The Puppets

They never played with the puppets. The puppets stood on the pelmet, covered with cobwebs and dust. The might have been mistaken for old bottles of spices which someone put there my mistake and forgot to bring down, or maybe some trophies won by some forgotten hero in some forgotten sport. I think, by now,even the spices would have decayed and the trophies would have rusted. But thepuppets stood, resolute to their strings.
Sometimes they would sit in the drawing room(under the ceiling fan whose airs hardly reached the puppets!) and talk about cricket and computers. How the apple rises up these days and how fall is sweaty. They would bring new toys, footballs and skateboards and joysticks and gizmos. They would never talk about the puppets.
The puppets never spoke, stoic as supposed.
One fine day, came a little boy, the son of the maid. No one was home, save his mum, he jumped around, climbed the bed post, ran around the terrace and even open the refrigerator! His mother was busy mopping the floor which was muddied expensive high heels. As the afternoon slopped to the evening, the boy grey tired and hugged his mum. His mum fanned him with the corner of her saree and sang him songs of brave princes and beautiful fairies. The puppets moved…
The boy, as if noticing that, jumped up. He ran up the window bars and grabbed them. His mum scolded him and ordered him to it back, He wont. He wailed, he reasoned, he argued, he cuddled. The mum, with the realisation that she has never been able to give her son a gift, agreed. The boy was happy like he had never been before.
***
The next day the maid was accused of stealing. They dismissed her and beat up her son. The puppets were back on the pelmet.
The neighbourhood cried for the little boy, at the cruelty of the rich, at the helpnessness of the poor. They gave the little boy toffees and he gleefully went to play with the butterflies. The maid found a new job.
Only the puppets stayed on the pelmet. Happy as ever!

Comeuppance

H had planned that he would do a lot of things after the bell rang. He would buy the violet balloon from the vendor and the candy floss too. He would walk as far as the flaky clouds would take him. He would bravely look up at the midday sun and challenge him to blind him. He would walk down the lonely alley of his blasphemies and whisper, “I am sorry” till the echo numbs him.

H thought he would go to the valley of roses, where the skies don’t laugh at the earth. He would drink from the babbling brooks and sleep under the jeweled inkiness. H would snuggle under the greenness abound, and he would have no grey demons to pin him. H would be free.

And there H thought he would tell her that he had been wrong all along. In his imagination H believed she would forget about the broken bridges and those painful shards of shattered dreams. He thought he would hold her hand and even might brave a kiss. Then they wouldn’t care about summer, winter or spring: they would sing and dance and laugh like the swallows of dusk! With her in his arms he would never want a thing more…

To his horror he never saw the valley, the dreams never came back, and the balloon flew away to some distant acres unseen, the roses were but thorns, the crystal but a quack. He could never hold her hand.

But the bell rang. The bell rang, not with a distinctive clangor but with a sarcastic snigger, as if only to say how silly H had been!

The trick of a six-day-week

 

Last week saw the college fest come my to life and vanish into the dust of the dunes, leaving behind red billboards and black tyre tracks. It also saw one of those things that fascinated me as a kid: a magic show. Not out of the world, few simple tricks of mind-reading and hypnosis, but still it left me agape. One of my friends told me after the show, ” You know why we are so awed my magic, because we want to!”

And how right he was. In the days that followed,  headbanging to nonsense rock, eating overpriced pizza, sandwich and drinking overpriced coffee, exuberating at bright light, ogling at big city girls: all seemed like a trick all wanted to believe in.

Well you cant blame. The red  became the blue . The comfort became the horror. The rabbit became snake. The collar became the plume. The horror became the dream. The nonchalance became the stoic. The tragedy became the farce. The sadness became the man.

All because he wanted to believe in it!

And when i woke up today, i found one day missing from my week.

Optimism

 

The problem with me getting optimistic is that it forces me into believing that i can do anything. Really anything!

Things like jumping off a moving train, checking whether i really can fly if i forget that i am flying (physically and otherwise), running five miles without reason, trying to woo a girl with a serenade without knowing how to play the guitar, play professional football and cricket, write a blog(!?) and of course, to code. These are things that i have in fact given a shot.

And even more insane things that i am planning to: like learning to play the guitar, violin, saxophone and cello, to fly an airplane, to matador a bullfight, to cook lasagna, to hypnotise people.

And necessary things that should be done, but again optimism preventing me: like studying for tests, waking up with the alarm, jogging, making sense at times, the list goes on…

So?

Nothing.

Just a classic case of the aphorism that underscores this blog!

The journey

A black line cutting the face of earth, stretching from nowhere to nowhere, and a comet runs.

The comet does not look left or right, or jump into the sprawling acres of greenness that surround him. He runs, faster than you or I ever can. And that defines his existence.

And up above him there are millions of stars, that dazzles you and me, with their vastness. The lonesome moon in the soothing zephyr, the inky sky that humbles all, but no, not him. He doesn’t even bother to look up. He runs.

And then those thorny acacias, those sedentary banyans, those restless eucalypti, those sprightly pines, they flutter as the atom passes, and bow down. The tar burns. The stars twinkle.

And the passers-by hardly notice, the sheep bleat, the traffic-lights turn red, and the blue men and the white men and the pink men go to work, the women whine, and the babies die. The creaking wheels turn, the horns blare, the trumpets clarion, the clock chimes, the leaves fall.

But no one sees the comet moving…

The comet doesn’t know, he keeps running, just like the zillions before him had done!

