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.

Similar sounds

Similar sounds erupt these days. They come through window sills, vents, ventilators, the closed door and in agitated tones seek respites. I have none to offer. To understand is not to assuage. Other sounds make their difficult way through morning mists which overlap with smog until the clear and the unclear, the pure and impure, the clean and the sullied, is all one. These sounds seek love. I dont have that too and he who has nothing can give nothing and eventually forgets to take. To understand is not to requite. I have nothing to give but they keep coming, these sounds and their soundbearers, like mendicants who know all the secrets of worlds and worlds, but yet beg for little alms and yesterday's rice.

shadows

When day disgusted quit, man and woman recognised the other through shadows. Shadows with no features, only form – tall, short, wide, narrow and their many mixes. He saw her through the veil of black and she saw him through night’s grief. Their eyes sought each other but in the land of shadows only shadows met.

to whom every shade is darkness inviting

to whom every shade is darkness inviting
who sees not the solace that comes with it
whose every utterance is a cry
but who denies this
and silently prays for reprieve, any reprieve
but is too proud to speak, to voice it
and too much in pain to listen
how can anyone not see her blinding ache
how can anyone not hear her silent clamour
and yet no one does
except me

who takes all to be affront
and on chariots of hurt
spurns every hand that reaches out
imagines slights where smiles are
and strikes at the arrogance of compassion
who persists in this drama of doom
this drama self-willed, abhorred but played
how does anyone get through this wall
even the happy gods, those tireless ones, give up here
not me, i do not

Madness, meditation: an essay

My father's younger brother, M P Parameswaran Nair died recently, having lived as a schizophrenic for at least the last 25 years of his life. For the most part of that period he smoked beedis in a room in the house at Pulluvazhi, near Perumbavoor in Kerala. Before, he had studied engineering at Benaras Hindu University and later at Patrick Lumumba University in Moscow. He was also for a short while in the army, recruited out of turn for his knowledge of Russian. In short, he was well traveled, intelligent and productive till he gradually lost control over the mind. I remember the fragment of a conversation I once had with him which went something like this:

He: "I am going to Delhi"
I: "Why?"
He: "To meet the director of the CIA"
I: "Who is the director of the CIA?"
He: "Me"

Unlike my uncle who died of a heart attack, Chandramohan died after being run over by a truck in a suburb called Dahisar which is very near Borivali, , a northern suburb of Mumbai. Before Chandramohan died, his body was literally going into pieces. We used to see him sitting in the parapet of a bus depot hours on end staring at particularly nothing. He was usually very clean, always coming early in the morning his hair slicked back, which meant that he had had a bath or at least washed his hair. He also wore a denim jacket over his shirt and jeans. He claimed to be a poet and constantly kept writing on some pieces of paper. I looked at it once or twice and there is only one line which struck me and it went something like this: The whole U in your eyes. There was a circle on the U, which signified, if I remember correctly, Universe. I do not remember any of the other lines, which means either it was meaningless or I have a poor memory.

The first sign of Chandramohan's disintegration came when he lost three of his front teeth, I forget how. He used to sit as before in the depot but somehow, with three teeth missing, that dignity or elegance of the artist was missing. Also his denim jacket went missing and his hearing slowly faded. When we said anything to him, he would bend his ears towards us and we would shout. He refused the idea of ear plugs using a twisted logic which said that with ear plugs you have to concentrate on the particular direction from which the sounds came. I have no idea what he meant by that. One day, when we were sitting as usual at the depot, a friend came and said that Chandrmohan has died. He had not heard the truck coming behind him, was how his death was explained. Anyhow, I don't think anybody cried.

I will also tell you about another person, a gold medallist in, I think, engineering from Benaras Hindu University, who lives in the same colony as me. This man wants to make movies. Before I quit smoking, I used to run into him at the paanwallah and he would tell me about scripts he is writing for movies, of wanting to write articles about what was wrong with our society and how it could be changed. I do not know whether he ever wrote them, certainly none got printed. I don’t think he ever completed any script. Consequently he is yet to make a movie. He had been brilliant once and he could do nothing now, it was as simple as that. But at least he was coherent in speech and decent in attire unlike the man in a place called Saibaba Nagar, which is in Borivali. This man, usually nude, often gets on to the divider and thinking himself to be a traffic constable, directs the traffic. Very few take notice of him and understandably so. That is the character of insanity; this turning of the mind within itself, a turning away from the world. Consequently the world turns away from the insane, both have nothing to give to each other. There are therefore no CIA directors, no scripts, no poems, no traffic to stop, there is nothing in those minds which must have once thought like you and I do.

