Ija's old glass and tumbler

Six months before Ija died, I'd dreamt she was dying and took the first bus to the village. I reached home at 7 in the morning and it was cold in the mountains. I reached at the right time because I found her curled like a foetus n the middle of the large bed in her room. Her body had turned blue with pain and lack of breath. The women of the family were out in the cowshed, the men - as usual - were asleep. I walked 13 kms to the town and managed to bring Dr Shrivastav home in a cab.

She recovered.

Two days later, as we sat talking by the fireplace - she was telling me about her brother (she said I always reminded her of him...that he was a scholar...a learned man...his sanskrit was fluent and his pronunciation impeccable) - she suddenly rose and opened her cupboard and brought out an old brass tumbler, bowl and plate. She pressed them into my hands and asked me to keep them. They had been given to her by her mother on her marriage. She asked me not to tell anybody that she had given them to me because all her sons would want them.

Ija, I never ate in your plate, never drank from your glass and never used the bowl you gave me. Because I could never be the man your brother was. I could never leave home n search for knowledge. I could never be the scholar or the monk. I know I had the makings of one. But I just could not. I was too weak. Every time.

And everytime I see that glass and that tumbler by my bedside, I think of you only 13, standing like a pillar by the side of a man disinherited and poor, I see you toil in the fields, I see you build with your impeccable character every brick that went into building grandfather's great financial empire. I see you command villages, I see your empathy, your pity, I see your firmness of resolve, I see your beautiful lips curved down with pain, I see your beautiful hands, your petite frame that nobody, NOBODY could ever transgress. And I wonder if they make women this way anymore.

I miss you Ija. And unlike the old times, I think even your appartition does not stand by my bedside anymore.

Could you give me another chance? Just one more chance to be the man you wanted me to. Just come to me once and I will.

How do you write without memory

I have always thought that meaning is the memory of a word.

But I never knew how true it was until now.

As i attempt to write the 2nd chapter, I fumble and falter and try not to draw upon my teasures of meanings - they are too hurtful.

So if there is no memory of word, just the word, how would my story mean?

The Fabulous Crossroad-interrogative 6 Worder

The disintegration is near complete. Emotional, intellectual, moral, artistic and now financial too.

So when all goes, comes a kind of anaesthetised consciousness. Like looking at the world from the wrong end of the telescope.

It's class X all over again.

Shut the door. Shut the window. There is no high and no low. Life's got even.

That's when Hamlet posed the fabulous crossroad-interrogative 6 worder- To be or not to be?

Which meant, to feather and blow or to rock and chip.

To stand and do. Or to lie and be done.

And it is amazing, how the solitude of pain is as singular, as forlorn as the solitude of pleasure.

Sepulchural.

Terra Infirma, I Turn 35

Terra Infirma.

Such things as a day caught between two seasons. I love you darling but. I think you got me wrong. Leme get back to you. No, nothing. And the eyes shifting for a nano second to an unnamed corner of the room.

Terra Infirma.

A face caught between two thoughts. A thought between two faces. How much? Lots. O please! Drown the sop and talk shop. Draw up a budget. Plan. Keep it simple. We can even talk about quick ways to cure your freak pimple.

Terra Infirma.

Such things as bushfire in a forest of memories, smells on a winter night, and wondering which house will it be this night? And will it be at all?

Terra vera vera Infirma. Hic!

Such things like a body that is changing and a body that is not. And names and language that are stuck between what they meant and what they don't anymore. Such things, as you. Especially you, and the odd, unconvincing, talk-interspersed - I love you.

Terra Infirma. I turn 35!

Rip Van Winkle

What does one write at 2.54 in the morning? And what does one remember?

MK used to say, a mask worn long enough becomes the face. Fine, but what becomes of the face?

Phoebe is getting married on the 23rd. Hasn't sunk in. Nothing seems to sink in. As if there is no 'in' for anything to sink in.

Everything has changed as if I was away for a century. Everyone has changed, as of they are all reborn as somebody else.

I feel like Rip Van Winkle. God! I had just dozed off in the hills. When did all this happen - back in the village?

A love letter

My dearest song,

Go away. GO AWAY. GO AWAY.

For you are of no assistance in this wee hour of the day, and you are of no assistance at night. You are such a disappointment, eh song, you spread-legged bitch of a poet's wrong. And your words are but a pissour of marble, stained in yellow and with the stench of strange skins that I cannot recognise.

