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.

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