My father, M P Narayana Pillai, a writer, would pace up and down talking to himself. He did this so often that we thought nothing strange about it. In fact, we joked that the only difference between him and his brother was that he was socially productive – as in, he could earn money by bartering a set of skills. He would agree and was almost proud of it. However, I have come to believe that it was a bad joke. Not because it was insulting to my father (he, as I said, took pride in the sobriquet). I think it was a complete travesty of madness, a romanticisation, much like the assumption that the mad man is happy within a particular universe of his own or that courting madness is in some ways necessary for the pursuit of creativity. I came to this view after going to a meditation course for the second time in my life.

The first time I went for the ten-day course was in July 2002 at a place called Igatpuri which is on the Mumbai-Nashik route. It was a Buddhist meditation technique called Vipassana. For ten days, all you do there is meditate. You cannot speak, read newspapers or novels, write anything, watch TV, communicate using signs or anything. You can only meditate at Dhamma Giri, the name of the place where this course was conducted. The first time I had no extraordinary experiences, but at the conclusion of the course felt a serenity which was obviously due to the complete insulation of the senses.

To describe the technique -- for the first three-and-a-half days, from morning 4 am to night 9 pm, you observe the breath, without in any manner trying to control it. Then on, till the end of the tenth day, you observe sensations in the body. The sensation is defined as anything that is present at a particular spot of the body. It could be heat, cold, heaviness, dryness, etc, whatever you feel is sensation. By the end of the tenth day, your mind becomes so sharp that you feel subtle vibrations all over the body. But the rule is to just observe it without becoming happy at a pleasurable sensation or sad at a painful sensation. This, in brief, is Vipassana meditation. As you advance, it is claimed that all the mind-matter phenomena reveal themselves as vibrations. Beyond this is the stage of Nirvana or Nibbana as they call it, which cannot be described precisely because it is beyond the field of mind and matter.

The next August, I therefore went expecting a much better experience. By the end of the fifth day, I was terrified at what my mind was churning out. It came to a stage that it was not the thought or thoughts that terrified me but the fear that those thought or thoughts will arise. Which then is a surefire formula for the mind to get directed to those thought/thoughts. The trick is to focus completely on the sensations in your body. Every aversion (and fear is of course one) you harbour will then make itself apparent as an unpleasant sensation or sensations. I developed a toothache on the sixth day. You are warned that the most important thing in meditation is not to experience the sensations but to remain equanimous no matter how pleasant or painful the sensation. In my case, the hint of a toothache was enough to bury my equanimity. I say it with no especial feeling of shame – I completely lost it. In retrospect the toothache appeared very trifle and it is a very trifle thing but remember, in that silence, that there is nobody there except you and the tooth ache. It is the only thing that exists and there is no ailment in the world that you will not associate with that ache, from tongue cancer to psychosis. After I returned home…aching, I went to a dentist who apart from relieving me of 300 rupees, helped in no way whatsoever. As time passed and the mind returned to its ordinary pattern with the usual contents that fill it, the toothache gradually passed away.

I was hardly the first to go through this experience. In fact, I first heard about this reaction to meditation when I must have been 13 or 14 and went for a Chinmaya Mission retreat in Lonavala. I remember the Sanyasi who was conducting the retreat remarking that students often come to him and tell him that during meditation terrifying thoughts arise. This particular question is inevitably one which is asked to almost every person whose teaching involves meditation, from Chinmayananda to Ramana Maharshi. The answer is always the same -- unless the filth of the mind comes out, how will it become pure. But only when you experience it, does the import of the question strike.

