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.

the evening shrugs, fades into the quiet
night waits recumbent, she has half a smile
the sky blushes crimson, the earth lowers her eye
something is silent,
something is still

The heart breaks silences
And histories are retold
They speak of other romances
And destinies unfold



...................or



The heart breaks silences
And words get strung
They explode into nuances
And poems get sung

The earth speaks many stories, recites them in tones which waver, points out to the skies on fire and then in an arc sweeps its giant arms which are nothing but trunks of giant trees, brown and gnarled, resting its index finger, which is but the wind, in the direction of the man who walks alone on the edge of the delta of the black waters where the mangroves invite him into its lush but thorny folds and the waters, the black delta waters, lap on to the land's edge and seek to pull him in. Says the earth, speaking now of the man:


He walks...there...he walks under shadows so dark and wide that it stretches over and beyond even me. He walks lugging himself, his footsteps tottering, body dragging body, his face so gaunt that the scars of his bones speak; his eyes so dead like the eyes of fish who die without water, the sorrow of which only the fish can know; his eyes so dead that they see nothing, not even the soft soil on which he walks; his tongue parched but not darting because he does not want water; his...his...and so on and so on. He walks, this man, who has ruins where a heart must be and these ruins have walls which are halved by time and chipped at their edges and algae, moss, and ferns have run over these walls and within, there is nothing but the flutter of ghost rats and the sad remembrance of vultures who have left for these ruins have been exhausted of everything, including history.


But don't pity him. Don't pity him for he has invited his fate. This was not what his destiny was but man that he was, he overrode the gods and where the heart, like a royal steed should have galloped in stately grace, he let love take over and when he did that, it is well known among the scribes of heaven, his fate would be no match to the course that love would set for him and in his case, it was towards ruination.

shall this be the hour then

Shall this be the hour then
The moment of all moments
The time when time gets ready
When
Fingers which tremble halt: go steady
Muscles which twitch halt: go steady
Hearts which race stop: go steady
And
I, forever paralysed by your being, now shiver: get ready
For the briefest moment of all
When it is possible no more: to stall

The sweetestest sweet

Avid readers of my writings, who total the grand number two including me and professional blog reader Chinirvilasa Sinnaserthambi (Chinirvilasa Sinnaserthambi in short, who is paid for his efforts by who else, me), will recollect that a few months ago, in a moment of extreme generosity following a divine meal of curd rice and chicken curry, I Madhavankutty Pillai, aka Madhavankutty Pillai, had divulged the secret of the best chicken curry in the whole world, so far held within the confines of my lonely scarred heart and which was only to be revealed when the seven fingered sailor with a rhombus of lapis lazuli in his left hand would accost me on the steps of the Seafarers Union headquarters and say, " Chai Mein Adhrak Dalo. "

Dear Chinirvilasa Sinnaserthambi, since you are my only reader (besides me, of course) you will remember that I, who was so overcome with the taste of that chicken curry (which I made and ate all by myself as my taste buds and gastric juices leapt out and started kissing me in ecstasy) threw caution to the south-west monsoon wind then and spelt out the recipe and it remains there hidden in the archives of this blog, like gold is hidden at the end of seven coloured rainbows near the magenta band if I remember correctly but it could be near the yellow too.

Why do I recollect all this? Because time has not made me any the wiser and the seven fingered sailor is going to be disappointed again because today, I Madhavankutty Pillai, aka Madhavankutty Pillai, is going to reveal another recipe. May I preface it by stating that I am a chocolate fundamentalist who believes that anything that is sweet and worth consuming is related to chocolate and that too by no further than the third degree of consanguinity. However, this Saturday my long cherished ideal and idea took a beating because I, with my own very hands, ably helped by an LG microwave oven, made the sweetestest sweet dish in the whole world and before I change my mind, let me tell you Chinirvilasa Sinnaserthambi, how it is made.

You need Nendrapazham, also called Malabar bananas, which are, you guessed right, bananas usually found off the coast of Kerala and also in shops run by Malayalees and sometimes Tamilians. It's slightly, sorry much much, longer than your normal banana and an essential ingredient if you want to make and, more importantly, eat the sweetestest sweet dish in the whole world. If you don’t get this banana, then tough luck, eat custard you bas****.

Now slice the bananas into two and then steam it, in the microwave or pressure cooker or stove or, if you like to do it the traditional way, by beating two stones together until there's a spark and etc.

Having steamed it cut it into small thick slices and then deep fry them in lots of coconut oil. Fry them enough so that there is a hint of brown. Do not overdo it and make it crisp.

Take it out, sprinkle lots of sugar and then add a little water and toss the bananas up and down, left and right till the sugar and water melt into the hot hot fried banana slices.

All this is more or less known to every good thinking and law abiding Indian and if you didn’t know it Sinnaserthambi, you dog, it is because you are neither good thinking nor law abiding.

Now for the Madhavankutty touch. Pour some honey over it. Not too much, maybe three or four tablespoon and then toss it up and down and left and right.

That's it. Eat.

I read you

I read you

right? no. wrong? no.

