It is one of those days when nothing really seems to suffice. There seems to be a deficit in everything about me and in everything that surrounds me. There is a कमी.

There, indeed, was a time when I didn't heed much for either mediocrity or exceptionalism - a time when my happiness didn't depend on how good I compared with the rest or how bad; a time when I didn't despise the ordinary; a time when the knowing that my being falls somewhere in between the extremes didn't bother me. Why, now, do I question where on the line I fall? Why, now, do I put people into good-bad-ugly jars and take much care to space the jars well apart? Why, now, do I question if I am one among the best or a little less?

                                           ***

They drain me of my energy - the questions in my head. They dwell upon my skin like leeches and feed on the blood veining my body. Lethargic, I am left and as I sink back feeling looted of spirits, ugliness raise its head dismissing all traces of solace that I could offer myself. Cynicism surfaces from the filth within and bereaves me of any possible hope.

The deficiency that pervades my being wins an ugly win. Repugnantly, I shudder - many times in vain attempts to rise like the legendary phoenix.

                                           ***

A few words seem so wholesome that I sometimes wish I were as wholesome..as wholesome as words like कमी or lechery or ನಕ್ಷತ್ರ or poignancy ~  they fit their places so befittingly that no other word could substitute; they mean just what they are to mean, nothing more, nothing less.

Only if so was my being ..

Will she turn yellow?

At office, my lunch-companion today was caravan.
It offered me an article that called manmohan a falling man. One more that took me on a ride with the lady whose voice greets and instructs passengers on Delhi metro rails. And another that warned me about the fraudulent real estate schemes. I wished for a moment that I, instead, had a human company who could talk the caravan-talks. Yet, without a sigh(or suppressed one), I shifted my glance away from the magazine to see if the tabebuia, on the far left, down in the garden, had started trumpeting her summer yellow yet. Signs there were, but, she was still mostly green.

A worthy wait it will be, said a voice in my head, for she'll turn beautiful. Two few more months of wait to see her in yellow.
Worthy indeed, I was beginning to think.

'No wait is a worthless one', my Sanskrit teacher, I remembered, had told the class while translating a Subhashitam.

Really?, thought I. If all the waits were just for the waits to cease, I would not have disagreed. But, it is not so, said the voice in my head. It is almost never so. You never wait just for the wait to get over. You wait for your favorite line of the song that is playing on your player to repeat. You wait for Santa's to creep down the chimney-line and for clocks to tick tea-time. You wait for bulls to beat the bears and for bears to eat up honeycombs. You wait for the missing jigsaws to fall into place and for the Rubik's to be solved. You wait for bright friday mornings and for crimson summer evenings... you wait for seasons to begin and for seasons to end. You wait for questions and for answers. You wait for beginnings, you wait for climaxes and you wait for endings ~ hoping all along that the aftermaths will go your way.

You wait under the umbrella listening to malhaar on the rainy evenings of june; You wait warmly huddled within sheets of cold blankets on december nights; You wait with the hope of seeing your dreams come true..you wait with the hope of seeing promises being fulfilled and words being kept.

With a bated breath and a pacing heart, a racing mind and wandering thoughts, with tear-filled eyes and longing arms, you wait for a few things to take shape and for a few others to dissolve and fade away... you wait for those that left without bidding a bye and for those that left with a promise to return.


Cycling through your waiting-longing-hoping cycles, for one moment, you stop to take a look. You see how you have entwined your waits with your hopes. And your hopes with your dreams. In a frenzy, you see how deeply the rigmaroles have buried you. And how naively you've positioned yourself as the last card in the long domino trail.

Did you want this thus? No, says the voice in your head and you shake your head resignedly. Not this. Not thus.

Until yesterday night, you were a girl who hand-picked dreams for her dreambasket. And tonight, you are a girl devastated by reality.


Yet, again, with all your heart, you wish the tabebuia turns yellow sooner, come summer.

Extrapolation

Longing is what I feel when I look at the red suitcase
It sits here right next to my bed, big and ready
Seeming as eager as I am to head back home
with an i-know-i-am-important air in its redness
like it knows it carries the hundredthousand gifts I have bought for you.

---
Sleepless, tonight seems to be.
And I lay here extrapolating.

The boomerang could keep us occupied all day at the hilltop fort
After every sunset, could we cycle back home
Fill our days would laughs and shrieks
merriness merriness and more.

Said you with the goodbye
that you are only a call away.