Therefore, and this is the point I am making, your mind is hardly a friend. It hits back as soon as you explore your way through it. The minute you try to tame it, it will lead you through a fiery path. And it has enough ammunition because nothing you have done, thought, seen, heard, desired, abhorred, craved, etc, from your mother’s womb to the present minute and second, is hidden from it. This terrifying character of the mind has to be experienced to be believed. And it will not take much effort. Just lock yourself up for two days in a room and try to concentrate on your breath or try to just observe your thoughts. You will understand what I am talking about. Which is why, when I think of a Chandramohan or my father’s brother, who has witnessed the gradual erosion of control, the loss of equanimity, reason, logic and continuity of thought, I think of my toothache and multiply it by infinity. That must be the situation of a person who has lost his value as a human being, a value built over millions of years of evolution from the first single celled amoeba to mankind.

bleak

bleak is the will
bleak the black sky
bleak the brown earth
bleak the night
bleak the day
and its daily rebirth
bleak is the silence
bleak the silent wind
which carries this silence
bleak the dead
bleak the living
bleak is this running sorrow
bleak is today
bleak is tomorrow
bleak is you
bleak is me
bleak are the colours
bleak the seasons
bleak is the yellow evening
bleak the red morning
bleak is the brown earth
and the dark matter of the black sky

Did you know, this junction sees it all

Did you know, this junction sees it all
Every sufferance, each train of joy
This junction knows, it sees it all
It sees stray encounters sweetunsweet
Of those who meet in roads
Which do not meet
But draw close and diverge
Till the waving of the hands
Is a figure, a line, a dot and sky
This junction sees such passings
Passings tantalisingly close
Heartbreakingly so
But they pass, and this is seen
This junction sees the imprints etched
And sure enough, it sees it erased
It sees stories in the erasing
Stories which leave leftovers
Like remainders in divisions
It collects these leftovers and packs it all
Looks longingly now and then swipes it away
Everything becomes memory now
Everything is retrospect now
In retrospect so much could happen
But nothing could, nothing did
How sad

adhvaitham

shantham               shantham               shantham

     adhvaitham

n'aham               n'naham               n'tvam

     adhvaitham

n'manushyam               n'maanushyam               n'dhaivam

     adhvaitham

n'jananam               n'maranam               n'punarjanmam

     adhvaitham

n'thrupthy               n'athrupthy               n'ashantham

n'shantham               n'ashantham

     adhvaitham               adhvaitham               adhvaitham

when the clock strikes ten ten

when the clock strikes ten ten and i fall
into the marble of the gilded banquet hall
that is when i hear the ceiling call
through a hole in the magician's shawl
some of whose rabbits now jump at me
as i try to wrench myself free
from the floor's all embracing glee
i try hard to stand but i crawl
there is now whisky burning on the stove
fat men in white wings are flying above
one of whom has arrows and a bow
he shoots one and it becomes a shove
which takes me down by the chest
i descend thinking this is no time to rest
soon there is going to be another ball
the clock strikes ten ten then and i fall

see, night, despite us, is happening

see, night, despite us, is happening
and we stand on the edge of edges
our reluctant and eager toes inch
towards the brink of another brink

look, for certain this is night happening
look, we are beginning separations
our directions ever so surely turning
and our roads are parallel, they lead away, look

watch, we walk alone this night
our fingers find no fingers, they twitch
watch, we will shed memories in our stride
i will forget you, you will forget me
and soon there will be another by our side

somedays the day is like that

somedays the day flits like butterflies on aimless flight fluttering without direction moving this way that way up down flitting shooting becalming pulsating throbbing flying perspiring, if butterflies can perspire, if days can perspire
somedays the day is like that
somedays the day moves with enormous purpose like spiders on the kill moving around in intent circles moving in moving away even knowing knowing all the while that the distance is closing and the webbed fly is on the weave of death and the spider moves in moves in like the day of enormous intent
somedays the day is like that
somedays the day is like nothing and all that you do is nothing even when you do something and someone says you you have done something and you you know it is nothing because you you know everything is nothing and so the day even if it is rich rich and noble noble is nothing and you know it
somedays the day is like that

she that is lonely and who breaks the minute

she that is lonely and who breaks the minute
which crumbles on her like old bread
and then rises like a wave to engulf her
she has nothing to fear
her loneliness will take her through
and someday she will sleep content
like how children sleep after long days

she who worries for her different loves
who is wife, daughter, lover, mother
her enormous heart will suffice
through repeated betrayals of her love
she has nothing to worry
for she has it in her to take it all in
and from the suffering extend pleasure