About two years ago, after I woke up in the morning with a deadline holding a sword over my neck, and then hurried off to office in extreme haste, extreme stress boxing me on my ears repeatedly repeatedly, I got into an autorickshaw which midway went bust and then I angry and furious started walking away when the rickshaw driver angry and furious called me back and demanded his fare up to the point that the rickshaw went bust but I naturally refused to pay but he persisted and then I told him no and then he said let's go to the police station and then we both walked to the police station and in between we met two constables and put forth our points of view, mine being that since I took the rickshaw to a particular point, going halfway does not help me because I would have to take another rickshaw and thus pay more and his, the rickshaw driver's, point being that his rickshaw has used fuel up to that point and he has also given his time and labour up to that point and so he is entitled to the fare up to that point and this is how we put forth our arguments to the two constables who agreed with me and told the rickshaw driver to pay but he did not and insisted that we go to the police station and so we walked on to the police station where surrounding a table sat four constables and we put forth our arguments again and this time they sided with the rickshaw driver and asked me to pay up the fare but I refused and said that I would not pay him and then they told me to pay him at least something so that this situation is resolved and so I paid him half the fare up to the point where his rickshaw went bust and they told the rickshaw driver to accept that money and so we both, equally happy and equally unhappy, returned, he to his bust up rickshaw and me towards the deadline whose sword just got bigger thanks to the time wasted in this silliness but I am still not sure who was the right in it and therefore this is what I call a moral dilemma and I don’t think there is an answer to it and I dont think there are answers to most things in life but there are solutions

listen, for i speak

My agonies are exhausted and so I have a brief moment of respite before they rear their hydra heads. I use this, this becalming moment, to speak what I otherwise cannot, will not.

Since we will never meet, since you will never be near, I shall say what I could not once and then did, yes I did, but in a language which perhaps had no existence, no future. I understand that now. I understand much now but this wisdom has not come easy. I have had to journey much, not in furlongs and miles, or moments. My travels took me through different states of misery and miseries are not understood within time and space. Every sorrow is eternal when it is happening. I have waded through much and understood this: if words will make words glitter, then words also abrade meanings but then, words, which I write to expiate another silence, other abrasions, will also echo because if there is destruction in words, then there is also redemption in it.

It is important that you hear, that you understand, that you listen. And you will listen to my words which I throw in empty space knowing well that this is empty space. I know that they shall reach you because words travel faster than me and you, and they travel farther than you will ever go from me, because they travel with the wings of thought and heart, and these wings go far.

Other thoughts, other hearts will listen to me and through them you will listen. Yes, you will listen. You will perhaps not know that these words come from me, that in my silence there was much that was said and when I spoke, there were many things silent. I so wish for that silence to return but it will not. And so I create words now and I create words for you. I craft them, I design them, slowly sculpt them, give them feature, let them flow back and forth, let them ebb and bounce and sometimes let them free to do as they will. I do this with great care so that they, these words, shall travel, not in a raging mass submerging all that they meet, rather, I wish them to go one by one, letter by letter. Perhaps then, these stray sounds will be heard by someone, who will understand and from him it will take another form, a different feature and then another will hold on to it. From another to another and thus they will travel in single files until they reach your ears and you who must have forgotten me will stop and remember hard, you will think that these words are familiar and they speak in tongues you understand, and you will know then, you will know then that you know these words and what you hear has come from you.

Seek you much, oh so much, to shield yourself from chances and dangers
Even so, how will you, migrant, ward off the kindness of strangers
Which come unattended , unwanted even, reminding of other ways of being
Making you, blind so far, discover new ways of seeing, questioning:
For life could be so, then why is it not, why is it not so
I looked for it, in corners, expanses, sideroads and plateaus
While there it was all along, from the beginning, abreast
Why then did I, who sought it with so much fervour, always say no

                        THE ANNOUNCEMENT


Every man is allowed to die once. We have been dying since eternity: one death for every day as one and apart.


Today is the announcement. Our ambulant dreams shall now stall. Having all assembled, we wait for the Vazir in anticipation to what he has to say and also to finally see him. Will everything change? So far we have only seen his hands on the silver screens lined on the streets from which we have always known him talking to his subjects. Those hands would gesticulate as he spoke. But when he proclaimed the announcement the hands were still as death. We could see the veins then, taut like vines in abeyance. We imagined the blue blood flow through them. A little shudder passed through us.
Later, he said that he would personally address the gathering. There was one massive shudder then followed by clamorous after-silence. Apprehension flowed through the barren streets isled by people standing in front of giant television screens watching a hand speak.
I alone was relieved.
I am not here for the announcement.
I have come to find her and having found her to look her in the eye.

                    I

Once we were always together never looking each other by eye. Afraid of truths which only the glance departs, timid at the affinity of the union which only the eye can bring (the desire so extreme to remove the final barrier but protective of the comfort that anonymity brings, alas alas). Alas alas.
These are times of unreason. People change in metaphors. We started shedding off the body. Flakes littered the path we trod (I conjecture the disorder’s infestation to be the force anti-force resulting from the conflict of our desires fears).
How is it that which we fear and do our best to avert finally end up consuming us because we tried to do so? What is this parody? Why are there only evenings in this age?
Today is like the day before she left. I remember us walking beneath the open sky with twilight eating us in its early gloom and me holding her hand tight and she letting me do it. Thus we walked till the end where we sat down and watched the palm trees sway to the molten breeze. The world was a shade of fire-brown then. Today is somewhat like that. When my palms were wet with sweat as I held her hands tight. It must have hurt her a little but she let me do it then.

