption and then his salvation. Man became free and in becoming free he gave grace unto himself.

Man began first and in the beginning he was one and there was no another, man alone in the wide tundra of nothingness, impregnable though inky blackness enveloped him from end to end. To left and right and up and down and east and north and south and west, there was nothing, except him and barrenness but he would not give in unto that desolation. He carries that loneliness in his soul even today but into that loneliness too, he has not given in and from it too he has conceived grace.

Man then created the world. He cleaved open his self and unfurled the elements and then split them, from which fission universes exploded and then there were galaxies and stars and planets and many suns blazing from whose light he harnessed energies and then used those furies to breathe life into planets. He watered the primeval pool from which sprung acids and bacteria and amoeba and plants and fishes and reptiles and mammals and animals of many complexions and lengths. Life after life after life he went on enumerating and making, until, like god before, he had to do nothing and could remain at a distance watching with deep compassion as the many wondrous things he had made fertilised and replicated themselves. Worlds unbidden sprung up within worlds and benign and benevolent man evoked his grace and gave it unto each of his creations and this grace was reflected onto him too.

as waves and shore
meeting, parting
briefly touching
returning
you to water, I to earth
you to blue ocean calm
I to the grey of sand

Labyrinth: the invisible intertwining of one road-path-lane to another, which then turns to another, and so on, till one encircles the system, and then, on a whim, veers straight into the middle of the first, and moves along with it, before branching off to another, an entirely new circuit, which did not exist before, but is now the very real ground on which she walks.

Her existence was written on this dust long before she willed herself astray but she is here now and that is what matters. Here she finds the breath of beginnings, the revivals of second comings and refuge in the going. This is however not the end, even though for every beginning there must be an end. For her, ends are not foretold.

But that is not the tragedy. The tragedy is that she knows where she came from and, despite that knowledge which few possess, is certain that she can never return there. The labyrinth has consumed her. She is an exile to herself and so has to travel on. Without end or beginning.

I find,

The glitter of her teeth
Is directly proportional
To the width of her grin
And a narrowing of chin

Also,

She has shallow sparkling eyes
Of raw want and feminine whys
Like cool blue in crimson skies
Like black nights and fireflies

And then,

The softness (and so innocence)
of her wheat-and-marble skin
Belies a surprising ability
And a fine propensity to sin

i go

i go
into nowheres
into surging silences
into fathomless expanses
lonely as an ocean
i row

now
limited
limitless
now
i go
i begin to know

I have finished reading An Interpretation of Murder, a murder mystery novel. It revolves around Sigmund Freud's visit to the US in 1909. Good writing. Ambitious because the author is also a Shakespeare nut and so tries to weave many extras into the plot. But still, it made me turn the pages and that is the only qualification of a good book. No prizes for guessing where Joyce ranks on my scale. Eliot does not count in it because he's a poet. The only exception is Malcolm Lowry and if you ever read Under the Volcano, you will know why.

Lately, I have begun to read and like historical fiction. Bernard Cornwell's literary merit is trash, the history is suspect because his sources are usually another book (it's called a secondary source). But he makes the period easy to imagine. I liked his King Alfred books but his Sharpe series, which made him all his money, are an embarrassment. Robert Harris, an ex-political editor of a UK broadsheet, has written a book called Imperium, a biographical novel of Cicero, Rome's greatest orator and politician. Fantastic book. Couldn't put it down.

we break no more to this silence
which empties to no pain
we are today resilient
we kneel to no gods
no furies chase us into us
we allow them nothing
our furies are furies no more

we are free, if not together
you are me, i am you
separate perhaps but forever

depression anthem

The sky rains curdled tears
Wrenches out my scarred soul
Holds it aloft for me to see
My countless nameless fears

Only the gods can explain my shame
Yet they laugh with ruthless abandon

These are horizons which extend and expand to tomorrows, land so broad and so green and so open that to be here is to be free. Here there are no hints of mountains, lakes or oceans or rivers or gutters or streets or people, just a forever carpet which is light green, the colour of wet grass, but which is not wet, only moist but whose moistness is like fresh breath, the smell of first rain and which is soft to walk on, as if you are walking on velvet. The sky is blue but now it turns grey and then dark black but it is not a forbidding black, it is the rolling of the monsoon, this wind is laden and even if you imagine grief in it, it is a wind which does not intrude; and these dark black clouds roll furiously and pass by with enormous speed, sometimes stooping to touch the soft velvet ground and then rising to kiss the heavens.