Were the ground beneath my feet to tremble,
how long would it take to telephone you, Sire?
Hardly minutes, my dear girl, a few

Were the ground beneath my feet to tremble and crumble down,
what would happen to the big red suitcase with the 1001000 gifts?
It could stand the weight of elephants, ten
till a mighty ship will sail it back home

A father that wants to pat my back, proud and a brother.
A friend here and a friend there-
with a story to narrate or a song to sing
with a movie to catch or a play to watch
or with a drink to share on a stupid night in the children's play area.
All just a call away, really?
A sister that counts down the number of days
with as much excitement as we had counted the 2006 FIFA down.
A mother that waits for octoberthefifth right from julythefourth.

My heart sinks.

In my frenzy, flash they all,
pictures and pictures, many ~
a firefly-lit night
and a hewydewy morning.
Hearing to the lubdadubdubs from the expanse of his chest,
with my ear down, laying;
across his face and mine, hands, tiny, running.
babylaughs in our ears, resounding,
a blue jay catnapping
and the sound of a morning bud blooming.

My heart sinks again.
And again, times many.

Were the ground beneath my feet to tremble
So would I would I would I.
Were the ground beneath my feet to crumble down
So would I would I would I.
Lest the unsaid remain unsaid and the undone, undone
the pending, pending and the denied, denied,
Tell me, fool, for once, that sinketh does your heart too

---

6.4, it today was.

In the noon,when the earth shook,
Hurriedly did I reach for my cellphone.

kahan gaya hai
mere shehar ke
musafir tu~
was not what i hummed
while i waited in my
green-polka-dotted-hello-kitty frock
at the gates
for the balloonwala
on evenings
afterschool
restlessly plucking from the gated iron
frails of the orange-pinkish bougainvillea


now
while the monsoon clouds gather
sitting by the grilled glass window
humming ali's musafir
i muse myself
in your absence
thinking of
how at the first sight of his silhouette
and the silhouetted balloons
pinned to the poled rectangle
resting on his shoulder
i ran not to the balloonwala
but to my mother
to pull her by her hand
out of the bamboo chair
and drag her out of the verandah
till the bougainvillea spread
to rejoice with me
his arrival.

***

The monsoon clouds thicken~
deewana hua badal

the fourth floor terrace

Clotheslines with thirtyfours et cetera
Three black sintexes
Meters of broadband cables snaking the terracefloor
Prestige houses.Reddy buildings.RMZees.

Lined up. Stacked up. Piled up. Rowed. Columned.

There's math in everything here~
In bras lined to dry.
In sintexes rowed.
In matchbox houses, airtel cables
And in electriclines poled.



There's math in almost everything here~

Babygiggles are exceptions.

Elsethings are arrangements.
Including the love for her that you claim.

Math is for convenience, afterall.
And, all doers are error-prone.

Come kappe come

They came back again and again and again for as long as i stood there ~ the green-blue-waves.
And the sand beneath tingled my feet whenever the waves wet them and left.
Again and again and again and again and again.
The green-blue-waves ~ So much like you, i thought.


I walked back with thoughts of building a castle.

Built a kappe goodu instead.

chandru hotel

The faded BlueGreen 2ftx3ft CHANDRU HOTEL ~ all in capitals.

Kesribath............Rs.10
Kharabath...........Rs.12
Plain Dose...........Rs.10
Masala Dose.........Rs.15
Set Dose.............Rs.15
Onion Dose..........Rs.15
Anna Sambhar.......Rs.12
Maddur vade.........Rs.10
Bajji/Bonda..........Rs.10
Buttermilk............Rs.6
Coffee/Tea/Milk....Rs.4

Cut-newspaper tissues.
Nirma detergent powder in a steel bowl for handwash.
Parry's washbasin.

Self-Service.
No Smoking.
Thank You.

After I befriend chandru, I plan to tell him never to change the name board ever.NeverEver.

***

You may pay after you have eaten. No coupons. But, you only should remember what all you ate. And, Chandru will know if you miss out including the two-plate-bajjis you ate when he is billing.

Girl-Boy cannot kiss here. Boy may touch her lips, though. For as long as 14 minutes also. And while you leave, you may hug also. no problem. Chandru has watchful eyes. But, no problem.

Here's where I would meet you first.Here's where I would bid you a goodbye suffixed with a seeyou.Here's where I would meet you all the in-between times.

Only one kamee
this is not painted below.the nosmoking thankyou.This ->

Ohno che, no?