Sonnet, ode, couplet, ballad - Ah I have seen all of your curves and so have everyone else - isn't it? Yeah? Between the lines I scrawled in long hand on your thigh and your back, you got graffitis by other hands. And you - free verse - you are the worst. You neighing mare in heat! You catnip sniffing feline poetic fart - ha well and so there is no wrong! and there is no right after all! Hahahaha! Hahahaha!

Yeah song, get lost and do not let me remember. Anything.

Street Truth

On my way home, turning the wheel this way, I suddenly spied Aamil Dehli. I could see him grinning in my rear view mirror, sitting behind in my old beat up 8503.

I shook my head and wondered why he was sitting in my car. So we talked a bit. I asked him about his life and he asked me about mine.

When I heard his story, I yawned. There was nothing much in it.

But when he heard mine, he roared with laughter, shaking like a needled balloon, this way and that. And when he was over the fit, wiping the tears from his eyes, he bent forward and said,

Maar diya papar waley ney! hain?
Muft huey badnaam...Maya mili na Ram!

And I joined him in his laughter.

I am going to tell stories

Though I know in the corner of mind I will hurt for you Gatsby, ol sport, and the grass that grew wild in your well kept lawns and the graffiti that the kids scrwaled on your white marble steps after all the parties were over and the women were gone,

I will tell nobody about you.

I will tell nobody about how tender was the night. I will tell nobody about the beautiful and the damned.

I am born with a mind filled with little coloured bangle shards like they used to stick into cycliderical cardboard kaliedoscopes that sold for a few rupees on the railway station in the early 80s.

I got it all in here between my ears. The big cars and the dirty gutter, the desperate love and the meaningless fuck, the daze of disc lights on the floor and the walls and the slowly sinking sun behind the Aravalis.

I will tell nobody about you, Gatsby, ol sport because I am going to stick my tongue in the mouth of the world and I am

going to tell stories like never told before.

Watch me.

Smells at Night

Mahatma Gandhi's birthday was spent pretty much at home. There was little reason for violence or non-violence.

Though I was a little violent to the dog who was violent at me. And the feeling was pretty much reciprocal.

Brunch constituted of mutton cooked day before yesterday and rice prepared fresh.

Dinner had to be made thrice - eggs and sandwiches because each time I'd make it and dash off to wash my hands in the loo, the rats would come and break the sunny side of the egg and move the bread around a bit. I was third time lucky.

There were many phone calls. I think I will keep the phone off now on when I work.

And of course didn't write.

First you prepare to do it. Then you prepare to prepare to do it. Then you prepare to prepare to prepare to do it. Let's try again tomorrow. There's got to be some way of breaking the vicious cycle!

And then tomorrow is a workday. Which means the corporation. My Mama. Muah. I love you, my employee. My management. You are so good. You fuck me more regularly and with greater monotony than any woman would could will.

I dont think I will sleep tonight.

A thought suddenly came stuck. It was about the smell of the raat ki raani flowers in this season in Delhi. I smelt it the other day, returning from work. How does one describe it? How does one draw it?

And most importantly how does one hide it? It is like the sadness that darkens the valleys around your eyes. People see it and shake their heads. And then they say - Nothing is worth it. Nobody is worth it.

LOL. What do they know?

Kind mama

There is a species of madness that goes undetected. Unfortunately it has no name.

It does not live in you, it lives outside.

It moves skulking in the streets of Delhi. I saw it once at Nizamuddin. It was standing by the road and staring at me.

It is not evil and it is not good either. But it makes nothing. It comes from the land of breakings.

One day, I remember in 94, I was standing on the edge of the wall of near Khair ul manazil and it nearly tipped me over. I am alive and kicking, but maybe it did tip me over and I do not know about it.

Anyway, tomorrow morning I will sit and write. And if I do, I will find out what Vivek said to Sharad on a summer evening in CP.

The corporation is a kind mama. It hold me to its bosom and will not let me go away ever. When I grow up, I will not live with mama.

Remember Faustus

It was a curious day. Said bye to dad and drove to what used to be home. I don't know what it is now.

The dog looked happy to see me. She doesnt like to be alone.

I had my two bags with me. And two polypacks - my clothes, underwear, toothbrush and stuff.

I ate the stuff Dad had packed for me.

I felt heavy all the while but it was not the food. It was in the head.