Crimson borders

 

This time of the year, i almost feel guilty for being melancholic. It is as if my solemn duty to feel happy. Feel happy about the chill in the air, the leaves that lie perched on delicate branches waiting for the favourable winds to let go, about the late dawns and early dusks, about the year that has been and that has yet to come, and of the memories of those crimson borders.

All about the days when i used to be woken up by mum’s pats and not ringtones, when every morning and afternoon and evening of those five days meant shirts and pants smelling of newness, when you could run up and down buslting streets with a gun in hand thinking the world is a happy place, when ignorance was blissfully protected by those crimson borders.

Far far away, now crimson is too loud and borders redudant! Mornings are dull and newness soon to be old. I look back and wonder if i have really walked that much…

Chutzpah

“It is very probable that I shall have to suffer a great deal yet. And to tell the honest truth, this does not suit me at all, for under no circumstances do I long for a martyr’s career. For I have always sought something different from heroism, which I do not have, which I certainly admire in others, but which, I tell you again, I consider neither my duty nor my ideal.”

Tomfoolery

I feel you in the budding primrose tufts
In the teardrops of late winter rains
I see you in the solitude of a starlit sky
Haloed in the cacophony of faces and names

I love you not in the passion of blood and tears
In the petrichor of heartbroken meadows
But like a phoenix of hope and fear
I love you like the soul loves the shadow.

Post Script: Written quite some back, it makes me laugh now!

The Riddle

Singer liked singing. He would spend hours in the idyllic meadows and rustic woods, with his mandolin and play dulcet notes. Notes that spoke of freedom and love like doves and   left longings in their wake.Tunes that reincarnated with every emotions of a dreary mundane day and transformed them to something  ethereal. Singer himself was so intoxicated with his own muse, he never questioned why or how or since when: he played on. And the trees swayed, the birds chirped, the brooks babbled, and the little kids from hamlet danced, the lovers kissed.

Woods cut trees. He woke up early ever morning and came down to the forests to lumberjack pines and conifers and cedars. His silver steel axe shone with the brilliance of Jupiter, and every bead of sweat on his toned muscles sparkled with the energy of the sun. with each blow of his weapon he could bring down the mightiest of the birch. He never sold them for wood to the carpenter, he let them lie amongst the breezy shrubs as trophies of his valiant conquests. He was proud indeed.

Woods had chopped off every tree in all forests till he came over to the woods where Singer weaved his magic. Singer shuddered with each blow Woods struck. His songs were eclipsed with each blow of the axe, his notes drowned in the cacophony. The petrified trees no longer swayed, the birds fled, the kids went to fetch wood for the carpenter, the lovers went to the hills. Singer was shattered.

So Singer walked upto Woods and said, “I will present you with the best of my creation if you will quit this forest”. Woods was puzzled, the fame of Singer had reached him but never paid much attention. Faced with such a quizzical proposition he wondered. Finally he spoke, calmly,”If you will play the song that makes me give it all up, I will!”.
Singer played, played the best tune he ever made. The kids stopped collecting logs, the trees wept, the birds came back and perched on their fallen homes, the lovers kissed. But Woods was unmoved, “No, you play for the trees and the birds and the lovers. Play something for me.”

Singer went back. Everyday he began preparing a new piece for Woods while he closed in on his haven. Singer toiled hard, he tunes gradually moved from the sweet trebles to the heavy bass. After a month he gave up his beloved mandolin for the Cello. His notes were sombre, his lyrics blank. He dirge for the fallen trees echoed with thunder of Woods axe. Finally after a year Singer realised he was ready.

He confronted Woods with his opus. His melodies made the earth rumble, the trees shook, the brooks changed path, the birds flew to the farthest corners they could, the kids became men. His cantata reverberated in the bowels of the earth, in the loftiest ether of the skies. Exhausted, after who knows how long, he stopped. Woods was mesmerized, the axe slipped off his sweaty palms. Without a word, he left.

In the triumphant silence, Singer knew he had lived his life. He had nothing else to prove, no melodies to compose. But then, as if the heavens had it planned, his eyes shone with a diamond joy: the joy of a new muse. The joy of a new beginning, the joy of a new epic, the joy of a journey never thought, the joy, the sheer…

With trembling hands Singer picked up the axe…

Strange (or the Sublime Art of Killing Time)

Of late, regulars at my blog might have noticed, i have been caught up. Caught up in a strange labyrinth of abstruse thoughts and mazes of pointless discourses. And not that have got more philosophical or feel i can do anything with this word-space of mine. That’s left me wondering. Wondering what’s happening with me?

These are things i never talk to people with. Maybe i am scared that people might laugh, maybe i feel i might bore them to death, maybe it’s just that i have more obvious and mundane things to talk about. Consequently, or seemingly obviously, i am left without much to talk about. I am cut off from most of what’s happening around me, and it doesn’t bother me at all.

Maybe i have grown to be a pessimist, or say more of a cynic. A recurring thought that comes back is all the karmayajna around me is a mere detraction from the emptiness that surrounds us(or is it just me?). The distinctions between the beginnings and the ends have been blurred, and all is left is an blank canvas, a silence, that needs to be filled up, somehow, anyhow!

And how? Create and destroy, love and hate, worship and decry, fight and fall, run and hide. I am somehow convinced that all we are doing is making sculptures out of thin air, and painting masterpieces with water, all an illusion. For who are we to tamper with the emptiness, the beautiful nothing!

The empty vessel sings, but remains empty…

Post Script: Hope this is just another passing phase? Is it?