Second Comings

About four years ago, during the end of my epic battle with several demons (and the war's not over), I wrote a story and in an incoherent moment submitted it to an online magazine called Sulekha, who after murdering it a little, put it up. Now Sulekha's become a blogsite of sorts where all and sundry can put up whatever they want and they have posted this there as my post. Which is a little embarrassing because now I find the piece a little juvenile and see the possibility of doing several things to it. I tried to erase the damn thing from Sulekha but the thing just wouldn't go. Moreover when I google my name this is the first thing that pops up. So I thought, since this forms part of self-history, maybe it's a good idea to let it be as is. And also, as my fourth standard teacher says, when you are ashamed of something, exhibit it flaunt it and that is how the shame demons die. So here goes to hell another demon of mine...




SECOND COMINGS




I woke up in the afternoon with a shiver in my mind; the tremors, I knew, would follow. I was not surprised. I headed for the bar. It was not a long walk and as I walked I saw the flowers, the trees, the tresses of a woman, and as I passed the pond, the man joined me.

Who are you, I asked him.

He replied, I am the translator and destroyer of histories, I build second heavens for you, I make the dreams shout at you, I make myths and I am a myth, I create you and let the dreams that I weave in you make you be. I am madness but I am also redemption and I always give you a chance to reject me, destroy me.

Destroy me, I told him.

I am also a storyteller, he said, and therefore I shall tell you another story. About the temple and the temple's door which no one could pass without knocking the head at the awning unless you want to pass not the door but enter what is inside. And this was the story that he told me:

The man and wife climbed the hill, stopped to look at the waterway winding through the fields, saw the pumpkins growing at their feet and then moved ahead to reach the temple, tried to enter the temple and got knocked on the head good and proper. They entered nevertheless, prayed to the god with a flute stuck on its mouth and then rang the bell. A single chime resulted and they remembered the time when they had come, not as man and wife then.

They remembered the bell as it had rung then, when the chimes echoed to more chimes and then more chimes and the cadence ascending to a harmony. They remembered looking at the god then and then realising that if there was only something added, everything would be complete and proper. But they were satisfied then and had returned satiated.

Now, as man and wife, complete, they had returned and not only did they find themselves incomplete but also unwanted. They returned home looking at nothing, not even the future, promising to never return. They grew up slowly together, prospered, begat children, who begat children. They grew old. They grew tired of each other but continued in the habit of their presence.

And then one day the woman fell from the bathroom and was bedridden. She was afflicted by bedsores, by memory which passed her by, by odd stenches, by unusual dreams, by terrible nightmares until she stopped to think and waited to die. Her leg healed when she was told about a terrible disease which would make her a vegetable soon. The man too waited for the woman to die, scared at the loneliness that would ensue but reconciled. He was reconciled.

One day, as he sat beside her bed and watched the television rerun a movie which they had once seen together and laughed at together and had then gone for a walk together and had laughed together as they walked, the woman told him, take me to the temple. Let us try once more, to enter the temple and see the god. Let me walk for the one last time in my life.

Yes, said the man. We shall enter it together.

And therefore they again made good the arduous climb and saw from afar the awning and the temple door and as they entered, got knocked on the head good and proper.

They did not enter then. The woman leaned against the wall of the nearby well and slumped down onto the floor, beaten and bruised, and the man sat down near her as he thought it was the proper place for him in their moment of defeat.

And he saw his wife, founder of lost battles, in wait at last for uneasy rest. Most excellent once in beauty, withered, wizened, done in by the juices of life. He saw himself, victor in everything we call life, a good life. It was a good life, led by good people. And he felt anger.