The TV ran like crazy and I kept flipping channels.

Dad called twice. He sounded nervous and worried. They think I will slip. The way Sanyal sir did. Maybe I will, but I hope I wont.

MK says - Remember Faustus? You are living him. A life without redemption. This is truly the end.

And then I felt hungry again and made myself maggi and two sandwiches. Then I slept for a while between phone calls from human beings. There were two calls from office too. But there were no long calls.

Then there was cricket, which has little class left. Very little class or craft.

I don't know why I kept thinking about the month of October. I hate the period between October and March. It sucks.

The dog kept barking all the time. And I kept barking too.

Then the maid came. Actually her daughter. She wanted to know what to cook. I got her to cook Bhindi ki sabzi and dal.

I ate late.

And right now, sitting and typing at 3 in the morning, I thank the corporation for the wireless internet connection. And I remember Faustus, in his room, abandoning all learning that his genius had gathered to devour in one room, and the faustian deal he strikes with ...evil. And the what the chorus says when it is all over.

And I wish I hadn't memorised the lines in 94, It's been 14 years. Why can't I forget?

Cut is the branch that might have grown full straight,
And burned is Apollo's laurel-bough,
That sometime grew within this learned man.
Faustus is gone: regard his hellish fall,
Whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise,
Only to wonder at unlawful things,
Whose deepness doth entice such forward wits
To practice more than heavenly power permits.

Terminat hora diem; terminat auctor opus.

The blue badge bus, the red badge bus

It was 1977 and dad was out sailing many months. The coconut trees were tall. And the rains happened all the time in Cochin.

The KG school had two buses. One with the kids who wore a red badge and one with the kids who wore a blue badge. I liked the red badge but I wore the blue badge. The red badge kids would go to Katari Bagh, the blue badge kids would cross the Tewara Bridge and come to many bus stops near my house in Palampali Nagar.

One day I broke my blue badge when I was playing in the roundabout in the park of the KG school. I cried a lot and put my blue badge in my pocket.

After school was over, when the teacher started to put all the children in two ques, one red badge que and one blue badge que, I went into the red badge que because I liked the red badge so much.

So I also got into the red badge bus and not the blue badge bus.

When the bus started to go, I was happy because everybody in the bus had a red badge. But then after sometime I realised that the bus was not going over the Tewara Bridge. It was going to Katari bagh.

Also, all the children in the bus were other children. Only two were my friends- Tillu and his sister who were saxena uncle's children. Saxena Uncle was papa's and mummy's friend but he did not like phantom like I did. He liked tarzan.

This made me nervous and scared. I forgot all about the happiness of the red badge now. I thought I will never get home. I thought I will remain in the road now and no one will know where I live and I will become a beggar. And so I began to cry. And I cried so bad that my nose began to run down my chin and I shut my eyes tightly.

And the funny thing is that even when Saxena uncle dropped me home in the evening on his scooter, I kept crying. As if now, even if I had come home, I could get lost anytime because I had travelled in the red badge bus.

After that, I always held on to my blue badge very tightly, but I loved the red badge even more.

Whore

I like the music I am listening to. I like the drive in the mornings, alone, screwing up your eyes against the sun, I like the changes when September skirts around October. And the Kaansh is growing spectacularly beautiful this season.

I like what I am writing too. Not this, but the book, the 1st chapter. It's coming out beautiful. Moving and sensual. With all the verve and the energy of the city, with all the ugliness of its people, with the pathos of love and longing, and the kick of betrayal.

I like my car. She's old and beat. But she's a good car. She always starts, always runs, always gets me where I want to go.

I like my talents. I like the way I draw figures out of nothing, tales out of everything.

And to the things I do not like, I wish to be impervious.

If life's a whore, i'll buy her, but I wont be a pimp.

They who mutter under their breath

Elves!

You who mutter under your breath, you who breath, you who talk, you who tempt, taint and tug.

Show yourselves one time.

Come out from under the tables, from behind the curtains. Get off my shoulders, my knees. Come out! Come out. Out! of my shoes, my pockets, my underwear, my drawers and my cupboards.

Come out of the dark for god's sake.

Naked children, you feotal monsters, will you please for once

let me be

In peace.

For once, please fall into line, one word at a time, grammatically correct, aesthetically pleasing and a little - just a little - human.

Please.