                    II

I stood at the portal watching her go and she turned. At that moment of time, had I returned the look, folly would have been averted.
From folly has sprung repentance, remorse, regret -- the disorder has struck me again. That it was she who took the chance; that it was I who refused the dice. But the change is different, in that whereas previously I changed form and face to become plain (or faceless), the present transmogrification is making me grotesque. Exacerbating the pain is the realisation that she, because of her willingness to look me in the eye, must have metamorphosed to something more beautiful, like a whitewashed second sky. I want to therefore look her in the eye and return to my original form, face and feature.

                    III

I promise myself that my story shall be of hope and end in fruition. I keep promising myself that.
I was the first to come here in this large slab of land carved from the tundra to stand the living world. I wanted to stand near the gate and watch each one come in. Then I will spot her and having spotted her look her in the eye. There is a problem though.
Having never looked at her, I do not know her appearance. How do you find someone whom you never saw and who has since changed form twice? The only way is to look her in the eye because having never done so, once I do it, I will instantly recognize her. Logics must swirl or they lead you to a judgment.

                    IV

I was therefore the first to be here -- even before the shanty dwellers who were evicted to make way for the maidan. Giant siphons spouting mineral water (no less) washed the bare earth clean of the excrement which these shanty dwellers for want of space had spread. These evicted ones are also here. They are curious to their fate. They do not know whether, once the announcement done, the Vazir has decreed them to return. They miss their homes. They cannot sleep without the stench of shit.

                    V

What is better: a staff or a block of stone on the weary back?
Who is better off: a soldier in the army of notaries or a poet-who-does-not-war?
The poets-who-do-not-war carried this huge block of stone together in regiment. This is the Vazir’s stage from where he will speak. The Vazir decreed them to the bottom when he reviewed the order. They were relegated because possessing all the mannerisms, eccentricities and temperament of poets, they refused to poetise because they did not want to. They did not even serve the necessity of unfructuous dissent. So one day from the screens, the hand pointed its shaking index finger and it spoke ‘Down’. The notaries immediately rounded them up. The poets-who-do-not-war were easy to recognise – sophisticated, clean but short and three front teeth missing.

(Here, I shall interject to mention my personal poet-who-did-not-war. He had sheaves of paper on which he constantly wrote. But whenever we tried to sneak a glance, the papers were always the blank side up rustling on his lap. One day, and this was long ago, much older than this age, together we forced the papers off him, looked behind the mystery and saw
The whole U in your eyes
The whole U in your eyes
The whole U in your eyes
The whole U in your eyes
The whole U in your eyes
U for Universe. He was also rounded up. I tell you this to make you understand why it was so perilous to look her in the eye. I refused to be a poet-who-does-not war. I did not want to be rounded up)

The notaries were also short but had all their teeth intact. They carried the staff with pride. They were given it when the Vazir decided that policing is best when it rests with those who channel the protest. On the other hand, the notaries were genetically incapable of aspersions to power having for centuries only attested petitions. Up.

                    V

Once when we were always together never looking each other in the eye, we were individuals on longer. We were, I can safely say, one. Thus having given ourselves up to the togetherness, we escaped the Vazir’s plan to create a uniscient society of no self.
After she has left, I have felt my self dissolving in waves with the Vazir’s. It is a luxury that scares me. I want me to be me and for that I must find her and having found her look her in the eye.

                    VI

I was the first to be here. I wanted to stand near the gate and watch each one come in. The maidan however had no gate. It just stood there open, far and beyond. It will be difficult now. I will just have to move and keep moving, look and keep looking, for an eye that I will recognise because I have avoided it always.

                    VII

There the gypsies shorn of sleep, there the clerk with eyes always in shade, there the women of paint, there they who live with the ghosts of the dead (whom they refuse to leave and who therefore do not leave them), there the swamis of power, the seducers, the survivors, there the poets-who-do-not war, the heroes who do not dare, there the judges who pass the limited judgments, there the eunuchs of fractured dreams, there the shaking bottlemen, there beauty hidden behind seven veils, spotless white and fresh as cold water, there the women, the lamenters, the managers…so many, so many people.
There a murmur, murmurs, murmursssss. The announcement?
There the Vazir. No, not the Vazir.

                    VIII

No, not the Vazir. I should not look at the Vazir. Or should I? (What is after all the value of an eye?) No one knows what will be said. Oblivion heralded; castes reworked; return to the penury principle; termination by random numbers: what is definite is that there will be change. Does his very arrival in person not signal that. Change will follow no curve. Change has already swept me in its wake; I chose it when I decided to find her and having found her to look her in the eye. I must choose again. Shall I abandon my search and look at the Vazir and hear what he has to say? Or shall I continue it knowing well that I shall fail? It is getting late. The night is getting darker still.