I walk under these rolling clouds, my hand holding yours, and my fingers entwined with yours, our heat mingling, our elbows apace and steps as one; we walk into the arbor of a tree whose branches and leaves multiply with incredible speed. It is a magic tree, for only by magic can something so imposing, so huge that it is a forest by itself, arise in this wide horizon which was till now spotless like the expanse of galaxies. We walk into its shelter and then there is a shower of flowers and as these flames of the forest descend in scatters, my hand and your hand, they reach out and we collect stars

All hearts open, close

Because evening is the hour of sadness
The time of our melancholies
I welcome the certainty of night
(and its blackness)
Which comes with our raging despairs
(or is it mute. are our despairs mute)
I still welcome the absence of light

In all that I seek I seek me
I give chase to my shadow
And even reach it
Touch it, feel it
But
There's nothing of me in it

All that comes goes
All hearts open, close
Thrum and throb
Beat and break
Where does it all begin
Why does it all end
Who knows
All hearts open, close

The warrior one of his battles done
Exhausted sits on a rivulet of words
(They were arrows he shot
And with these he made his kill
Or perhaps did not)
Watches the unimpeded flow
But still does not know
What is it that he has won

the night blinks, my lonely lovely
speaks of other tomorrows
so what if day is in disdain
nothing is forever, not even pain

Forgettings

Time sleeps
Later malingers
And then seeps
Like water
Through open fingers

Time shifts
Time creaks
Time strays
Then betrays
Like touch and farewell
Of wind
On downturned cheeks

Here where the ghosts of love wail
Before their scars take root
And become magnificent sad trees

Here I do what I must do
I bury me and I bury you
I let other melodies through

Here unburdened, I float over the new earth
I walk tiptoe on waters which rage no more
And as the sky itself flies with me
It hums a sad but happy song too

yummmmmmmm yummmmmmmmm

Rejoice, ye who read this, for the hour has cometh when Madhavankutty Pillai puts pen to paper or qwerty/asdf to keyboard and reveals once again a recipe of outstanding proportions. Recollect that I have before spelt out the secrets of the best chicken curry in the whole whole world and the sweetest sweet dish to ever caress your lip and tongue. My modest ears hear your eulogies and accept your ear deafening cries of gratitude.
Rejoice then, take heart, take cheer, sing the good song and let glee overflow for today is another such day, when there is no promise of rain and the sun unbidden is gloriously shooting off its rays to whoever wishes to collect it and that is when I, who revel in this propitious hour which is propitious for no reason, shall tell you another tastytastiertastiest dish, which reeks of calories but then that is a price we pay for succulence. To business forthwith. It's simple as hell.

You need potates, four five six whatever.

You need onions, three or four

Peel, dice potatoes, onions

Take a frying pan, let groundnut oil flow into it in large quantities, a cup maybe.

Let oil become hot.

Put in the potates, onions.

Let onions become translucent

Put salt, chilli powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder and any other masala you have in your kitchen.

Use your judgment. If I were you, I wouldnt put in more than two teaspoons of chilli powder, I wouldn't worry about the coriander powder and the turmeric powder would be about a teaspoon. If you have some kind of meat masala, I would put lots of it in and dispense with coriander powder

Mix mix mix.

You need tomatoes, two or three; green chillies two or three

Put in tomatoes, green chillies.

Put flame on simmer

Let potates become tender

Let tomatoes become tender, become paste

Mix mix mix

It must now look like some oily sinful mass of brown

Take two eggs, break eggs, pour it onto sinful mass of brown.

Mix mix mix

Till eggs are fried-like.

Bus, ho gaya.

Eat with curd rice, bread or just like that

Bus, ho gaya

The joyous mind

The joyous mind is the mind without turbulence. It is the mind which is clear, the mind which wakes up in the morning and looking out of the window through the interstices of the green mango tree's umbrella, takes in the squirrel darting to no end with incredible dexterity on the tips of air, and then carries past the dancing leaves, the swaying branches and the still and stately trunk into the blue sky which has been whitewashed because it has rained overnight as if the gods themselves wept with joy. The joyous mind sees in the sky the reflection of itself and it understands, no it comprehends the enormity of it all, the supermagnificent enormity of it all. The joyous mind is happy because it is joyous. The joyous mind is the mind at peace with itself, it is the serene mind. The joyous mind is joyous for a moment or two but it is enough.