So much for dream seasons

I used to have dream seasons once. They would come suddenly and stay for a few months. They would throw my life out of gear. Shake up my sense of time, induce queer visions, be marked by a complete lack of hunger and sleep, a chronic aversion to human contact.

Now it will happen to me no more. Perhaps because I am not a poet anymore. At least not in the mode I was.

I am, instead, turned into that creature I call the New Aesthete. I have no past. I do not care for the future. What I write is not contemplative now, it is seductive. Sensation over emotion, brevity over infinity.

The image of the thinker is gone, replaced by the face of the 'sneering gargoyle of Paris' - Ugly, mocking, sneering and supremely disinterested.

In a prosaic world, one only does prose. One cannot 'do' poetry. First there was beauty. Then there was the beauty and the beast. There is only the beast now.

I do not wish the dream season anymore. I will not permit it to touch my eye. It is too noble a season to touch me anymore.

But it was good while it lasted.

The Crocodile's Back

I moved into that mad salvador dali world around 1 at night with a tired back and a near-numb head.

It was a trip to a familiar corner of the mountains that frequently features in my night trips, only this time I was driving my ol beat-up baby 8503.

The colour of the air was an orangish something and the frame of the world was a little tilted. I drove up to a many-storied house, curiously empty. The verandah was familiar and I felt a funny feeling in my head.

And then I slept in a large room, on a large bed, under a large fan. It was strange. Everything there. Like when you watch TV with the mute button on.

I turned on my side and realised that there was someone sleeping INSIDE the thick mattress under me. The mattress was transparent, jelly-like and inside it was a corpse, stiff and nude.

I jumped off the bed feeling revulsion and vomitish. Ran out and jumped into my tired cranky car and drove off. And the mountains were all barren and lifeless. There were no humans, no animals, no trees. Just mountains, large and bare and dusty.

And at a pass, narrow like a woman's word, the car came stuck and wouldnt move. I shifted gears and pressed the pedal muttering please please please please - and I could still feel the skin of the corpse on my skin. The car didn't move but a black dog floated out of the air and stood staring at me.

And thats how I remember the night.

A picture from a distance:
The car in the mud, the dog staring, the memory of a naked corpse in the mattress and the mountains stretching on all sides, grim like a crocodile's back.

Diamond Merchant

I play the fool usually and keep quiet. I only speak when I write. Truly, that is.

So most bright souls think I am the village simpleton and can be had. That's a disadvantage to me because I have to suffer- a little. But it is also an advantage because though they do not know, I observe and note and weigh, and never reveal what I have seen and heard and known - the slyness of the in-between hour. And I am patient. When I laugh, I am quiet inside.

My secret room in the head has a large shelf with a board on it that reads ARISTOCRATS. It was a board I had put up when I left school. And each time I write a name on it, I make sure it is written in chalk, so that when the truth about people comes spilling and adds up, I can walk up to it and wipe it clean with a damp cloth. And wait.

Every name I write goes.

I remember having read once that - Treason is like diamonds; there is nothing to be made by the small trader.

I am a diamond merchant not a small trader. :)

If I am quiet, dear names, it is because I know more about you than I show.

Lear in the river

It is that time of the year again when the rains desert Delhi and you can sense the stirring of the autumnal month, and autumn stirs like an invisible apparition, a phantom presence by the roads - you drive alone and quiet, down the dusty highway to Delhi at sundown, and suddenly you realise that the wind has changed its touch on the trees, a mere caress, a nudge is scattering bagfulls of leaves, cracked like palms, in the dust, against the windshield.

You drive on and suddenly you realise that you are looking into the future as if you were looking into the past. That you are smiling as if at someone else.

The grasses are greying in patches in the river, on the banks. In october they will look like white fire. The beard of King Lear.

"Nothing will come of nothing: speak again."

Doppleganger

It's been a recurrent dream. And while the settings vary, the central theme remains the same. The boy with curly hair in jeans and T, holding a large pile of red books. It happens in London once, once in Delhi I think and once somewhere that could be anywhere. It is followed by earthquakes and mass destruction, but he is there and I can't figure out who he is.

I am told it could be my way of recreating my old friend John.

I am not so sure because John figured in two of those dreams with us.

I suspect it is my Doppleganger.

And something, somewhere has set him free. if only, he'd step out of the dream. It's the creatures who hover in dreams that are more dangerous than the creatures who inhabit the day.