He saw the blue skies and looked at the god inside who had spurned them. No god shall spurn us, no god can spurn us: he started chanting the mantra and then he remembered, once, when he had seen and had fallen deeply, deeply in love with her in the computer laboratory where they both were students. And he remembered, in the evening, when she was away and everyone was away, he had opened her computer and had kept on typing:

Doe eyed
filter toed
Minerva in disguise

Doe eyed
filter toed
Minerva in disguise

Doe eyed
filter toed
Minerva in disguise

Creature of right
Little love
In easy flight

And the man as he sat watching his wife near the temple changed his mantra and started chanting: Doe eyed, filter toed, Minerva in disguise and he got up chanting and picked up his wife, she had never felt lighter before, never more beautiful, he was never as comfortable in her proximity and he carried her in his two arms towards the awning, beyond the doors which seemed to grow and grow till they touched the very heavens. The man carried his wife inside the temple and together they took the bell and swung the gong and the chimes began, and once beginning never seemed to stop. Not even, smiled the wife, for the flute which the god vainly tried to play.

The best chicken curry in the whole world

Since circumstances have conspired to remind me of my chicken curry and this being the season of merriment, I will do you all a favour and post the recipe for the best chicken curry in the whole damned word. After about one and half years of trial and error, I finally settled on this. It's the best there is and dont bother to thank me, for I already hear it...

STUFF YOU WILL NEED:

1. aniseed or saunf or jeera, about a teaspoon or two

2. curry leaves or kadipatta, about ten or twelves leaves

3. onions, i usually put in about five of them but that's because i like its sweet tang

4. ginger-garlic paste, about three teaspoon

5. the chicken of course, a kilo, preferably cut into small pieces

6. chicken masala powder. now this is the tough part because you need Eastern Chicken Masala or Melam Chicken Masala for it to be the best chicken curry in the world. now both brands are big names in Kerala and is available in Mumbai in quaint little shops called Malayalee shops. any Malayalee aunty will direct you there. If you dont get it tough luck. use any chicken masala powder but dont blame me if the divinity is missing.

7. tomato, i usually go overboard, and put in about four of them

8. coconut oil, maybe half a cup

9. green chillies, about eight of them

10. salt, red chilli powder, turmeric powder


HOW DO YOU DO IT:

Here's how. Put about one tablespoon of salt and a teaspoon of turmeric powder on the chicken and mix it. Now remember, you are not marinating the fellow because, this might be news for you, chicken cannot be marinated. What you are doing is removing the chicken stench and this goes away after you wash the salty dead chicken after about five minutes. Now wash it again and again, as if the chicken is being readied for its own funeral. And now keep it aside.

Now, take a vessel, a large one, pour in the oil, let it heat and then put in the aniseed and curry leaves. Dont burn them, just enough for all that nice flavour to sink in.

Now add the onions, and turn the heat on as you make these onions very transparent like Mallika Sherawat. Once that's done, it's the turn of the ginger-garlic paste. And now this heavenly smell will come floating right onto you. Enjoy it because it wont last.

Now the chicken goes in and just fry it around for sometime and it is now time to put in the chicken masala powder but before that you have to do something to it. Listen carefully because this is very important.

Mix the chicken masala with water to make it into a paste before you add it onto the waiting dead chicken. I cant tell you how important this is. I also cant tell you why it works because it works.

Now you have got a dry sort of mixture on the fire, but dont add water. Leave the heat on medium. Maybe you can add the green chillies now after slitting them. if you like it hot add a teaspoon or two of red chilli powder

The hard work is more or less done, except for the tomatoes. Now there's a theory that the tomatoes should be added right at the end, about five minutes before you conclude and that keeps the meat tender. I personally have found that it makes no difference. So you can add the tomatoes whenever you feel like.

Now cover the vessel, go watch a TV serial or read a book and come back every five minutes to stir the chicken.

After about 30 minutes or so add some salt. And then taste it to see its fine. The thing with salt is always start low and then go on increasing because if you put excess of it, then it cant be reversed unless you have a chemistry professor near you.

Add water, if you wish for more gravy and i do wish for more gravy, so i usually add it.

After about 15 more minutes more switch off flame. Eat. Remember me as you eat.

four words

good bye
take care
four words
point noted
accepted
few things rued
i am screwed

an even more perfect haiku

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